By Nan Nan Liu-Maffetone | Strong Female Leaders | Target Audience: work at home mommies, work at home parents

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As long you have your health, your family, and most importantly, the confidence and calm to take on the most challenging situations, you have the right to let everything else go.

Work at Home Mommies' COVID-19 Survival Tips

Because of COVID-19, the way we work has changed drastically. All of a sudden, we have become work at home mommies. Our new professional lifestyle brings both the convenience of avoiding commute, as well as the inconvenience of homeschooling our children. We have to invent new ways to maintain old routines, and also preserve a sense of comfort, consistency and self. At times, things can feel challenging. For example, a simple activity like making lunch for kids suddenly feels like a burden when we have only the lunch hour to take a breather for ourselves.

Ever wonder how you can embrace the new normal as work at home mommmies? We haven't a cure-all, but we can recommend fresh ideas to help you stay happy and productive:

1. Architect a base structure for daily routines.

No matter how much your world has changed, one thing remains the same: you still have 24 hours in a day. Within your waking hours, then, construct a base structure with time blocks for each day, fill the blocks with repeatable priority activities like work hours and meetings, and fill the rest with flexible and interchangeable plans.

You and your partner should create your routines first. Then, move on to your kids'. Make sure that events that are essential to your family, such as meal time and homework, show up on everyone's calendar.

Planning requires effort, but also paints a clear picture of your immediate future. With that vision, you gain a sense of control and a peace of mind.

2. Schedule your breaks.

You can't take care of your family if you don't take care of yourself first. You may not realize it, but handling work, school and household chores require tremendous amounts of energy. On top of it, living the COVID-life is like running a marathon, simply because there is no end date in sight. If you fail to exercise self care, you will burn out. Therefore, it is important to pencil in activities that you enjoy, such as hobbies, baths, workouts, meditation, and re-connecting with your partner.

The situation takes a lot of your time right now; you reserve the right to keep some of it to yourself.

3. Outsource if you can.

If you have the means to hire help, do it. You make money for a reason. List all the time-consuming tasks on your plate, and outsource what you can afford. Need examples? Here are a few:

If you can have groceries delivered, why would you spend precious hours in the store? No time to cook? Meal delivery services such as Door Dash and Uber Eats can bring your favorite restaurant foods to your house; Amazon Wardrobe allows you to avoid the hassle of trying on clothes in stores; dog walking services like Rover can save you an hour a day by walking your pet; and your neighborhood kid can mow your lawn for under $10 per visit.

There are things that you must do yourself, like your job, bed time stories with the kids, and financial planning for your family. For everything else: delegate, delegate, delegate!

4. Stagger shifts with your partner.

Can you wake up earlier and get things done at work early in the morning, while your partner wakes up later and finishes work later in the day? You may be able to "create" more hours if you think outside the box.

5. Adopt an agile mindset.

If a task-based project board helps, use it. Some people work better with specific tasks and tight deadlines. An easy way is to make a Kanban Board often used by agile software development teams, with columns named "TO DO's," "IN PROGRESS," and "DONE". Put every upcoming task in the "TO DO" column, and size each one with a 2-3-day deadline. Then, start putting them in "IN PROGRESS."

The system is straight forward, efficient, and visual, and arouses everyone to take action.

6. Set daily goals.

When work life and home life merge into one nebulous essence, your days can feel meaningless over time. To avoid becoming disenchanted, inject meaning into each day by setting challenging yet reasonable goals.

If it helps, separate your goals into categories of career, family and health, and add stretch goals for extra motivation.

7. Let it go.

Too much screen time? Let it go. Forgot to water the plants? Let it go. Missed a webinar? Let it go.

Whatever mistakes you've made and will make, let them all go. When you accept reality and know what you cannot control, you can now focus on the more important things in life.

As long you have your health, your family, and most importantly, the confidence and calm to take on the most challenging situations, you have the right to let everything else go.

Parting Thoughts

Work at home mommies have it hard. But work at home mommies, or just parents in general, are also resilient, resourceful, and adaptable. We rise when we are confronted with challenges and perform the best when we are under pressure, all because we have more reason to overcome difficulties. We are, after all, setting an example for our children.

Need more help? The books below are good resources.

1) The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

2) Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life

[ End of Article ]

[ Disclaimer: this article includes affiliate links.]

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By Eroh K | Strong Female Leaders

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How to Stay on Task When You Have to Multi-Task?

Despite the lack of focus and therefore productivity produced by multi-tasking, knowledge professionals continue to be asked to juggle the demands of multiple teams and projects at the same time. Switching focus between tasks, contexts and roles requires time and energy. If not managed correctly, it can be stressful and counter-productive. Additionally, you are also juggling different team cultures, including trust between team members, daily routines and inside jokes, all of which require your attention and energy. So how can you handle spreading your time among multiple tasks, projects and teams, and still stay focused and charged? Start with a solid strategy that incorporates the following tips:

1. Visualize and plan for the long term.

Focusing on immediate work puts you in a reactive mindset. To get more proactive, schedule work and tasks for as far ahead as you can. (We recommend one year ahead, if possible.) Then, break each project into tasks and subtasks, set frequent milestones, deadlines and status updates, and form expectations early. In case of competing priorities, frequent checkins can help you connect with those who establish truly urgent tasks versus superficial priorities.

2. Focus on one thing at a time.

Your brain does not physically multi-task; juggling thoughts hinders progress. To maximize productivity, pick one task, and preferably one that requires the most focus, and push through with undivided attention til' it is complete. No matter how much other work you have on your plate, when you are on this singular task, it is your one-and-only job at the moment.

To keep your mind from wandering, define the outcome first and steps to achieve it. Also, plan a reward at the end. It could be as simple as a cup of latte, a piece of chocolate, or a brisk walk around the block. As long as you follow through until the work is truly done.

3. Guard your mental space.

High-priority tasks require mental space. Therefore, reserving and protecting your mental space is important. To guard yourself from distractions, perform simple practices such as switching on automatic replies on emails and mobile phones, unplugging landlines, and logging off of social media.

Treat your mental space like prime real estate. Protect it because it is valuable.

4. Block your time, and show it on your calendar.

Just like mental space, your time is also sacred. Protect it by blocking your schedule for high priority to do's. Setting boundaries and reflecing it on your schedule not only remind you of doing what's important first, but also allows you the necessary space to get things done. When you complete one task, on one project, with one block of time, you have the peace of mind to move on to the next task, on a different project, with a different time allowance.

5. Make progress transparent.

When you have multiple people to respond to, transparency is key. It is important for reporting progress, and even more important for disclosing issues and impediments that you face. The earlier you address issues, the more trustworthy you look, as long as your next move is to find a resolution.

Parting Thoughts

There are significant financial benefits of multi-teaming, and therefore multi-tasking, for knowledge professionals. This new way of working will eventually become a new way of life. As a multi-tasking professional, instead of feeling defeated by multiple demands, you can rise above the challenge. Manage your attention, time and mental space well, and you will rise like the star you are.

Need more help? The books below are good resources.

1) The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done

2) Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life

[ End of Article ]

[ Disclaimer: this article includes affiliate links.]

Subscribe and Get Your Daily Motivation!

By Nan Nan Liu-Maffetone | Strong Female Leaders | Reading Time: Approx. 5 minutes

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We were wrong about how to develop resilience. We must de-glorify 'busy,' resist being everything to everyone, and set self-care as the priority.

Women must find creative ways to build resilience because of all the hats that we wear. We are professionals at work, involved parents to our children, and leaders in our communities. We are busy tackling issues and crisis everyday, one crashing wave after the next.

Then. Suddenly. Burn out.

We become unmotivated, idle, and scatter-brained. We let all the paperwork pile up, stop returning messages, and start to wonder: what happened to the capable, confident and resilient go-getters we once were?
Is the problem our hectic schedules? Our unattainable goals? Our needs to overachieve in every aspect of our lives?

Or. Perhaps. A simpler root cause.

Perhaps we haven't quite grasped the real definition of resilience. Perhaps our militaristic, "tough girl" approach to resilience and grit is inaccurate, if not impossible. When we hear the word “resilience,” we imagine the hardened soldier that Demi Moore played in the 1992 film, G.J. Jane, slogging through muddy terrains and risking her life to save a fellow soldier. Boy did she look glorious! We must realize, however, that the character’s glory was the figment of imagination of Hollywood’s most creative talents. In real life, the heroic Lieutenant might have eventually burnt out or suffered PTSD.

What’s the message here?

Toughening it out over and over again isn’t how to develop resilience. We can certainly make it work for a few years, and build confidence and credibility with our teams along the way. For lifetime value, however, we need a holistic approach and a system that instills repeat recovery periods.

Recent medical research discovered that a lack of recovery causes various health and safety issues, namely sleep deprivation and lack of focus due to extreme cognitive arousal by constantly checking electronic devices. When we get off of work, we continue to connect with work, and develop uncontrollable workaholism that consumes our lives and compromises our health.

On the surface, we look as glorious and resilient as G.J Jane on the battlefield. In reality, once we experience burnout, the amount of time for cognitive recovery takes much longer than a few weeks of annual vacation. This “crash and burn”, in turn, counters productivity, and destroys the confidence and credibility we have built with our teams.

What’s worse?

We increase healthcare and turnover costs for employers. In other words: we have overworked ourselves into liabilities.

And here comes the worst part:

We are teaching our children the same misconception of resilience.

Exhausting our kids with jam-packed schedules and motivating them to stay up past midnight to study do not breed resilience. Such overwork puts our children in harm’s way! When exhausted students go to school, they have less cognitive resources to focus in class; they have less self-control in social situations; they are more prone to experiencing moodiness and depression; and they are more likely to develop harmful habits.

Our children look to us for example. If we burn ourselves out, they will too.

So how do we build resilience the right way?

It takes more than stopping work for the night. Because rest and recovery are two different things. Plus, as soon as we get off of work, we immediately begin parenting our children, leading community organizations, or spending energy on friends and families.

We never get a real break, do we.

What we need is a combination of adequate internal and external recovery periods. By internal, we mean regular breaks that take place within the frames of the working time. And yes, helping kids with homework and organizing PTA events are working times! So please schedule breaks during those sessions too.

By external recovery, we mean leaving work at work, packing homework out of sight, and stashing away our event planners, for the weekend, during the holidays, and through vacations.

Asking our spouses to hide our phones and laptops is absolutely brilliant!

What we aim to achieve here is to build our “homeostatic value,” a term coined by neuroscientist Brent Furl from Texas A&M University.
Homeostasis, explained Furl, is how the human brain trains by continuously restoring and sustaining well-being. And “homeostatic value is the value that certain actions have for creating equilibrium, and thus well-being, in the body.” When we overwork our bodies, we get out of alignment, and waste mental and physical resources in trying to return to balance. Without balance, we cannot move forward.

Parting Thoughts

It’s quite commonsensical: the energy that we burn to "build resilience" requires burning more energy to recover. And this "up-regulation" exacerbates exhaustion. To stop fatiguing ourselves, we must strategically disconnect both during and after work.
But first: we must admit that we were wrong about how to develop resilience. We must de-glorify "busy", resist being everything to everyone, and set self-care as the priority.
[ End of Article ]

[ Disclaimer: this article includes affiliate links.]

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