Tag: time management

  • 9 Ways to NOT Waste Time While Waiting

    I have three kids and a job, so that means I am constantly driving someone somewhere and waiting.  Plus, I am an organizer, so I hate to waste time.  Here are 9 ways I have found to not waste time while waiting.  Between sports activities, client sessions, doctor visits and then the more fun unexpected things like cavities, physical therapy or early school closings for heat, I find myself waiting in check out lines, carpool lines, outside clients’ houses or doctors’ waiting rooms at least once a week.  I could view this as lost time and get frustrated at all the time I am WASTING…….OR, I can look at it as found time in my day!

    Here is a list of 9 things you can do while waiting:

    • Make your own doctors appointment. When was your last check-up? Often when taking care of our family we forget to take care of ourselves. We have created a Health Care checklist on our website, just click here to download it.
    • Take advantage of all the Good Housekeeping magazines at your disposal and search for a new recipe for your family. Snap a picture of the recipe or scan it with your phone. (yes there is an app for that!)
    • Send a text or email to that friend you have been meaning to call. Set up a time to meet.
    • Send a text to your spouse or partner. You would be amazed the effect a simple “I love you” text will have.
    • Check your calendar. Make sure you have not forgotten any important dates. Check for overlaps or missed appointments or important events.  While you are at it schedule “ME” time!
    • Use your smart phone for more than Candy Crush. Check out the app store for new apps.  New apps are constantly being introduced, you never know when the app you have been looking for will pop up.
    • This may be the only “ME” time you get all day! Don’t waste it!  Go ahead and read a book or even take a few minutes to meditate.
    • Plan your next party or dinner with friends.  Write up the guest list and create the menu and shopping lists.
    • Do a brain dump.  There are always about 10-40 things going on in my head and putting them down on paper not only reduces the stress of having to remember, but it allows you to schedule those tasks on the calendar or create a to do list for the next day.

    If you hate wasting time as much as I do, follow this next tip.  Next time you are headed out the door, be prepared with your phone fully charged and put a book and notpad in the car so that when you are stuck waiting, you can make the most of your time!

    If you liked this article, you’re welcome to use it in your own newsletter or blog as long as you include the following blurb: Joan Robinson, our Senior Project Manager, helps families get organized and declutter so that they can focus on what’s important. Get our FREE weekly tips and advice at www.NoMorePiles.com.

  • Get 10 More Hours Out of your Week

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    If you are a busy professional, then chances are you have more money than time. If you constantly feel like you need 30 hours in a day to get everything done then it is time to take a closer look at where you spend your time. What if I told you that you can get 10 more hours out of your week?  Get organized and be real about what can be done in a given day or week and you will stop the dread and get more done.

    The Law of Delegation. If someone can do the job 75% as well as you can, delegate it. This could apply to the office or your home. At the office, we often take the stance of it takes too long to train someone to do a task, so I will just do it myself. That is very short sighted. If you take the time to train a person, then that task will be off your plate forever. You can’t be penny wise and pound foolish with your time.

    At home it could be dry cleaning, mowing the lawn, making dinner, doing laundry, house cleaning, etc. House keepers, dry cleaning companies that pick up and deliver, yard service companies, personal chefs. They are available in all metropolitan areas to help you get these activities off your list. If you don’t need help year round, consider hiring help for just a few weeks or months to get you through busy times at work, during an illness/surgery or after the birth of a child.

    Time Blocking. If you want to get something done, it needs to be on your calendar. Most people have hopes for their week instead of a schedule. Everything that you do in a week should be on your calendar (except for maybe meals and bathroom breaks). You may even need to put sleep and exercise on your calendar to ensure that you are hitting your target amount.

    Daily To Do vs. Master To Do. Constantly looking at a long master to do list is daunting. If you have a day in the office (or at home) that you are dedicating to getting lots of smaller tasks done, I recommend creating a list just for that day. We always feel more accomplished when we get to cross things off a list and it will help keep you focused. Don’t put more on the list than you can reasonable get done in a day and don’t be aggressive. It feels much better to completely finish the list and pull more off the master list than to not finish.

    Keeping a master to do list of EVERYTHING that you need to get done will help take the pressure off having to keep all of that information in your brain. My master list has everything from fixing a dripping sink, buying lacrosse supplies for my daughter and sending a birthday card to making business calls and registering for a networking event.

    What’s for Dinner? That is the dreaded question of the day. Whether you have a family or not, this one seems to cause everyone stress. The biggest roadblock to healthy eating is poor planning. Take a few minutes to plan each week and do one grocery shop. If you are too busy, consider ordering groceries from peapod.com or hometownharvest.com. If even that is too much time, hire a personal chef like Shirlé at www.fourcornerscuisine.com

    Night before prep. Mornings set the tone for the day, so make them as stress-free as possible. Prepare your work bag, clothes, lunches and kid’s stuff the night before.

    Done, but not perfect. I love this mantra and I think everyone needs to adopt it (except for accountants doing tax returns). Don’t set yourself up for failure or waste precious minutes by trying to make everything perfect. Send the birthday card even if it is late, the recipient will still appreciate it. Bring store bought items to the picnic because you had a crazy week. Stop stressing about things that only matter to you!

    Say “No”. The main reason that we have too much on our plates is that we PUT too much on our plate. It seems simple, but it is the hardest thing to learn. Next time you are ready to say “yes” to something, consider what else in your life you are saying “no” to. I guarantee that you will feel better saying “no”, than you will only putting in 50% effort to the thing you said “yes” to.

    If you liked today’s post, you’re welcome to use it in your own newsletter or blog as long as you include the following blurb: Tara Rudo, Life Strategist, helps working moms and families focus on what’s important. Get our FREE weekly tips and advice at www.NoMorePiles.com.

    Image courtesy of arztsamui at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

  • New Year’s Resolutions – Week One

    accountability in team
    There is accountability in teams

    So, we are one week into our New Year’s Resolutions 6 week accountability program and we are off to a rough start!  Like many of you, we are busy getting back into the swing of real life after time off over the holidays.  I would say that our current success rate is about 10%.  Sounds terrible, right?  Actually, it is just the reality of starting a new habit.  We begin with the best of intentions, but actually putting a plan into reality takes work, discipline, creativity and organization.  Our team is proof that the best of intentions only get you to about 10%.  Here is what we each learned over the last week:

    Tara – Flossing your teeth sounds easy, but remembering to do it every day (or not blowing it off to go to bed and get an extra 2 minutes of sleep) is harder.  I am going into the next week by carrying flossing supplies with me everywhere: in my car, my purse, kitchen, etc.  My goal is that if I remember AND the supplies are convenient, my chances of success are higher.

    Joan – Didn’t get those 5 hours of exercise in, but realized that exercise is a necessity, not a luxury.  She has booked 6 days of exercise into her schedule for the next week, so if one gets derailed, she will still hit her target.  She has also downloaded an app called 7 minute workout https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/7-minute-workout/id650762525?mt=8. This way, even if she can’t make it to the gym, she is still getting in a workout.

    Tracey – She bought a nutribullet so she can pack more fruits, vegetables and nutrients into her (and her family’s) diet.  She isn’t getting any more complaints from the kids about ‘having to eat’ their veggies.

    Terri – Instead of losing, she gained a pound.  So, she cleaned out her pantry and frig of all the holiday, bad-for-you remnants and has restocked to restart!

    Krista – Krista realized that it is easier to have accountability when her husband is not traveling for work and is there to work out with her.  She is working to put a secondary accountability in place (like her work teammates) to hold her to her workout schedule.

    Accountability is about self-flagellation for not getting it ALL done exactly right the first week.  Accountability is about noticing what got in the way of you achieving your goals and gathering your resources to restart and try again.  Noticing what gets in your way, whether it is self-talk, scheduling issues, lack of will power, lack of organization or all of the above, will help you take an honest inventory and strategize ways to avoid those pitfalls.  So, if you are off to the same slow start that we are, find a partner for your own accountability.  If you can’t find one, use us.  We are available for coaching or you can just post questions or successes on our facebook page.

  • Don’t Forget! Organizing Tips for Remembering Things

    On any given day we need to remember a ton of things: what to get at the grocery store, take our vitamins, brush our teeth, call someone, email someone else, send a birthday card, etc. How can we possibly remember everything that we need to do? In my humble opinion, it is virtually impossible to just ‘remember’ everything that we need to do. So, if you are relying only on your brain to remember everything that you need to remember, you are setting yourself up for failure.

    Here are some of my tips to keep you organized and looking like you remember everything with ease!

    1. Have a central calendar.  By this, I mean have a calendar that has ALL of your information on it.  It doesn’t necessarily need to be in a central location, although that would be preferable.  This calendar should contain all the appointments, birthdays or events that are happening at a specific time in the future. Tip 1a of this is: You need to check the calendar at least once per day.

    2. Write it down.  If you are busy and most of us are, don’t rely on your brain to remember something you were thinking of as you fell asleep by the time you wake up in the morning.  Keep a note pad by your bed, in the kitchen, in the car or wherever you have thoughts OR, if you are techno savvy, make the notes on your phone or tablet.

    3. Set alarms or timers.  If there are certain things that need to happen at a certain time, set an alarm or timer.  Most of us are not very good a judging time, so this will ensure you are punctual.  This could be for picking up Johnny from school, taking medications or baking something in the oven.  You can use a manual timer, your calendar program on your computer or there are several apps where you can set alarms or reminders.  My favorite is Alarmed.  You can set alarms with multiple reminders.  Have to make an important dinner and you are notorious for trying to get ‘one more thing done before you leave’, you can set it to chime 30 minutes before, 15 minutes before, 10 minutes before to really light a fire under you to get out the door on time.  There is an upgrade from the free version for $1.99 that will allow you to repeat reminders throughout the day to get up and stretch every hour or drink your water.

    4. Make lists of other’s good ideas.  We have all had those conversations where your friend tell you about the great movie, book, restaurant, wine, etc that you MUST watch/try/read.  You think it is a great idea and can’t wait to take their advice.  The problem is that the minute you get home you have already forgotten what restaurant/book/wine you were supposed to remember.  This is what I think Evernote or SpringPad apps are perfect for.  I have a ‘notebook’ in SpringPad for each of these great categories and every time someone tells me about their great idea, I have someone to put it AND somewhere to look when I want a new movie, wine, restaurant, etc.  I also have a notebook for gift ideas, so that if I see something when I am out and about, I can log it in.

    5. Make checklists.  If you are someone that needs a checklist to get out the door in the morning, pack a suitcase or complete a project, then make one.  You can do it on paper,in a word document or on an app like paperless lite, reminders, toodledo.  This way you can set up a check list once and reset it each time you need it without starting from scratch.

    6. Create visual reminders.  If you absolutely CAN’T leave the house in the morning without the really important work file, put a giant note on the door leading out of your house reminding you to get the file.  It is not silly to have a giant note on your door.  It IS silly to forget the really important work file.  I have a weekly reminder of my kids daily activities where they need extra items for school and it is on the door to my garage.  It is easy for the kids and me to check the board before we leave the house to ensure we haven’t forgotten the gym shoes, library books or special projects (see picture).  It is dry erase, so it can be easily changed for schedule changes.

    Remembering details, being prompt for appointments, sending timely emails or calling someone on their special day makes everyone in your life feel respected and cared for.  Remembering to take necessary medications, test blood sugar and eat on a regular schedule can prevent unnecessary side effects of chronic illnesses.  Taking the time to put systems in place will help you take better care of yourself and those around you.  It will also reduce your stress knowing that you don’t have to ‘remember’ everything!

    If you liked today’s post, you’re welcome to use it in your own ezine or blog as long as you include the following blurb: Certified Professional Organizer, Tara Donohue Rudo, CPO, helps families, solopreneurs and mompreneurs focus on what is important.  Get her FREE weekly tips and advice at www.NoMorePiles.com.

  • Stop Playing Phone Tag!

    Do you find yourself calling the same person 3 times and always getting their voice mail?  Are you tired of calling someone back, getting their voice mail and because you have no idea what they needed, leaving a ‘please call me back’ message?  Let’s join forces to stop the phone tag!  Phone tag slows productivity by forcing us to make unnecessary calls that just take up extra minutes in our day.  By being more direct and clear with leaving messages, we can reduce the need for ‘call backs’ and thus gain precious minutes in our day.

    Here are 4 tips to stop phone tag:
    1. When inviting people to events or just out to dinner, leave details and be specific, so they can check their calendar and make a decision before calling you back!

    Example 1 – Mary, this is Tara.  I was calling you to see if you wanted to join me and the kids for dinner on Thursday night at the Pizza Place  at 5:30.  Hubby is working late and I thought it would be fun to take the kids out.

    Example 2 – Tara, this is Jane.  We would love to have you on our upcoming radio show next Friday, January 11th at 11 a.m.  The show would last about 30 minutes and we would need you in our studio by 10:45.  Would that work in your schedule?

    2. With clients or prospects, leave all the pertinent details, so you can make the most of your working hours.

    Example 1 – Client, this is Tara.  I just wanted to remind you that we are scheduled to work together on Monday, Jan 7th from 9 a.m.-3 p.m.  When we last spoke, our plan was to work on your home office.  See you then.  (This allows the client to only have to call you back if they want to change the plan.)

    Example 2 – Prospect, this is Tara.  I got your email and would love to talk to you about how No More Piles can help you with your organizing project.  I will be in my office from 9-2 today if you would like to call me, or you can leave me a message and let me know a good time to call you back.

    Example 3 – Tara, this is your Accountant.  I have received the paperwork to start on your taxes, but I am missing your bank statement for July.  If you could please scan it or fax it to my office, that would be great. (No need to return the call.  I can just send over the missing statement.)

    3.  If you are looking to hire someone and you are making the call for the first time, leave the details and repeat them.  Sometimes, cell phones break up or call waiting puts gaps in your message.  Repeating your name and phone number, at a slow pace, will ensure a call back.

    Example 1- Roofer, this is Tara.  I got your name from Joe Shmoe whose roof you did last month.  I would like to get an estimate on replacing my roof.  I will be home this evening or all day Saturday, if you could call me then.  My name again is Tara and my number is 444-867-5309.  Again, that number is 444-867-5309.

    Example 2 – Terry, this is Tara Rudo.  I found your website on the internet.  I am interested in learning more about your services and the costs.  I can be reached on my cell phone at 444-867-5309.  That’s 444-867-5309.  I look forward to hearing from you.

    4. If your call is urgent, say so!  By the same token, if your call isn’t remotely urgent, tell them.  The is especially important when leaving messages for kids, parents or other family members.

    Example 1 – Child, this is your mother.  Please call or text me immediately.  You were supposed to call when you got home since I had a late meeting today and wouldn’t be there when you got home from school and I haven’t heard from you.  If I don’t hear from you in the next 15 minutes, I am calling the police!

    Example 2 – Mom, this is your child.  I am just calling to let you know that my flight arrived in Florida on time.  No need to call back, just wanted to let you know that I am here, safe and sound.

    By using these four tips, you can help everyone you talk to improve their productivity, reduce calls and even communicate more clearly.  Best yet, utilizing these tips doesn’t take any extra time, but they all add extra time to your day!

    If you liked today’s post, you’re welcome to use it in your own ezine or blog as long as you include the following blurb: Certified Professional Organizer, Tara Donohue Rudo, CPO, helps families, solopreneurs and mompreneurs focus on what is important. Get her FREE weekly tips and advice at www.NoMorePiles.com.    Image courtesy of imagerymajestic / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

  • I Can’t Do It All By Myself!

    My husband regularly makes fun of me for always having my ‘team’ of people that I need to run my life. My ‘team’ consists of quite a few people in various categories and I feel that their contributions make me a much happier and successful businesswoman, mother and human being. I have a chiropractor, acupuncturist, house cleaning duo, several babysitters, a virtual assistant, Terri (my right hand organizer), massage therapist (a.k.a. my mother), marketing guru, my group fitness instructors at the gym and probably a few others that I can’t remember off the top of my head. As far as I am concerned, my husband can make fun of me all he wants because I LOVE my team!

    In today’s hectic society, with two working parents who also want to have a life outside of their home, I feel that having a team is a necessity. I can’t do it ALL by myself! I have learned and embraced the Law of Delegation. I am not sure where I learned this and have searched to find out whom I should credit but have had no luck. So, here it is:

    The Law of Delegation: If someone else can do the task 75% as well as you could do it yourself, delegate it.
    The way I see it, there are two ways to delegate. You can delegate up. For example, hire a marketing guru, chiropractor, acupuncturist who is an expert in something you CAN’T do for yourself to tell you or teach you how to achieve your goals in the most effective and efficient way. Or, you can delegate down. For example, hiring a babysitter, house cleaning duo or virtual assistant to do something that you COULD do for yourself, but you choose to pay them to do it so you can spend your time and efforts elsewhere.

    You can’t expect perfection or to have something done EXACTLY the way you would do it, but it will be done and that is more important than perfect. I think that learning to delegate is a difficult skill for both business people and parents alike. You know that some things won’t get done well the first time. Accept that there will be a learning curve as you teach someone else to do these tasks. But, if you are a little lucky and thoughtful as to which tasks you delegate and which people you bring on your team, you can achieve amazing things. You can gain TIME. You can gain better health. You can gain a stronger marriage. You can earn more money.

    If you are a parent and choose to delegate to your children, you may gain some extra headaches in the short term while you teach and train them to take over tasks. But, in the long run, you will gain the knowledge and pride that comes from knowing that you are raising your child to be a self sufficient and responsible human. This is a slow process that starts with toddlers helping clean the playroom, sort socks and set the dinner table.

    My advice: Delegate early and often. The GAINS are worth it!

    If you liked today’s post, you’re welcome to use it in your own ezine or blog as long as you include the following blurb: Certified Professional Organizer, Tara Donohue Rudo, CPO, helps families, solopreneurs and mompreneurs focus on what is important. Get her FREE weekly tips and advice at www.NoMorePiles.com . Photo is courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net

  • Procrastination is a Useful Tool

    As I was sitting in my office practicing the fine art of procrastination, I began thinking about why people (me included) procrastinate. I came up with two basic reasons:

    1. It is something that you just don’t like to do (or there is something you would rather be doing)

    2. It is something someone else told you to do

    I can DEFINITELY think of examples of these from my life! In fact, I have left this blog post several times to send emails and make myself a cup of hot chocolate. What I began realizing during this thinking session is that procrastination can actually be a really useful tool, if examined. Sounds crazy, but stay with me for a minute. First, make a list (or just look at your current to do list) of all the things you procrastinate about. Next, break them into two categories: things you don’t like to do OR things someone else told you to do.

    Now, let’s look at the second list first. If it is something that someone else told you to do then it probably means that a boss or co-worker (or husband/wife/partner) is involved. This could mean it is a really important item and it really needs to get done, but you have been putting it off because you don’t like being told what to do. Well, that is just your ego talking, so let’s move it to the first list. If it is not really important or someone was just dumping their unwanted stuff on your plate, then you need to decide if you want to fight this battle or not. Maybe you have been a doormat and allowed them to dump tasks on you for awhile and you need to stand up for yourself and have a sit down with them to work it out. Or maybe, it is something small and not worth the fight which means you need to move it to the first list. This list should now be empty because everything was either given back to the giver to deal with or moved to the first list.

    The fist list is now full of things that we just don’t like to do or just seem to always find something more interesting to do. We are now down to a problem of motivation, not living by your priorities or time management. There will always be things that we don’t want to do but since they are important to us so we need to find a way to motivate ourselves to get them done. I like to set a timer and say to myself that I will sit down for 30 minutes and work on X. After my 30 minutes, I can leave it alone until tomorrow and that makes the task less painful. I also use my favorite shows as rewards for completing dreadful tasks. If I finish X, then I get to watch Survivor or Top Chef.

    Some items on this list may be there because you said ‘yes’ to something that you really shouldn’t have. You weren’t living by your priorities and being real with yourself about the time you could devote to another task or activity. My advice is to ‘suck it up’, finish the task and put it down as a lesson learned. If you are a ‘yes’ person by nature, I HIGHLY recommend that you never say yes on the spot. Create a patent line that you use when asked to commit to something like, “I don’t have my calendar with me, so let me check my availability when I get home and get back to you”. If you are at work and your calendar is right in front of you try, “I have several projects working right now, but let me take a look at things and see if I can fit it in. I will get back to you later today”. This will give you time to really think about whether you WANT to put this on your to do list.

    These last few items on your procrastination list may still be sitting there due to poor time management. My excuse for leaving this blog post several times before its completion was that I “needed” to send a quick email (that turned into 4 emails). I was “really” thirsty and wanted something to drink. That it would only take a second to answer the phone, check my facebook, see if I got any new emails, etc. If I had just sat down and only opened my blog and written this post in one sitting, it would have been done in 15 minutes (or so, with editing). Instead, it took me an hour and 15 minutes. I know I am probably not the only person around that has suffered from this time management affliction, but if I had just done it, then I would have already moved on to a more enjoyable task and I would have stopped moaning and groaning over an hour ago.

    So, the moral of the story is that you can learn a lot about what you enjoy doing and what you are really passionate about from looking at your procrastination patterns. Next time you are saying ‘yes’ or signing up for something, take a good hard look about where they are going to end up on your list. Are they going to be at the top of your to do list? Or are they going to be at the bottom of your to do list for the next 3 months?

    If you liked today’s article, you’re welcome to use it in your own ezine or blog as long as you include the following blurb: Certified Professional Organizer, Tara Donohue Rudo, CPO, helps families, solopreneurs and mompreneurs focus on what is important. Get her FREE weekly tips and advice at www.NoMorePiles.com . Photo is courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net

  • Microsoft Outlook Saved My Marriage

    Any of you out there in a relationship or married have probably had the following conversation.

    Person 1 – “I have a long work day today and I won’t be home until late because I have a meeting with the bossman at 5:30 p.m.”
    Person 2 – “What do you mean you won’t be home until late? Johnny has his school play (or insert other event) tonight and we were going to that and then out for pizza with the Johnsons.”

    Person 1 – “Johnny’s play is tonight? You never told me that! It’s not on my calendar. I can’t cancel my meeting with my boss!

    Person 2 – “Don’t you remember we talked about it last week?”

    Fight continues and yelling begins…if it hasn’t already.

    After spending several months having these ‘discussions’ with my husband, I was sick of it! I began searching for solutions. I was already using Microsoft Outlook for my email and contact management and discovered that for each calendar event I could ‘invite attendees’. This meant that the calendar event was emailed to hubby and he could either accept, tentative or decline the event and I would receive a response back. Easy, peasy.

    If he accepted, it was automatically put on his Outlook calendar. If declined, he could put a response in the email back to me so we could discuss the scheduling problem. The other great feature here is that if one of us changes the times on an event or deletes it off our calendar, it requires that you send an update to the other ‘attendees’. This has been a MARRIAGE-SAVER!! No more fights about scheduling. No excuses for not know what is going on and when. I LOVE IT!

    If you don’t use Outlook, but want to have similar features, check out Google Calendar. You can set up multiple calendars, so you can have one for your personal stuff and set up one for ‘Family’ events or set up one for each of the kids schedules and they can be shared with others. You can also set up the notifications so it would have similar features to what I mentioned above in Outlook.

    If you are not a computer person, you can use the pen and paper method. Just make sure that a family calendar is posted in a high-traffic area of the house like the kitchen where it will be easily seen. That it is big enough to easily see events.

    No matter which type of system you use there are a few things you will need to do for it to be successful.

    1. Always put events on your calendar! The system only works if you are diligent about entering events on it.
    2. Every week you need to have a quick family meeting to make sure that everyone has their events on the calendar and knows where they need to be when.
    3. Don’t overbook your calendar! This is the most important rule. If you jam pack every minute of your week, you will feel stressed, rushed and things will fall apart.

    Calendars are one system that EVERY family needs to run smoothly. They also give every family member accountability and help you avoid the stress of conversations like the one at the top of the page.

    If you liked today’s article, you’re welcome to use it in your own ezine or blog as long as you include the following blurb: Certified Professional Organizer, Tara Donohue Rudo, CPO, helps families, solopreneurs and mompreneurs focus on what is important. Get her FREE weekly tips and advice at www.NoMorePiles.com .

  • The Mom Spiral

    You woke up this morning after 8 hours of undisturbed sleep with the sun shining and the birds chirping. You take a hot shower and get dressed for work. You skip into the kitchen and pour yourself a cup of coffee (or tea, in my case) and make breakfast. Just as you finish your cup of tea, the kids come down for breakfast already dressed and ready for school. Your morning goes off without a hitch and you even get to work 10 minutes early!

    Then, at 10 a.m., you get the call. Johnny is projectile vomiting and you need to come pick him up from school. You grab your bag and rush to your car. Your shoe gets caught in the sidewalk and you break the heel off your shoe. You run over a nail in the parking lot and get a flat tire. AAA fixes your tire and you make it to school to pick up Johnny (albeit an hour later). On the way home, Johnny throws up all over the back seat. Your day has spiraled down into the dark abyss of motherhood that you can never prepare for… you have entered The Mom Spiral.

    OK, so there is nothing you can do to stop days like this from happening, but you can do a few things to minimize the pain (emotional, physical, work loss) that these days can cause.

    • Make sure you have an emergency back up plan. What if you are at a client site on a day like this and you are 2 hours away from your child’s school? Make sure the school and you have a list of people that you could call (with all their contact #s) at your fingertips to pinch hit for you.
    • If you work from home or from your car, create an “Office Day” folder or task list. This would be all the phone calls you need to return, the memos or emails that need writing, reports that need reviewing, professional reading or all the things that you could do easily while sitting home with a sick kid all day.
    • If you work in an office, find a way to have remote access to your computer or if you work on a laptop, bring it home. Create a “Grab and Go” folder of all those same types of things listed above. Don’t wait until a day like this happens to create this folder!
      Create a cold/flu season kit. Keep it stocked with all the things you would use while sick: pain reliever, throat lozenges, thermometer, nose squeege, super soft kleenex, pedialite or gatoraide, etc.
    • Create a kids sick day kit. A couple of new DVDs, coloring books, crayons, sticker books, books or other things your child can do easily unsupervised or with little supervision so you can still get a few hours of work in.
    • Keep some easy-to-eat-while-sick foods. When your kids don’t feel well chances are they won’t want to eat the leftover Italian sausage hoagies from last night’s dinner. They want apple sauce, grilled cheese sandwiches, chicken noodle soup or just some plain noodles.

    We know that these days will still happen, but by following these few simple steps you can set yourself and your child up for sick days that are a little less painful and at least slightly productive for you. And, don’t worry, this too shall pass! There is always a chance for a perfect day tomorrow!!

    If you liked today’s article, you’re welcome to use it in your own ezine or blog as long as you include the following blurb: Certified Professional Organizer, Tara Donohue Rudo, CPO, helps families, individuals and mompreneurs focus on what is important. Get her FREE weekly tips and advice at www.NoMorePiles.com.

  • Perfectionism

    As I was working with several clients this past week, all busy moms, there seemed to be a common theme. PERFECTIONISM. It seems like a nice word. Even seems like something you want to strive for. But what I was finding amongst these busy women was that perfectionism equaled procrastination. Since it had happened to me also this week, I could completely identify with them. We want to do our best for our families and our business and our expectations of what ‘our best’ means may have just been out of line with the amount of time we could devote to these tasks this week. We wanted to:

    • Write hand written thank you notes to a few business colleagues who referred clients to us
    • Pick out the perfect thoughtful gift for a niece’s new baby
    • Go sale shopping at Toys R Us to stock up on toys for upcoming birthday parties

    But sometimes, in the interest of saving our sanity and staying on schedule, we need to understand that “imperfect is still…done”. I can’t take the credit for this quote. My client is the one who said it or something similar when we started talking about the issue that we were facing. Imperfect is still…done. I wouldn’t say that this can apply to everything in life. I certainly wouldn’t want the air traffic controllers to adopt this as a mantra. But, sometimes in life, with non-essential tasks, we need to give ourselves permission to:

    • Send a thank you email instead of a hand written note
    • Send a gift certificate to your niece so SHE can buy something nice for her new baby
    • Buy a stack of Toys R Us or Target gift cards in $15-20 values so you always have a ‘present’ on hand for those kids’ birthday parties

    I think that it is far more important to do these things in a timely manner then to do them ‘perfectly’. I would much rather receive a baby gift while I still have a baby then to receive the perfect baby blanket when my kid starts kindergarten. I would much rather receive a thank you note soon after an event or situation then to receive one and have to sit and think about why this person is sending me a thank you note.

    OK, so here is the new mantra: When it comes to non-essential tasks, imperfect is still….done! Take a look at your to-do lists this week and see where you have been striving for perfectionism and instead procrastinating and try out our new mantra.