50 things I learned from my coworkers

Today you headed back to the office after a two week hiatus for the holidays. I’m guessing you were dragging a little and maybe even apprehensive about having to show up and be productive after such a relaxing break. One thing I am sure of is that your motivation to get out of bed this morning was that you got to reunite with one another. So while today I officially hang my virtual “open for business” sign and stamp “entrepreneur” on my LinkedIn profile, I spent most of the day thinking about how much I’m going to miss you.

I’d been at my job for nearly five years. Some of my you were there before I arrived and others started just six months ago. All of you made your marks on my life and I am incredibly grateful. And lucky. I know from previous jobs that your coworkers can make or break your work life. Not only did you give me a reason to come to work every day, but we actually wanted to hang out even more after we’d already punched the clock. It didn’t take long for you to become so much more than colleagues

It sounds like a line from a cheesy movie, but I learned a lot about who I want to be because of you. I won’t always recall every painfully useless meeting we endured together {most of them}, or every inside joke we came up with {swoop and poop, HOP, Mean Girls, and on and on and on}, but I will always remember the things you taught me about being a good coworker, friend, mother and wife. Here are my top 50:

Collaborate as often as possible
Brainstorming sessions will improve the quality of your work
Delegate when you can
Ask for help
Show appreciation
Don’t take credit for something you didn’t do
Handwritten notes have not gone out of style
Family comes before work always
Take time off when you can
Let the little things go
Pick and choose wisely what colleagues you decide to become Facebook friends with
Apologies go a long way
Change happens
No one has done everything
Think twice before you hit “reply all”
Be on time
Vacations are time well spent re-energizing
Don’t leave a meeting without a plan of action
You’re never too old to learn something new
Sometimes you need to pick up the phone
You don’t have to like everyone
Not everyone is going to like you
Hair lice can keep coming back if the mother ship doesn’t get exterminated
Always go to the funeral
Be fiercely loyal to those you care about
Teen boys smell really bad after dancing
Know when to voice your opinion
Know when to be quiet
We wear pink on Wednesdays
Holding a grudge is unattractive
When you build a website, you will dream in code
Make fake award certificates for yourself if it motivates you
Random gifts can brighten someone’s day
Bring food to the office for any reason or no reason at all
If you have the opportunity to drink a purple cocktail made with champagne, just ask for the champagne
Own up to your mistakes
Win graciously
Lose graciously
Sometimes you just need to ugly cry and be hugged
Takeout Chinese food for lunch can turn a day around
Don’t keep your basement refrigerator stocked with liquor if there are teenagers in the house unless it has a lock
Traditional white lights aren’t the only way to decorate for Christmas
Some people are cold literally all the time
Those people travel with space heaters
If you say you’re going to do something, do it
People mellow with age
Don’t lie to your employer
You get out of it what you put into it…it being work, friendship, marriage, parenthood or anything else you decide to do
Mayo and sriracha sauce make a great dip
Distance makes the heart grow fonder

I know there are many more {and I hope you call me out on them}.

So while today I am enjoying the peace and quiet of my new home office and the comfort of my yoga pants, I know that some days it will feel more like loneliness. So, dear coworkers, my Mean Girls, I hope you weren’t quite done teaching me lessons yet, because you can expect to see me often.

I miss you already.

December 30, 2015February 21, 2016

5 New Year’s resolutions for a successful 2016

It’s hard to believe 2016 is a day away. When I was a kid it sounded so obnoxious to hear older people talk about how time seems to speed up each year, but now that I’m a parent I am starting to see some truth to it. With a one and three-year-old the days can seem {painfully} long at times, but I seem to have blinked and here I am at another year. With an almost four-year-old. Which can’t be right since I was practically just in college. Until I realize that it’s almost 2016 and I graduated nearly eight years ago. How did that happen?

While a new year makes me feel a bit sad that my kids are growing up so quickly, it’s also a great time to do some self reflection. My husband and I are big into setting goals, making resolutions and adding things to our bucket lists. We actually sit down once a year and write each of these into a Google Doc that we share so we can check in from time to time. This process has been a great road map for our life together. In fact, both this blog and my husband’s business were dreamed up in goal-setting sessions and become our reality!

We aren’t getting any younger, which means {if the old people are right} that time isn’t getting any slower either. With time passing so quickly, you may miss the chance to get what you want out of your life if you don’t take time to figure out {and write down} what those things are.

Here’s my list for 2016. Do you share any of the same resolutions? Tell me about yours in the comments.

1. Say yes more

When you have young kids, it is so easy to become a total home-body. A night out with friends or lunch with an old classmate seems like so much work when you have to align a baby sitter or just muster up the energy to change out of your yoga pants and take a shower. The problem with acting like a recluse is that you may actually start to lose touch with some of those friends when they stop inviting you out when you always stay in. 2016 will be a year of yes as long as you aren’t asking me to stay out too late {some of us still have to get up at 6 a.m. with the toddlers, k?}.

2. Put down the cell phone

I hope my husband adds this one to his list, but I’m not exactly proud of the hours I’ve clocked tuned into technology during family-time either. It’s so tempting to get look at your cell phone each time you hear an email arrive in your inbox. This year I hope to stay true to my time blocked working hours and save the social scrolling until after the kiddos are in bed so I never have to hear my daughter say, “mommy, please get off your phone” again.

3. Build my girl squad

As the president of our Kansas City chapter of Femfessionals, I have huge goals for our new community to flourish in 2016. Selfishly, one of these goals is to build my own power network, as well. I’m entering 2016 as a first-time, full-fledged business owner and I see the women in this group as a wealth of support and information. But like most things in life, you only get out what you put in. I can’t wait to get to know the women in this network better.

4. Quit comparing

Women spend an enormous amount of time comparing themselves to others. I have two thoughts on this. First, sometimes what you see isn’t even reality. Think about it, do you put your really embarrassing or sad or angry self on social media? Probably not. Neither does she. So when her life looks perfect, just remember everyone is going through something. Second, we aren’t all looking for the same things on this journey through life and that’s okay. Sometimes I see pictures of my stay-at-home-mom friends with their children throughout the day and I wonder what the heck I’m doing in the office. But then I remember I chose to do this work that I love and my children are thriving in their preschool. In 2016, I’m going to stop wasting my time worrying about how your life compares to mine and make sure I’m doing my personal best instead.

5. Get political

In case you’ve been living under a rock, 2016 is an election year and things are bound to be interesting. Sometimes it’s easy to sit back and coast on your political affiliations or stay out of it altogether, but as someone less than impressed with all of our presidential candidates, I really want to take the initiative to learn more on the national and local level this year and maybe even get involved. {Heck, even my husband joined our local HOA Board for 2016.} It really does matter, so I hope you’ll get inspired and join me.

December 29, 2015February 11, 2018

Get more done by adopting this one habit

After a week at home for the holidays, my kiddos are finally out of the house. My coffee is hot. My desk is organized. The day is young. I finally sit down to work.

I know I need to write another blog post, but first I think I will open up Facebook and schedule a few social media posts I’ve planned for a few of my clients for the New Year.

Then my phone pings. Someone liked my most recent Insta post about working on my business goals and plans for the year. It’s so exciting to see new followers {strangers even!} finding about The Free Mama.

Back to Facebook. Okay, one post scheduled.

I better check my FemCity email. I haven’t checked it since before Christmas and I really need to finish my annual plan for our community. I fire off a few emails to business owners about some event ideas.

I return to the browser with my Facebook page open. I scroll through my news feed, just once, and an article called “21 Annoying Facebook Status Updates that Need to Stop” pops up. That looks interesting, and I definitely need to find out what those things are {to make sure I’m not an annoying Facebook status poster}, so I click on it.

I skim the article and go back to my news feed, fully confident that all of my friends totally are not annoyed with my posts. Cute pictures of my friend’s baby’s first Christmases rotate with puppies and snow and more click-worthy articles from Buzzfeed and the Huff Post.

And then I glance in the upper right corner and realize an hour has gone by already. And I haven’t even started this blog post yet.

I’m not much of a gambler, but I’m willing to bet some version of this has happened to you before. Our phones and computers have become major time sucks thanks in large part to social media. But it isn’t just mindless scrolling that can cause us to lose track of time and productivity. I didn’t have a plan. I sat down to accomplish one task, but immediately moved on to other things on my to-do list and then became distracted. While my email sending and social media managing still chipped away at my overall workload, I lost valuable time and creative energy bouncing between tasks. Not carving out specific time for particular projects prevents us from packing in a fully efficient work sesh. So what should I have done differently?

Start each day with not only a list of top work priorities, but a schedule for accomplishing them. This technique is called time blocking and it is a powerful tool that can truly help you get more done if you make it a habit. So how can you {we} become better at time blocking a get stuff done? Try these 4 tips to time block like a pro.

1. Block time to time block

You shouldn’t spend your freshest moments of a new day mapping out your time blocks, so plan them in advance. Carve out time on one of your least productive day, typically a Monday or Friday or even the weekend, to evaluate what you need to get done for the upcoming week. I use Google Calendar for everything, both work and personal, because it actually looks like little colorful blocks that can be shared with others so they know when you’re time blocking a.k.a unavailable.

2. The early block catches the worm

I’m a morning person. I’d say 80% of what I get done in a day happens before 1 p.m. Be sure to schedule your time blocks when you work your hardest so they don’t fizzle into a procrastination period. Just keep in mind that you should aim to get your highest priority work accomplished before you move on to things like meetings and emails. So if you’re a rare breed who perks up after lunch time, don’t over commit in the morning or meetings may intrude on your precious time block.

3. Tune out to block in

When it’s time to time block and you’re ready to dig in to that super top priority thing to do, eliminate distractions. No social media. No emails. No phone calls. No office visits. It’s go time.

4. Don’t over block

When you schedule out your time blocks, it’s important to keep windows in your day. Projects may come up that you weren’t anticipating and certain jobs make take longer to accomplish than you originally thought. No need to fret if you’ve left some holes in your day to work on these things, as well as catching up on any outstanding emails or phone calls {although I do recommend carving out an email time block if you receive a high volume of them}. Finish that important task before your time block was over?

Do you time block to reach maximum productivity during your work day and make sure important tasks get done first? What works or doesn’t work for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Happy time blocking!

December 18, 2015February 21, 2016

Not your typical mommy-blog blog

When I had finally made up my mind that I was going to quit my job and start my own business, I knew I wanted to somehow document it. Whether I was to become a huge success or fail miserably, I knew I’d want to look back at my experiences {mostly to prove that my play-it-safe self actually did it}. So I did what so many people do when they’ve got something to say; I started this blog. And then it sat. For months.

They say the hardest part is just getting started and “they” aren’t freaking lying! It seemed impossible to begin something that I hadn’t begun myself. I started talking about quitting my job with my husband last spring. I didn’t make it a reality until September. Well, December has come and Santa’s practically hanging halfway down our chimney and I’m still struggling with exactly what I want this blog to be.

I want to support working moms. I want to help women start their own businesses. I want to encourage people to live the life they’ve always wanted and quit getting in their own way. I want to teach ways to be more efficient and squeeze maximum fulfillment out of each day. I want to share my personal and professional wins and losses {if you promise not to keep score} and maybe even help you learn something along the way.

One thing I am sure of is what this blog is not:

A mommy blog chock full of DYI projects and kids crafts. Don’t get me wrong, those sites are awesome! Check out my favorites here and here. I’ve spent hours dreaming of my children’s nurseries that could have been if I were capable of recreating my own Pinterest fantasies. Not my skill set. Moving on…

A mommy blog with tips on spending less money at the grocery store, tracking down the new “it” toy on a budget or anything related to being a better shopper. {You may find me sharing tips on how to be a quicker, more efficient shopper though!}

A mommy blog supplying your recipe book with tried and true favorites sure to get your kids eating their veggies and your husband asking for seconds all while you lose weight.

A mommy blog that speaks to all of your fears of parenting while making you feel normal {you are} for thinking you’re screwing up your kids {you aren’t}. It does exist though!

I appreciate everything these sites have to offer, and can even pull off one heck of a first birthday party with ideas borrowed from these creative geniuses. You just won’t find any of these things on this mommy blog.

So there. If the hardest part is getting started it should be smooth sailing from here, right?!

November 29, 2015November 29, 2015

7 tips to help working moms become more efficient

Have you ever left a conversation with a friend, colleague or even someone you just met and wondered “how the heck does she do it?” As a young mom, entrepreneur, and generally energetic person, I must admit I get asked that a lot. I usually shrug it off with something like, “oh, I just like to keep busy!” But lately I’ve taken some time to think about how I should really answer the question. I think what I’m actually being asked is “how are you so efficient?” So, I’m going to let you in on my seven tips to improve your efficiency. Soon everyone will be asking you how you do it!

1. Multitask

Multitasking, in my opinion, is a bit of an art. You have to know which activities to clump together so that you don’t sacrifice quality. For example, scrolling through your Facebook newsfeed during family time or catching up on important work emails while watching last night’s Bachelor Pad is a no-no.

My favorite example is my morning routine. I am an early to bed and early to rise kind of gal, but not too early. My alarm goes off at 6 a.m., which gives me a happy balance of clocking enough Zs while successfully getting our 1 and 3 year olds out of the house by 7:15. Here’s a play by play of how we do it:

6:00AM – Alarm goes off – NO snooze! Hit the shower…most days.

6:10AM – This is where it gets good. I read the news (I prefer theSkimm), while doing my hair and makeup, while nursing or pumping. My husband is all ready for the day and heading downstairs to make breakfast for the family…smell the bacon, eggs and coffee!

6:30AM – Divide and conquer! My husband gets one child up and dressed and I tackle the other one.

6:45AM – We all sit down and eat breakfast as a family.

7:00AM – Shoes on (kept in the laundry room), teeth brushed (a set of toothbrushes in the downstairs bathroom), and an impromptu dance party in the kitchen.

7:15AM – Load up and head out.

I’m particularly proud of that 6:10 window. Feeding another human and learning about world events while primping really gets me excited to take on the day.

2. Ask for help

Notice how earlier I said, “this is how we do it.” That’s because I don’t even pretend like mornings run this smoothly when my husband is traveling for work. One way to master efficiency is to know when to ask for help. Early on in our marriage, I told my husband it would really help both of us make it to work on time if he made breakfast. We woke up at the same time each day, but I took about 20 minutes longer to get ready than he did. About the same amount of time it takes to cook the full breakfast we’re both accustomed to. He totally got it and was willing to step up in the morning, something that became even more important when we added two toddlers to the routine.

Bottom line: if someone else can do something better or quicker than you can, don’t be afraid to ask for help.

3. Plan Ahead

Let’s go back to the morning routine again. Did you notice how I didn’t mention packing lunches or getting bags together? It’s because I do it all the night before. I’ve found it’s quickest to pack lunches either while making dinner or putting away any leftovers since you’re already in and out of the fridge and handling Tupperware. I lay out my kids’ outfits before bedtime. Heck, I still lay out my clothes. By planning ahead whenever you can, you eliminate unpleasant surprises (where is that library book?) and create the illusion of more time (dance party, anyone?).

4. Get Organized

I know this looks a little bit different for everyone. I’m a bit of a self proclaimed neat freak myself, and while I won’t project my tidy ways on you, I do urge you to get organized at home and at work if you want to improve your efficiency. The reality is, if you know where things are you will get to them faster. Keep your home and your office cleared of clutter. Pick up the toys on the floor before you go to bed; I promise you’ll feel better about it when you come downstairs the next morning! If this isn’t your strong suit, please refer to tip #2 and have someone help you file those papers.

5. Prioritize

I am a list-maker. Give me a post-it, some stationary, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s clean and I can write on it. Who doesn’t like to draw a giant check mark next to a completed task? Other than that fleeting sense of achievement, lists help you visualize the things you need to get done. I suggest separating work things from family things from errands or shopping lists since prerogatives change from a Monday to a Saturday.

When it comes to your business, make a list at the end of each work day for the following day. Write each task in the order they’ll need to be accomplished and then when it comes time to work on them, do not bounce around! Tackle them one by one and watch your efficiency improve and your to-dos decrease.

For my family and home, I have a giant to-do that includes long term projects like finally painting the outside of the house or getting around to our family photo album.

Make one list or ten, either way be sure to commit to getting things done and don’t procrastinate!

6. Move

Remember how you weren’t supposed to Facebook stalk or watch your guilty pleasure television shows while working or family time? You know the perfect time to do these things? While exercising! Not only will you benefit from shutting off your responsibilities for a bit, but you’ll have the added perk of those endorphins. So sneak away from the kiddos already to get in some quality me-time and get fit while you Netflix.

7. Slow down

This is really important to remember, especially for working moms. While I pride myself in being incredibly efficient both in my business and at running my household, I sometimes have to remind myself to stop and smell the roses. Women are so incredibly hard on themselves and parents who work outside of the home are constantly on the go. So join me after the alarm sounds at 6 a.m. tomorrow in taking a deep breath and counting your blessings before tackling that to-do list.