“Stressed” is “Desserts” spelled backwards
Typical One year old
+
Working from home on client projects AND re-branding project
x
Not enough time in the day
= One crazy stressed out Mom/Wife/Woman!
Everyone has those days when things get overwhelming whether it’s your job, your family or the dog that won’t stop humping the neighbor and digging tunnels to China in your backyard (I love my dog, I love my dog…) If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Congratulation! I hate you. I award you no points and my god have mercy on your soul.
I started my business to help alleviate some stress in my life because riding a bus into the city everyday meant a 10 hour work day (if I worked overtime it was longer than that) and the childcare would have been redicutarded expensive. Now, I LOVE my job and am so happy I decided to stay home with my daughter and watch her grow up. I get to work with people I want to work with, work when I want to work and see Aerith with her funny little dances and giggles as she watches the dog chase his tail outside!
BUT
Now I have new stress that I hadn’t planned on. Watching Aerith is a full time job, being a good housekeeper is another full time job and running my virtual assistant business is a full time job. I hadn’t really considered the fact that I would have three full time jobs but here I am, and some days I want to quit and run away to distant shores and open a mom and pop porn shop!
SO
I have devised a new strategy to help me ease some of my stress and hopefully make me a happier person in general (which I’m sure everyone would enjoy). I started planning out my meals ahead of time, focusing on one area of the house at a time to clean and yesterday I signed up with a local babysitting service called BabySitEase to give me some ME time each week. This babysitting service is a big step because trusting someone else with my daughter might be the hardest thing I will ever do but I need to do this for my sanity and hers.
If you are getting overwhelmed by life and you are a planning kind of person like me I invite you to come along with me on my journey of organized chaos!
- Write it down. Write down everything that is making you stressed out. Making dinner, cleaning your office, going through emails; whatever makes you want to run away screaming when someone reminds you that it has to be done.
- Plan it out. Instead of waiting until the last minute to make dinner, plan out your week’s meals so you don’t have to come up with something off the top of your head. If social media is overwhelming, plan out times during the day that you check your accounts and/or schedule out your Tweets for the day, or the week, ahead of time to make sure you’re still involved.
- Make time for yourself. Make sure to schedule in YOU time. YOU are the most import part of your business and your family because if you don’t work, it ain’t gonna work. Even if it’s just a weekly coffee break to a near by coffee shop or a Sunday bath/spa night, make sure you get a chance to decompress after all the hard work you do all week.
I’m going to try and tie in songs or movies with my blog posts from now on because I think it will be fun! SO, I shall leave you with this creepy version of “Once in a Lifetime” by the Talking Heads as performed by Kermit the Frog. (Yup, it’s just one of those things you need to see…)














December 20th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
I love this post. I am the one who works 10 hour days and then fits the second job in on weekends, evenings, and even lunch. My girls are older now so being busier is ok. There are times I get overwhelmed – what do I do – just what you state – list it, prioritize, and do what I can.
I loved the Billy Madison video to accent your thought. Definitely taking the time to bring ideas and thoughts alive by using video is a great idea. I will be checking back here.
December 20th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Ann, it’s so nice to hear that I’m not the only one who gets overwhelmed now and then! I am confident that I can make this work. I hate asking for help but I am glad that I will have some more “work only time” now that I can bring in someone to watch Aerith when Josh is working!
Oh and I’m glad you like the video idea! I think it’s fun to tie in fun videos and songs to accent ideas so I think I’ll plan on doing more of that in future posts. : )