Instead of teaching you how to do some new grant-related task today, I want to help you get a handle on what you already have to do.

I’ve always been pretty good with time management, but having an infant, a small business, and no child care because of the pandemic has really pushed those skills to the limit.

And I know many of you are struggling with it too.

There’s also the whole psychological component that I can’t even begin to address because I’m not trained to, but I do know that pandemic fatigue is real and it is wrecking our mental, physical, and emotional health.

Setting that component aside, I’m going to share some tried and true strategies I use plus some new ones I’ve had to develop over the past 5 years of working from home, for myself.

1. I no longer fill my day with tasks, just trying to get as much done as possible.

Each day, I focus on the top 3 “needle movers,” the things that I *know* are going to help me reach my goals as fast as possible.

I do those things first and everything else follows from there.

Usually, the needle movers usually the more difficult tasks. Once I check those off of my list, I feel like I can do anything. . . AND anything else I accomplish that day is just bonus work.

How do you know what your needle movers are?

You make your big goal list for the year, then you list strategies for each goal. Then you make smaller tasks for each strategy and knock those out one by one.

If I’m struggling with one of those tasks, I stop and imagine how I will feel once that task is done. Looking forward to that sense of accomplishment and satisfaction helps me get through it.

I also keep those tasks listed under my bigger goals, so that when I look at a task, I see what goal it will help me reach, and that gives me even more motivation to get it done.

2.  I stay off of social media, except to post for my business or check in on my comments for my business (but those are always with a purpose, not just random posts).

I’m not perfect on this, especially if there is a lot going on in the news that day. I might check in now and then, but I don’t aimlessly scroll. 

I look at my feed for probably 10-20 seconds and then go back to what I was doing. And I don’t do that often.

My husband and I are always laughing (literally, every day) because I’ll say, “Oh did you see this thing happened?!” And he goes, “Yeah that was breaking news like 4 hours ago.”

But trust me, I didn’t miss ANYTHING by not knowing all the details of the story right when it is breaking.

I don’t see it because I’m focused on my work.

Staying in that work and not going back and forth to social media every time the work gets hard allows me to get into a state of flow. I get more done and enjoy myself so much more.

I know it’s easy to say “just stay off of social media” and much harder to implement. 

One thing I started doing is every time I have the urge to go over to Facebook, is stop and ask myself why. Am I looking for connection? Am I tired? Am I bored? Am I struggling with a difficult task and looking for a way to take my mind off of it? 

And then I find a different solution to address what is really going on. For example, maybe I just need to talk to another human.

I go talk to my husband or text someone if he isn’t around. Or maybe I need a mental break, so I go walk around my house or the neighborhood. 

Then I get what I actually need instead of all the mental noise that always comes with scrolling on FB.

3.  I have a lot of routines.

Yeah, I know it’s old news, but routines are everything to me. I don’t have time to think about what I should be doing. So when I can systematize something and make it a recurring task, I do.

I start my days the same way. I have a list of daily tasks that I do first thing in the morning. That’s going to look different for everyone, but mine are:

1.     Review my quarterly goals.

2.     Review my schedule, email, team’s tasks, and my own unfinished tasks.

3.     Plan my top 3 tasks based on #1 & #2.

4.     Review all of my financial metrics

5.     Review my ad metrics (I run a lot of FB & IG ads and have to keep up with them daily).

6.     Do some organic social media posting, usually to IG stories.

I do all of this while sitting on my couch in my room, having coffee. I might also do a brain dump, some journaling, or read a bit of my current novel.

I also have routines for weekly, monthly, and annual tasks that are scheduled to repeat inside my project/task management software, Asana. That way I don’t have a running list in my head; it’s all downloaded from my brain into Asana.

4. I say no.

Some people will tell you this is bad. I’m here to tell you that it’s a freaking revelation.

As women, we’re expected to be people pleasers; statistically, we do the majority of the service work and caretaking work in this world.

As an academic, I was expected to do lots of “service” work or free work on top of my research and teaching responsibilities.

From these two experiences, I had it engrained in my mind that I was supposed to do things for the experience, or as a favor, or so people would like me and tell others I was great, which could lead to getting hired or some other reward.

Then when I became a business owner, it started to shift. Not all at once, though. I still did free lectures and allowed people to schedule meetings with me to “pick my brain about X,Y,Z.”

As my business grew, more people wanted me to do those free activities than I had time (or the will) to do.

So I had to, absolutely out of necessity, say no to more. I finally got to the point where my default answer became no and I had to have a really, really good reason to say yes to someone. 

It’s not that I’m too good to help someone. It’s that every minute I’m “helping” someone, i.e. doing free work, I’m not helping the people who actually paid me to help them (my students and clients).

It means that I’m not spending time with my baby and my husband. Trust me, having a child really highlighted this for me because I no longer have the time to do things I really, really love.

So, women, say no!

If you’re worried about saying no or spending way too much time crafting a response that says no, don’t. Most people don’t care when you say no and if they do, it’s their problem. And you don’t want to waste your time on this.

So here’s what you do: Develop a script for politely saying no and use it over and over. Don’t apologize. I developed this script based on advice from Sarah K. Peck of The Pregnant Podcast.

Here’s exactly what I say: “Thank you so much for thinking of me; I truly appreciate it. I will have to decline because this is not where I’m putting my focus right now. I wish you the best of luck with (insert whatever it is).”

Keep this in your email drafts folder and use it. 

5. Chill the eff out.

Burn out. Yeah, we all know about it. There are too many articles floating around about it. And coronavirus/pandemic/quarantine burnout is compounding that everyday burnout.

So you gotta just take care of your brain, your body, your soul. For a long time I fought rest and felt so guilty about relaxing and taking breaks during a work day.

Being pregnant kinda killed all that for me because there were hours or days when I was nauseous or so exhausted I had to take a 2-3 hour afternoon nap to function for the rest of the day.

Then having a baby and caring for a newborn kept the exhaustion going, and I had to keep napping and resting in other ways.

The reason you’re doing this is not just because it will make you more productive (it will). Humans are not machines (and even machines get worn out and break down). 

Caveat: Humans are not meant to work the way we do, and I don’t believe our value is related to our “productivity.” 

I want to be “productive” because I have big money goals. I want to develop as much security as possible because, frankly, the world is very unpredictable and scary. Money cushions that and allows me to do more good in the world.

And Tangent: I really wish we had a Universal Basic Income (UBI) and had the freedom to create amazing things as we want. There’s research that shows UBI could be amazing, and other countries have done it successfully. 

All of this is to say that I try not to feel guilty when I rest, even if it’s in the middle of the workday. (Hi! I got up at 5 am yesterday and started working, but I also had to take an afternoon nap to get through the rest of my long day.)

Thanks for reading and see you back here next week!