It’s true—the whole “productivity” movement gets a bad rap these days.
I can see why, with all the gurus who promote hustling, “optimizing” every last minute of your day, and cutting back on sleep to get more done. (No thanks.)
As a parent, I roll my eyes whenever I see the latest “beautiful Notion aesthetic” or “perfect weekend reset ritual.” I mean, if I had an hour to perfect my Notion aesthetic or 3 hours to reset my weekend, I’d be a lot more productive, too.
But real life is strikingly different for most of us. Especially for moms like us, who spend more than half of our day managing other people’s lives so they don’t starve or get injured on our watch. We don’t have the luxury of a blank slate of 24 hours to plan out or days—heck, some of us don’t even get an hour alone on most days.
For us, “productivity” means something quite different. So in order to have this conversation, we need to define what it is we’re talking about.
In this article:
- What does it mean to be productive as a mom?
- 4 things that damage productivity
- How to increase positive productivity in your life (4 steps)
- Conclusion
Table of Contents
- What does it mean to be productive as a mom?
- 4 things that damage productivity
- Increase positive productivity in your life
- Conclusion
What does it mean to be productive as a mom?
I personally want to be more productive as a mom. That’s why this blog exists—to document what I’m doing and hopefully help you get some ideas for your own life.
And I don’t see that as a bad thing. Let me explain.
When I say I want to be “productive” as a mom, it doesn’t mean doing more and more so I can check a million boxes on my to-do list before I die.
Instead, when I talk about productivity, I mean this:
- Knowing my goals and actively moving toward them—because I want my life to be meaningful and helpful to others
- Conserving my time and energy for the people and things that matter—because my family deserves the best of me
- Keeping balanced and healthy in all areas of life (mind, body, spirit, relationships, money, serving others, etc.)—so I can enjoy life more and be there for the people who need me
- Living or working toward the lifestyle I want to live—because life’s too short to put off my dreams until I’m 55, and I want to live that life now
I choose to be productive because I want to achieve the goals I have for my life. I want to enjoy every day and live to the fullest. And I don’t want to waste time on things that I don’t want to do.
When I say I want to be “productive” as a mom, it doesn’t mean doing more and more so I can check a million boxes on my to-do list before I die.
Does everyone have to be productive?
Well, this is kind of a loaded question. Everyone is productive. As a parent, you’ve produced entire people that will go on to live amazing lives in this world. When you go to work, you produce things every day. By being here and contributing something to someone, you are already productive and that is enough.
(Before launching into some kind of productivity pursuit, I hope you can accept this first—that you are already a productive person and anything else is just extra.)
Some of us want to pursue greater productivity, which means being even more focused on our goals and careful with our time so that we can achieve all we want to in life. We want more, we lack energy and time, and we’re frustrated.
For those of us who want to achieve more than we’re currently able to, we can learn productivity and time management techniques, how to delegate, how to automate processes and create routines to help us get to where we want to go.
For others, life is good and everything’s getting done. So why spend more time and energy on improving something that’s already working?
It all comes down to, what do you want out of your life? What do you want to achieve? What experiences do you want to have? What do you want to be able to look back on when you’re old, and say, That was the best possible life I could have lived?
And if you’re saying, I want more, you might be ready to embark on a productivity journey. But to do this, you’ll need to leave your old definitions of productivity behind.
4 things that damage productivity
Productivity is not, and never will be:
- Doing more and more so you can “fit more in”—Instead, it should be doing only the things that matter, and nothing else
- Hustling—It’s never good to forgo sleep and rest for long periods of time to achieve a goal; your health and productivity need to be balanced so you can actually enjoy what you’re working for
- Pushing so hard in one area that the other areas of life get damaged—Again, it’s all about balance; achieving goals, staying healthy and rested, and nurturing relationships equally so nothing gets left out
- Keeping up with other people by doing things you don’t actually want to do—Productive moms don’t have time to worry about what other people are doing; we’re too busy going after what’s on our hearts and nurturing the people we care about most
We can officially crumple up these outdated ideas of productivity and throw them on the fire. They’re gone, in a puff of smoke.
So how can we move forward, toward true productivity (what we defined above)? That’s what I’ll share in the next section.
Increase positive productivity in your life
Ready to get started? Here are 4 action steps to take right now so you can increase your productivity in a positive way:
Step #1 – Set some exciting goals
What do you want to work toward in your life? What big things do you want to achieve? What dreams are on your heart? Nothing is too big to accomplish if you start breaking it down into action steps.
Step #2 – Imagine your ideal day
How would you like to spend your days if you had full control?
Would you work from home? Would you be a stay-at-home-mom? Would you spend more time with your kids? Or would you have a higher-level position in a company you love to work for?
Whatever that ideal day looks like for you, the first step is getting a solid picture in your mind. It’s like putting together a puzzle—first, you pull out the box and take a look at the picture. Then you know which pieces to put together first.
Steps 1 and 2 help you to visualize the future you want to live so you can start taking steps to make it a reality in your life.
Step #3 – Start the journey of creating better systems
It’s fun to picture how life could be someday. But to actually get there, you’ve got to change something today.
From today, you can start taking little steps toward your dreams. And you will get there.
But for many of us, the first problem we need to address is our lack of time and energy to even think about our goals.
If you want to start painting abstract art, but you don’t have the time to learn or sit down and paint for 30 minutes, when will you ever start?
So the first step for most of us is getting in control of our schedules and how we spend our time.
To do that, you can create systems in your life that help you run parts of your life on autopilot so you never get behind. Then you can start to free up pockets of time in your day, which will allow you to take steps toward your goals.
That’s what this blog is for. I write about systems you can implement, ways to save time, how to start a business to earn more money or work from home, and more. If you want to learn more about these things, I invite you to subscribe to my mailing list (with the form below) so I can send you my latest articles.
Time-Saving Systems Ideas
Here are some examples of systems you could create:
- A morning or evening routine so you can start and end your day well, get important things done, or build habits that help you get closer to your goals
- An ideal day schedule that maps out how you want to spend your days
- A to-do list that organizes all your current projects and tasks in one place
- A digital calendar that tracks everything you need to remember all year long
- Cleaning routines so it becomes second nature to keep your house clean
- A “second brain” 🧠 — This is an organized collection of all the projects you’re working on, everything you’re reading and learning, and other important information (so you can stay on top of everything you need to do in a day)
- A meal planning system to save time, money, and help you eat more healthy foods
This is just a start of all the different things you could implement to get back more time for yourself (and your family).
Which brings us to the final step:
#4 – Continue to reflect, learn, and improve
Nobody gets it all set up in one day.
The journey of becoming more productive, of building self-discipline, and improving yourself is a lifelong one.
All you can do is continue to take one more step in the right direction day after day.
Over time, you’ll see just how much you’ve changed and how much closer you’ve come to the ideal lifestyle you want to have.
It will never be perfect. So my rules are: never feel guilty about what I can or can’t do, be realistic about my limits and what I can handle, and constantly re-assess what I’m doing and what I can change.
I invite you onto this journey of finding ways to make life easier, better, and more fun—so you can spend more time with the people that matter and move closer to achieving the big goals and dreams that are on your heart.
Conclusion
In this article, I shared with you what I believe productivity really is—it’s a way to achieve your goals, build the daily life you want to live, enjoy life more, and be there for the people that are most important to you.
And I gave you 4 steps to increase productivity in your life (the right way).
If this was interesting to you, I invite you to subscribe to my mailing list below to get updated whenever I post a new article. (I generally post about 1 new piece a week.)
Let me know in the comments—what do you think about this topic? Do you agree, or disagree with my thoughts? Is there anything you would add? And what areas of your life do you want to build better systems in?
As always, thanks for reading! See you in the next one.
