I have had the opportunity to join a mom’s group here in Atlanta that has helped me build a great community of people I can talk to, hang out with, pray with, have play dates with, and led to me working at the Nursery where I’m employed and a great community of moms through MOPS as I mentioned a few posts ago.
I switched from the bi-weekly daytime MOPS meetings to the once a month evening meetings once I started working at the nursery. This has allowed me to make a new set of mom friends outside of the morning group expanding my support system. The meetings are monthly and just as insightful and enlightening. A few weeks ago we had the opportunity to hear Dr. Darria share some mom hacks. She’s a mom of 2 kids and an ER doctor among her many accomplishments and she shared some hacks to triage your busy mom life. I enjoyed her examples and wanted to share them with you. They’re beneficial not just for moms but also dads and those who don’t have kids.
Dr. Darria suggests that we shouldn’t use the phrase crazy busy for our lives. Her thought is why you can’t afford to use crazy to describe your busy. When you’re in crazy busy mode you’re less capable of handling the busy. You can be as busy as an ER without feeling like you’re crazy busy. How? Use the ER tactics.
| CRAZY MODE | READY MODE |
| Overreact to Everything | Relentlessly Triage |
| Unprepared | Expect & design for crazy |
| Derailed by Inner Monologue | Get out of your head |
- Relentlessly Triage
Red: Tasks that need to be done immediately
Yellow: Tasks that are serious but don’t need to be done immediately
Green: Tasks that are Minor
Black: Tasks where there’s nothing you can do about them
We focus immediately on the red tasks. Part of the problem in crazy mode is that you react to everything as if it’s red. Start by triaging correctly. Know your reds. Start with what’s most important and where you can most move the needle. It’s easy to be confused by noise, but what’s noisiest isn’t always what’s most red. Do not let your non-reds distract you from them.
We each have our own black tasks that we must take off our lists. The tasks where there’s nothing you can do about it. If you try to do everything you have no hope for your red tasks.
2. Expect & Design for Crazy
Half of handling crazy is how you prepare for it. Design to make the tasks easier to do and have stringent processes. Don’t plan for if crazy happens, plan for when crazy happens. If you’re ready for crazy then it isn’t really crazy it is. Find ways to reduce your daily decisions. Here are 4 ways to do it:
Plan: plan your entire week’s meals on the weekend.
Automate: never leave anything to remember that you could automate – schedule it as recurring, recurrent purchases, saved lists
Co-locate: when it comes to exercise store all equipment needed together
Decrease temptations: if you’re tempted by sugar temptations, design differently. If a food is out of immediate reach, you eat less without thinking about it.
Design to make the choices you wish to make easier.
3. Get out of your head
Actively put your focus on someone else. See the person in front of you and how can you help them. When you prime your brain with compassion, we disrupt tunnel vision and our brain can take in broader information and see more possibilities to make better decisions. When you get out of your own head you get out of your own way. Own the busy but stop calling it crazy. We always have the ability to own it by relentlessly triaging.
Since listening to her talk at MOPS a month ago now I’ve implemented automating what I can and it’s relieved me of some stress about worrying about things on the grocery list. Thank goodness for Amazon, I just did subscribe & save for all the things I know we need monthly from diapers, laundry detergent, paper towel, napkins, toilet paper, dishwashing detergent, dishwasher cleaner and washing machine cleaner, cleaning supplies, ets. I don’t have to worry about buying them in the grocery store anymore they’ll be delivered. Why wasn’t I doing this before? Who knows, but as we get closer to LittleBit’s arrival I am implementing these tips to expect & design for for the crazy so that we are prepared. Up next is meal planning. We used to do it religiously while on our debt free journey and then we slacked off.
I’ve been relentlessly triaging what’s red, yellow and green and it’s made life easier. Are there things in your life that you can triage? Ways you can expect & design for crazy?
