Hi, live laugh rowe readers!
I’m Tricia and I blog at Mama Marchand’s Nest! I’m thrilled that Kelly asked me to guest post for her today but I have to tell you that this topic is tough for me. It’s about balance. You see, most of the time I feel like I’m in the midst of a major juggling act because I wear a lot of hats. Yeah, I know that’s a lot of metaphors but bear with me. *wink*
My hubs is a pastor, my daughter is two, I have a part-time day job, a very part-time evening job, I blog, I create jewelry for my Etsy shop, I tweet, and somewhere in the midst of all of THAT, I try to have a social life, too.
Get it together.
There’s no way that I can function without being organized. I invested in an Erin Condren life planner (LOVE!) to do just that. I keep track of our family schedule, plan out my blog posts and shop updates, keep track of bills, birthdays, anniversaries, and more in that lovely book. The hubs and I also sit down weekly to review the calendar, just to make sure we’re on the same page. That is incredibly helpful!
I am asked to be participate in A LOT both in my real life and in the bloggy world – fundraisers, marketing opportunities, Bible studies, conferences, and the list goes on. In order to not spread myself too thin, I have to ask hard questions when presented with these opportunities. If I say “yes” to this, what do I have to say “no” to in order to make it work? Do I have time to do this? Do I want to do this or is it that I feel like I should do this? And the most important one – will this take me away from my family too much?
Say what? There are days when I purposefully schedule a purposeless trip to Target so my daughter and I can hop in the car, get out of the house, and have some fun. We love this! Also, when I start to feel burned out or notice myself losing my grip on my sanity (too often than I care to admit), I simply rest. Instead of writing that guest post or working on a giveaway during her nap time, I reschedule it and take a nap myself.
{Adventuresindinner} says
What a great guest post! I’ve got the coffee consumption down to an art form but the saying ‘no’ is something that I’m still learning C:
Shirley@motivatedmommyoftwo says
This is a great guest post
Coffee – Check, I need coffee to function or else
I have a planner that I carry in my purse, every Monday I add all of the appts, things to do for the week for family purposes.
I have a planner for the blog, here I write ideas on upcoming post, changes I would like to make to the blog. And what day the post is going up.
I just recently started writing down 10 weekly goals for the wee and I blog about it every Monday. This has really helped me stay on track.
i work full time, blog, have two small kids, and workout. Man I am tired LOL
Thank you for the post it was a lot of fun to read.
Maria says
Great post! To stay balanced, I check in with myself every few weeks. I once heard it’s important to have a personal goal, relationship goal and a family goal. I usually focus on everyone else but myself (don’t most mamas?) so that is where I am working on finding that balance! 🙂 Maria
Lynne says
Not sure how I stay balanced – I thought it would get easier as my kids got older, but I am not sure that that happened. I think the most important thing for me is to get enough sleep. And it is so hard! i want to stay up past 10:00. both to do stuff and to have “me” time. I think though, that I am so much less productive when I am tired, that it honestly better serves me to go to bed at 10:00 with stuff undone and do it in the morning, than to stay up long enough to finish it. I can (most of the time) get the same amount accomplished in 30 min in the morning than I could whilst staying up 2 extra hours from 10 to midnight. Thanks for singing the praises of coffee! It is my good friend too.
Debra Kapellakis says
Hello! It was nice to have you here. I enjoyed your bits and pieces and your photo’s are super fun.
Kelly says
Thanks for loving on Tricia’s post, Debra. Have a fabulous day, friend. Hugs!
britt says
i love it, great post tricia!! DEF coffee!!! I am addicted and tricks me into being more awake to get things done. Hmmm, that life planner looks quite interesting, like i might need to invest in one soon just to keep blogging stuff in order. Im a pretty new public blogger…so im not diving in yet..but ya know it’s time consuming and hard trying to remember dates, giveaway enteries, guest posts, button swaps/ads, etc. I love it all though!! lol and cute sunglasses btw!