What having house guests for 10 days taught me about time management
Welcome to episode 19 of The Determined Mom Show. I am your host, Amanda Tento. In this episode, I will share something that blew my mind over the last two weeks. So my best friend, her daughter, and her boyfriend came into town for ten days to visit us.
I work from home, and my husband also works from home, and we have very flexible schedules. However, I still have a lot of work every week. I thought it was a crazy amount of work and that I would struggle with condensing my work, and I would have to work more when they were here than I did.
I was just really worried about it, and my mind was completely blown when I could get, well, let me start by saying, they arrived on Wednesday. I left for the airport in the morning to pick them up. We live about an hour South of Seattle. So I drove up to the airport in Seattle, picked them up, and we came back. We were probably back by about one o’clock in the afternoon, and I didn’t have to do anything that day. Cause I had done all my work for the week on Monday and Tuesday. So I knew they were coming. I knew that I would have all the stuff to do. I even had extra time on Monday and Tuesday to clean, organize, and do things like that.
So it was good, but I was still nervous. However, for the most part, I’m at my desk from like 8:00 AM to 6:30 PM, Monday through Friday, and I usually work a little bit on the weekends, but interestingly enough, I didn’t do any of that this week for the last ten days, and they left yesterday. So for the prior ten days, I did not come into my office at all. I used my laptop, which was a culture shock for me because I live in my office, where they were staying, and we converted it into a bedroom. It was just crazy to realize that I could fit everything I do into two days.
So why am I not doing that any other time? Why am I robbing my children of time and experience and all of these things when I could be out doing things with them and having fun, yet the park and all of these things? Why am I living my life like this? It was just such a crazy realization. The other thing that threw me is I was sitting out back at the table in our back patio, and my husband mentioned to me that it was like day two, that they were here, and he was like, you know, I never see you relax. He’s like, and I was sitting there twiddling my thumbs, not doing anything.
I wasn’t looking at my phone, and I wasn’t replying to Facebook, and I was sitting there enjoying a drink, and he said, I can’t believe you’re just relaxing. I never see you relax and I like it. So that was another realization like, wow, that he notices that I don’t ever relax. It’s probably not a good thing, but the fact that this happened when I came to visit made me realize that I work way too much or that I’m at my desk too much. I think that’s the problem. My desk is my comfort zone, and I prefer to do my work because I have two monitors, and it’s way easier for me to do the kind of work I do on two monitors and things like that.
However, I can easily get it done on anything. I can get it done on a laptop or go to a coffee shop and do it. I think might start trying that sometimes just to kind of get out of the house and get things done but get them done in a more relaxed manner. I am one of those people, and I’m sure that there are some of you listening that can relate to this that I function very well under high-stress environments. So if I am not stressed, I don’t perform well. If I’m too relaxed, then I feel just kind of feel out of it.
Relaxation doesn’t motivate me, stress is what I thrive and live off of, and I know that’s a bad thing. So I’m going to try from this point on to rearrange my schedule, to rearrange my work week, and to rearrange how I do things. So then that way, I can live a more relaxed lifestyle, and I just enjoy knowing that I can do all of these things. So I am going to challenge you to do what I did, basically set a deadline and say, I need to have everything that I need to have scheduled and done and completed all the actual work that you do.
I want you to try to get it done on Monday and Tuesday. So two days, I will call this the two-day dare because I think you can do it. Just make sure to act like there’s some deadline. Like you have to be somewhere tomorrow at this time or on Wednesday at this time, nothing can be done about that deadline, and you have to get everything done on Monday and Tuesday.
It is probably going to blow your mind that you can do it. It blew my mind, and I hope you can do it too because it was life-changing for me. There is no way that I would have known that this was possible unless they had come to visit. So thank you, Missy Mallory and Derek, for coming, we thoroughly enjoyed your visit, and we enjoyed all of the things we got to do with you. So I now have time to cook, clean, do laundry, and organize.
I may change my schedule for the rest of the week to do half days. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I want to be able to have that time with my family, and I also want to be able to have that time with my friends, who I always neglect because I’m always working. So, Kelly, I think you are definitely one of them, and Edith is definitely one of them too. So I apologize, and they know that I’m always working, but I told Kelly this week I saw her at my daughter’s birthday party, and I explained it to her, and she was like, Oh my God, that sounds so great. Like, cause we never get together enough, I know I need to nurture the relationships I have more.
I hope that you will commit to taking this two-day dare and get all of your work done on Monday and Tuesday and see what happens to your relaxation level, your life, and everything like that. I also always go to the library every Saturday morning with my daughters, and they pick out books, and I never get a book. Well, I got books, and then I just returned them without reading them. Reading has been one of my passions ever since I was a kid, and I basically never read anything unless it’s an audiobook, or I’ll listen to podcasts, or something that I can do while doing other things.
So I am excited for you, and I’m excited if you decide to take this two-day dare. I think it will completely change your life. See if you can do it. Let me know what happens in your life, in your business.
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