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5 time traps for working moms

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Everyday Life Featured Life Balance Work

I have always been one with a tendency to cram as much as humanly possible into a 24-hr period. Before I had children I routinely logged 14 hour days, first in corporate America, then as an entrepreneur…and I ran marathons, loved entertaining, and, and, and…

What can I say, I like being busy!

But having kids changed everything.

Well, not everything. My desire to do a lot remained in tact.

Sadly though, the number of hours in the day did not magically expand to accommodate the new additions to my family. As I headed back to work, I struggled to maintain my previous level of productivity given the entirely new reality of having to start later and finish earlier.

I made a lot of mistakes.

At first, I threw all “me” nurturing activities right out the window (after all, I’d say to myself, “isn’t work really ‘me’ time?”). Then I crashed & burned. My husband literally begged me to find a creative or physical outlet.

I time-shifted a lot of thinking work to the quiet evening hours after the kids went to bed. But then my husband and I slowly started to grow apart…

I did work after everyone in the house was asleep. That lasted until my body got down on its knees and begged for more sleep via a bout with pneumonia.

It took me awhile, but I eventually got my sea legs. One thing I learned along the way: there are five big time traps that working women should avoid at all costs.

The Five Time Traps

Responding to everything immediately For some reason women tend to feel obligated to reply to someone or pick up a phone right away, when it’s really not necessary. Maybe it’s because you don’t want to be rude. Maybe it’s because it feels urgent. Stop. A study by HP showed a 10-point drop off in IQ when someone is distracted by an incoming call or email. That’s more than twice the impact smoking pot has on your IQ! If you have a pavlovian response to alerts, turn them off when you are doing something and make standing ‘appointments’ to check messages and emails.

Procrastinating online Be honest, how much time are you spending surfing the internet during the day? Sadly, 61 percent of employees admit that they spend at least some time surfing non work-related websites during the work day. According to AOL and Salary.com, 44.7% of workers said surfing the Web was the biggest distraction in their workplace. The same survey found that, on average, employees waste over two hours a day online. The problem is, we tend to surf in 15-20 minute increments of time, saying to ourselves “well, I don’t have enough time do really focus on and do x, y, z – so I’ll just see what’s happening on Facebook.” It’s a slippery slope. Wear a rubber band around your wrist and every time you find yourself mindlessly surfing at work, snap it against your wrist. Awareness is the first step to recovering that lost time.

Skipping the menu planning Not only will a lack of a plan cause your stress to skyrocket every day around 4:30pm, but without one you waste time at the grocery store, waste money (the average American family throws out almost $600 worth of meat, produce and grains that have gone bad each year), and waste precious moments with your family because you’re dinner plans aren’t buttoned up. There are so many great tools for overcoming your meal planning avoidance: online menu-planning services, like The Six O’Clock Scramble, free printables, and great blogs, like 5DollarDinners.

Skipping exercise When you’re feeling time-crunched, it’s often the first thing to go. But studies show workday workouts improve your time management skills by 28%, your ability to concentrate by 26%, and your overall productivity by 25%. Your boss will benefit, you will benefit, the people you love will benefit. Stop shortchanging yourself and everybody else in the name of saving time.

Keeping a work-only to-do list How you keep your lists isn’t important. That you keep a list – and include all areas of your life on it – is. Life with children is complex, if you insist on carrying around all of those personal to-do’s in your head, you (a) waste time and energy trying to remember what’s on that list and feeling insecure you don’t, and (b) will perceive that you have more on your plate than you actually do. Reduce the noise in your head and see the big picture with a comprehensive list.

I suppose I will continue to go through, cycles of readjustment as my boys grow up. But for now, I make a real effort to steer clear of these traps.

What about you, do you fall prey to any bad time sucks? Was your re-entry to work as bumpy as mine?

Posted by Sarah on Oct 05, 2011 print article e-mail to a friend

MomofTwoPreciousGirls

As a working mom in the financial field, I’m dealing with sales people all day. When I try to not answer the e-mail right away, they call my phone. When I don’t answer my phone, they hang up and call it right back. If I still don’t answer, they hit zero from my voicemail and have the receptionist try to transfer them. Then they make her leave her post to see if I’m available, even forcing her to knock on my door when it’s closed. At this point, I’m thinking I’m just not going to get out of this. I finally speak with them for them to ask me something so basic, that the assistant that they compensate for supporting them could have answered it half an hour ago!!!

With that as my daily battle, I am so in need of me time! But then I get home and the kids are climbing on me and dinner calls and when they go to bed the husband is on me (literally!) and by the end of the night I do not even recall who I am anymore!
SarahButtonedUp

Oh MAN – trying to operate and remain sane (with your head above water) in a “got-a-minute” culture is brutally hard.

Try this at work:

Shift to an “Appointment Management” approach. The situation you have now keeps you stuck in reactive mode – and as you know all too well, when you react all the time, you’re working much harder than if you were able to plan a little bit. (Right now I’m guessing you’re functioning at about 25% of what you could be in terms of productivity – that’s bad for everybody).

Ultimately you’ll be able to help all those wonderful sales people in your organization to a MUCH greater degree if you force them (and you) to PLAN your meetings/calls rather than have them on the fly.

If you don’t already have one, set up a weekly meeting (1hr max) for all sales people. The purpose of that meeting is to ensure people are on-strategy and questions/concerns/issues are addressed. Then send an email to them that says something along the lines of:

“Help me help you! I am drowning in a sea of your “just-a-quick-question” phone calls and pages. It’s keeping me stuck in a reactive mode – and from doing the things I need to do to ensure you all succeed (maybe give them a concrete example there). Unless your call is absolutely urgent (and DEFINE urgent for them), please hold all calls until the mandatory weekly meeting – then specify the day/time. Otherwise I will post 2 times per day that I will take impromptu calls. If you call at any other time, I will not be available to speak and will instruct my assistant not to page me.”

If you need to, talk it over with your superiors first so that they understand why you need to do this and can back you up if people complain. It may sound tough at first, but, really when you look at it, you are doing what is in THEIR best interest, not to mention yours. This insanity has cost you enough…!

On a personal note, try this:
Recognize that it might not be realistic to get “you time” on weeknights…but at least set aside an hour for yourself on the weekend. Maybe you and your hubby could trade off on the responsibilities?

Also – are you working out at all? Even a 10 minute walk at lunch does wonders for your sense of equilibrium…
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Nlshultz

Random question – where did you get the graphic from? It’s a good one!
http://www.getbuttonedup.com Hollie Sehrt

I think we got it from istockphoto.com
Heather Henderson

This article is the best use of my mindless net surfing time EVER! Thank you for the great advice. I’ve got my pen and paper next to me to make my “to do” list right now. I’ve already closed Facebook and turned my phone to silent. Awesome tips!
Sarah

Glad you found them helpful Heather!

: Sarah, Everyday Life, Featured, Life Balance, Work