As of almost exactly a year ago, I became self-employed. In theory, I work about 15 hours a week. Some weeks that is about right, others it's definitely far too low an estimate. And for the most part, this work takes place at home. Alongside this I have the usual housewife stuff to manage: laundry, planning, buying and preparing food, cleaning etc. Then the Mum stuff is there too of course: school runs, lunch boxes, homework, playdates... The '... ' is there because that list is kind of endless. You don't get to the end of a day and clock off being a Mum!
Multitasking becomes the norm: I send work emails and texts while standing at the school gates, or I catch up on work while I should just be relaxing and watching tv in the evening, or I supervise homework while I am cooking dinner, keeping an eye on my work Facebook account and preparing lunch boxes.
Many parents, Mums especially, deal with this all the time, every day. Multi-tasking is said to be something females are good at, but there is research out there, which suggests that multitasking endlessly is not remotely efficient and can end up damaging your mental health and causing huge stress. One of the reasons this applies especially to Mums is that many of their tasks are related to or witnessed by others, like the housework. I can see this - if I choose not to complete a work task, I can make allowances. If I don't get the laundry done, there will eventually be naked children and a cross husband.
This isn't meant to be a list of my busy-ness and a 'woe is me' post. But increasingly, it has become clear to me that I am coping, but not thriving, with all of this. I wouldn't say my mental health is suffering, but I can see that there has to be an easier way to get everything done. The biggest pressure comes from the fear that sets in when I worry that I have forgotten something. Perhaps I seem organised as I always have a list on me, but it is constantly being added to, not in a planned way, but as things occur to me, in a mild panic. I get home from dropping the kids to school, stand in the hall and know I have about 25 things to do. How do I decide what happens first? I end up stopping and starting each task and things take longer than they need to, which only adds to the sense of rush and pressure. It all gets done, but at what cost?
New year, time for a change. I didn't set out to make a big New Year's resolution about this. It has just been dawning on me that I wasn't organised at all in the lead up to Christmas, and it took me about 6 weeks from the end of August to get my head around my boys' schedule once they were back at school. A chat with my Mum on Saturday set a big alarm off in my head about how I am managing and, thankfully, showed me a clear path to fixing this.
I should at this point say that my Mum is amazing! She has developed a great teaching about the busy-ness of life and how to make it all work. It's really all about hats. Yes, hats.
How many hats do you wear? I worked out that I wear 12. I am a Mum, wife, Slimming World Consultant, friend, church member, housewife, person, daughter, sister, childminder etc, all the way to 12. Incidentally, if you have more than 12 hats, it might be time to rethink things as that's not really sustainable in terms of the burden of time and responsibility required of one person.
The next step was a pie chart to help me work out what chunk of my time needs to go to each hat. And then I took time to plan out my week, allocating the time I need to each hat over the week.
This might sound really over the top and silly. And as I am posting it here, it is a very diluted version of the full teaching as my Mum gives it, or even of the conversation we had. But, the main thing is that I have, genuinely, seen an immediate effect. Yesterday, I allocated from 3-5 to spend getting housey stuff ready for the whole back to school rush this morning. At 2:45 Matthew wanted some attention from me. Because I knew I had the time booked, instead of telling him I was busy and had loads to do, I said: 'We can do something together for 15 minutes, what do you want to do?' All he wanted was a chat! He showed me some of what he has made on his Christmas present - it's a kind of computer to teach kids how to do coding and programming - and chatted away. I understood about 3 out of every 10 words, but he was delighted with the attention. And, sadly, it highlighted that I have not been doing this, I have been missing opportunities to spend time with this boy, who will be a teenager before I know it and not looking for time with me in the same way.
This morning I got back from the school run and stood in the hall and had a plan ready to enact. I knew I had 2 hours to really attack the housework. I did so with purpose, gusto and loud music. What motivated me hugely is knowing that at 11, I would head out for me time - and I did. I could have done more housework, cause when is that ever actually finished? But I had planned to have time for me, the person, not the Mum, the consultant, the housewife, the anything, but just Sarah. I had a great walk, came home and had lunch, read and felt fantastic. This afternoon is Mum time and tomorrow is mostly Consultant time. And on Sunday I will need to make a new plan to be who I need to be at the right time throughout next week.
It's early days and this might not last. But so far, I am inspired! My list of jobs didn't get any smaller, but my turmoil shrank considerably and I am excited to start 2015 with a clearer sense of all my tasks and responsibilities. And I've always liked hats - maybe I could wear different one for each role? Or I might just stick with the one that my amazing friend Helen gave me. I have been told it looks a bit Downton on me. You know, maybe that's the actual solution: get servants.
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