Do you need an ultra-long to-do list to make sure you hit everything you’re supposed to get done in the day when you’re a mompreneur?
I mean, you’ve got kids, a house, cooking, the business…. That’s a lot of stuff, right?
Today I’m going to let you in on why you need to majorly shorten your personal to-do list by getting realistic about your roles as a business mom, releasing the pressure to get everything done around the house in a single day, and using limits as your ultimate essentialism gut check.
Let’s dive in.
Short is the realistic version for business moms
Look, let’s be real about this – you’re running a business – which is a whole thing on its own – AND you’ve got kids, and the house, and the husband, and whatever hall closets you might or might not want to organize out of spillover mode.
That’s a lot.
And we’re just being realistic about all the things you’ve got going on in your life by declaring that you can’t make time for 3 different cooking endeavors, a hall closet organization extravaganza, writing 10 launch emails, talking to 3 clients, recording a zillion podcasts, AND vacuuming the entire house.
Top to bottom.
Ain’t gonna happen.
So we’re going to honor the life choices you’ve made – the decision to start a family, enjoy your home, AND run a business to use your gifts and talents – and stop letting the full-time person’s view of each scope take over your life.
I’m sorry, but….
You’re not a full-time parent who’s got a housekeeper and a personal chef.
You’re not a full-time housekeeper with a nanny and an absentee husband.
You’re not a twenty-something business owner with a perfectly styled house with no kids and all the time in the world to devote to her business.
That’s not you.
And it’s not a bad thing (or even a goal you should be striving for).
Look – if you’re not a food blogger, don’t pressure yourself to make deliciously-plated recipes all day and always have a new goodie on hand for the kids.
If you aren’t running a cleaning service (in person or online), don’t spend all day trying to maintain your dust-free, white-glove-ready home at all times. (You’ve got kids!)
And if you aren’t a single or DINK businesswoman, stop thinking you need to be throwing 40 or 50 hours a week at your business or else it’s a failure.
It’s not.
You’re just juggling multiple roles, and she’s not.
And it’s absolutely, utterly unrealistic for you to expect 3 people’s worth of fulltime jobs out of yourself.
Got that?
Short is how you get everything done in a day
So here’s the tip: make sure your to-do list reflects your part-time status at each of these 3 jobs. (Or however many roles you’ve got in your life.)
I don’t want to see 2 food prep tasks + 3 deep cleaning chores + 1 parenting story time on top of a doctor’s appointment, the grocery run, a bunch of reels to record, a brand photo session, and moving forward 5 client projects.
Okay? Can’t be done. (Not and leave you with any sleep, that is.)
So skip the impossible super-business-woman-mom self-imposed expectations, and chop that to-do list right down to what you can actually get done in a day.
It’s about being ruthlessly realistic about how much you can get through and still have a good attitude.
Maybe you need a “mom day” where you do doctor’s appointments, run errands, and take your kids to the park. Fine. No work allowed.
Maybe you’ve set aside one day a week as your cleaning day, when you play housekeeper extraordinaire and food prep all kinds of things for the next week in between cleaning the floor. Great! But don’t put snuggle story time and the biz reels on that day as well – it’s already full.
Or perhaps you’ve compressed your work week into two 8-hour days every week, so you can focus on your kids and your home the rest of the time.
Wonderful! Work that 2-day schedule – but I don’t want to see a single cleaning or cooking task showing up on your list for the day. You’re here to knock out as much work as humanly possible, and you’ve got all the other days of the week to do that cleaning in.
You getting the picture here?
It’s not about stripping out the groceries and the park outings and the podcast sessions. It’s about being ruthlessly realistic about how much you can get through and still have a good attitude (and enough energy to make supper).
Short is the ultimate essentialism gut check
Here’s another neat thing about the short to-do list method: you can’t pad your day with fluff if you’re only allowed to put 3 things on there.
There’s no “well, it might be nice to organize the hall closet or straighten those pantry bins a little better” when you’ve got an empty fridge, hungry kids, and a Walmart pickup order waiting for you.
(And you know you’ve got 2 loads of laundry to fold once you get back – ‘cause you’re busy putting them in now.)
That organizing stuff was just a “nice to have”; it didn’t really have to get done *today*. (And if it ever does, it’ll go on the top of your to-do list. That day.)
But right now? You just need to close the washing machine door, press those buttons, and whisk your kids out of the house to get them some more food to eat.
After that you’ll think about the dryer, and the grocery unloading, and the clean clothes folding. But not now.
And definitely not about what you could be doing if you were at your laptop working on that sales page – because that isn’t today’s chore.
Today’s theme is home and family, and that means food and clean clothes.
Tomorrow you’ve got a biz day, and you’ll work up that sales page then.
It’s going to be great.
And it’ll be even sweeter, because you won’t have the laundry or the hungry kids distracting you every 30 minutes from the oh-so-on-point copy that’s flowing from your fingers.
This is why you can’t do everything at once – and you shouldn’t try to.
You’re a mom, not a machine.
Do you need to try themed weekdays for your to-do lists, to make sure you can hit all the house/kid/business tasks in a week (but not a day)?
Try it and see what happens.
I think you’ll like having only a 3-item to-do list when you get up tomorrow morning.
