99. 4 In-Home Systems That Create More Time, Energy, and Joy
Do you feel like you don’t have enough time or energy to build your business right now? It can feel like your days are already full, your mental load is maxed out, and there’s nothing left to give. If you’ve been telling yourself that you’ll focus on your goals when life calms down, this episode might shift how you see what’s actually possible.
In this episode, I walk you through how simple in-home systems can completely change your experience of your days. I share what I’ve implemented in my own life and with clients to start creating more time, energy, and joy, even in seasons that feel overwhelming. We’ll also talk about the hidden mistake many of us make when we feel stretched thin and why structure and support might be the missing piece.
If you’ve been waiting for more time or more energy to magically appear, this episode will help you start thinking differently. These small shifts can open up space you didn’t think existed and give you the capacity to move forward in your business and your life in a way that actually feels sustainable.
Ready for clarity and a simple action plan to get your business started? Schedule a free 1-hour consultation with me here!
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
The biggest mistake we make when we feel like we don’t have enough time and energy.
How simple in-home systems can reduce mental load and create more space.
Why structure at home directly impacts your ability to grow your business.
The role of communication and support in creating time and energy.
How to start identifying systems that work for your unique family dynamic.
Why waiting for more time is keeping you stuck.
The connection between personal energy and business momentum.
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Full Episode Transcript:
Hi, mom friends. This is episode 99 of the How to Quit Your Job podcast. And one of the biggest obstacles to starting a business and taking steps to build momentum, to really create the change we desperately desire, is not having enough time and energy. I've talked about it plenty of times on this podcast. Being a human on this planet is exhausting. Being a parent is especially exhausting. These littles definitely take more than they give, and it's really hard to find any sort of time and energy to focus consistently on building anything, whether that's an F1 Lego car, a piece of new furniture, or a new business.
But there's one thing that I see over and over again that many of my moms have at their disposal but aren't properly taking advantage of. And it may not seem business-related, but everything in our life is business-related because we are one human. So anything that impacts us, holds us back, gets us tired, gives us energy, also impacts the likelihood and success of the business.
Welcome to How to Quit Your Job, the podcast for moms ready to ditch the nine-to-five and build a life and business they love. I’m your host, Jenna Rykiel. Let’s go.
In today's episode, I'm going to share a few systems that I've adopted that help me to not only work on my business from an energized place, to feel that my cup is filled up, but also so that I have more time, energy, and joy throughout my days and weeks. Now, these aren't systems that magically appeared when I became a mom. These are systems that gradually developed over time, as my two boys, Adley, who is at the time of this recording three and some change, and I also have a 19-month-old, Jude, but these systems gradually developed over time as my two boys have gotten a little older and as dynamics have changed.
But there's an overarching goal and process that I'll share that works no matter how young your kids are. And these are systems that I want to talk about because initially, they seem unrelated to business, but I talk about them enough with clients that I want everyone to be privy to the conversation. So I'm going to talk about the biggest mistake we make when we're short on time and energy. I want to talk about some systems to help us create more time and energy, and joy in our life, of course. And I'm going to talk about some alternative options if it feels like the systems that I talk about are just out of reach for you right now, depending on your family dynamic in general. I know that there are so many different ways that we all family and the dynamics and the people involved. And so I'm going to give some alternative thoughts and options depending on whether you neatly fit into the buckets that I talk about in these systems or not. And by the end of this episode, I hope you feel like you have tools to create change and permission to engage with these tools and systems on a daily and weekly basis.
So let's start with one of the biggest mistakes. And this may sound simple. You might feel a little defensive when you first hear it, but I want you to hear it with an open mind and open heart. One of the biggest mistakes that we make when we're drowning in our current environment, work is draining, the kids are demanding, the mental load is overwhelming, this current environment that many of us are in, is that we don't create proper systems to engage help. It's not that we don't ask for help, although definitely some of us could ask for more help, 100%, and receive help, but it's not that we don't ask for help because many of us do. But oftentimes, even when we ask for help, we are less than thrilled by the outcome. Sometimes we might have high expectations for what our partner or maybe our parents can do, and they just don't cut it, or our job becomes even harder or more complicated because we've elicited some help.
But that's not exactly what I'm talking about here. And in fact, there are clearly ways that asking for help can go wrong. I don't want to put extra work on you in this whole asking for help piece, but there is a way that help can be communicated that can get us better outcomes, which is of course what we want, right? Because if we have more help and more support, we have more time and energy, 100%. The way I'm going to talk about it today actually makes it a lot easier to get a win-win out of asking for help. Because when we have a system for things, it takes the emotion out of it. It takes a lot of the discomfort or tension out of the conversation because there's a system to discuss and agree on and follow for you and your partner, or you and your in-laws, or you and your family versus the in-the-moment emotional outbursts that are a cry for help but that leave everyone feeling like they're doing a terrible job.
And maybe yours aren't emotional outbursts. Mine have usually been emotional outbursts that are a cry for help. That's always what used to happen with my husband and I. He's extremely helpful, but there were still enough moments that it felt like the emotional load and mental load was all on me, and tension would build and build. And then I'd find myself losing it over something so small, all because there were little and big moments over time that were weighing on me enough that I eventually cracked. What I want for me and for all of us is that we don't get to a point where we need to explode. And we don't get there because we've created systems along the way that bring people into our lives so that we have our moments of reprieve. And I know that our partners and our families, they are in our lives, but I want us to bring them into our lives in a really meaningful way and an intentional and purposeful way so that we have moments of reprieve.
We have our moments where we purposely seek out our own joys, not moments of joy that make us happy because our kids are happy, not moments of joy because the boys are playing together and it's oh so cute that mom and dad get a rest because the kids are playing together. But moments of joy that are just ours, just us moms, ones that we can be intentional about and that can help us fill up our cup so that we can pour more love and joy into those around us. I promise that creating systems in your household and being intentional about where you can gain back time and energy will have a positive ripple effect.
I'm going to share a few systems in my own household that clients have really loved. And most of this doesn't depend on whether you have a business or how far along you are in your business, or even if you want a business, okay? These are things that I would recommend for every family because a family that operates under routines and systems is calm and smooth. And without systems, honestly, it's pure chaos. And that chaos mostly falls on you. You absorb the chaos so that everyone else can function. So everything looks like it's functioning calmly most of the time, but it's really because you have to absorb the chaos. Most of the weight and mental load fall on you so that things don't get too out of control.
I'm going to share just a few systems, four systems that work for me and my partner and for clients that I've worked with and shared these with. Now, if you don't have an active partner, you're co-parenting with, if you're a single mom, or maybe you're a mom of four and your partner leaves for work before the kids wake up and gets back after they're already asleep during the week, like one of my clients, there are things in this episode for you. So even though some of these things are leaning on what works for me and my partner, there are things to learn and actions to take even if you don't have that same family dynamic. I want you to think about your own extended family and community dynamics and see what you can take from this episode that inspires you and what you want to leave because it doesn't align with your family. So it's kind of like a buffet where you take what works and you leave the rest. You take what's good and yummy and leave all the rest of it.
The underlying theme in what I'm talking about today is remembering that part of this process is learning how to use our voice to ask for what we need. And a layer even deeper than that, part of this is really being honest and figuring out what we need, because oftentimes we're just going with the flow. We're drowning a bit, and it doesn't even occur to us to ask for a life vest. We don't even know life vests exist or that there's someone standing on dry land right next to us that's able to help.
I'm going to talk about these things very personally, what works for my family initially, and then things for you to consider for your own family. The first thing that I take for granted because my husband and I have been doing it for so long, but that really is life-changing, and I see that every time I teach it to my clients, is to bring your partner in on your planning for the week. Now, I recommend everyone plan out their week before the week begins, and it's so powerful when we do that. And so if you're not doing that, I recommend first you starting to do that because that's such a powerful process, but it's even more important and powerful when we invite our partners into the fold. This planning includes everything from like pickup and drop-off to weekend plans to what's being made for dinner each night. If you can get all of those things on a visual calendar that you and your partner share, I promise it's life-changing.
Chris, my husband and I, we use a simple Google Calendar because you can have multiple calendars visible at once. So we have one calendar specific to family things, the stuff that both of us see, and then I have my own work calendar that has my weekly client sessions and all other administrative and life activities that I personally have planned for the week. I remember when I first taught this one to one of my clients and her life was forever changed. Her and her husband both helped with drop-off and pickup of their daughter. They both had some mornings that they had specific workout classes that they enjoyed. I think she's a spin instructor, and they had been approaching each day completely blind, just figuring it out in the morning or talking about it the night before. And sitting down and deciding it weekly before the week began was a game-changer. It relieved so much mental load throughout the week because it was predetermined who was doing what and when. They didn't have to talk about it. They went to bed knowing what their responsibilities were the next day. And of course, as things shifted, they were able to help out and help each other with the shifts.
Another client of mine, we had this conversation, and her and her partner had a scenario where he did morning duty because she started work earlier, and she did pickup duties. And after talking through some pain points and stressors within the current system, we figured out that it actually made more sense for her to help in the mornings to get everyone out the door earlier, so she could actually focus on work and not be interrupted. There are a ton of little tweaks that can happen within any given routine. So it's important that you're creating a schedule, you are finding consistency as much as possible, but it's also important that you investigate and figure out what pieces aren't working and need to be shifted so that you have more time and energy in the day.
When you have the whole week laid out in front of you, you can see more clearly where and how things need to be shifted. If you're in a partnership that aims to be 50/50 as much as possible, which is what Chris, my husband and I are, if you see it visually laid out, you can see where one partner is actually taking on more of the brunt work and easily shift duties to make it more even.
The next thing is, let's say system number two, it has to do with morning and evenings. This may be a given for some, but I've noticed that the start of the day and the end of the day bring a lot of stress because there's usually more collaboration and less powerful communication techniques. So a system in the evening may look like one partner who is cleaning the kitchen and dinner plates while another partner is doing baths and bedtime. It may look like alternating each night, so each partner gets good at duties with the kids for when the other person's out of town. A routine in the morning might look like one person getting the kids up and getting them ready and getting them dressed while the other person works out, and then alternating.
I know for Chris and I, we have recently created a system where on any given day, one of us gets the kids ready and takes Adley to school, and the other one is able to do whatever they want in the morning. So whether that's working out, starting work early, going to the gym, going for a walk, reading or taking notes or sleeping in, one person has the morning to themselves to really wake up slow and not have parenting responsibilities, while the other person takes the brunt of the work. And this alternates every day and it's on the calendar, so we always know who's doing what.
Similarly, in the evening, I remember when Adley, who is now three and some change, was just a baby. He was our first and we had terrible systems or non-existent systems. We both felt like we had to be there for every bedtime routine moment, for every bath and for all the books. And honestly, it felt like that's the only way we would survive. I remember reading somewhere a mom sharing that her life changed when they decided that one person could do bedtime and the other could clean the kitchen. And I remember thinking, “No way. We both have to be there for bedtime. We both have to be there for bath." But now I look back and I think that was obviously our choice, but it wasn't a choice that made our lives easier or saved us time and energy, which is okay that we wanted to be there for our firstborn for all the moments. But now we are very strategic about who is doing what when, so that it maximizes our energy, especially at the end of the day when we are so tired and exhausted from the day.
Because every night after bedtime routine, when Adley was younger, we'd then have to come down the stairs to clean the kitchen. And it was the worst. There's nothing better than putting the kids down for bedtime and then walking downstairs to a clean kitchen. It saves a lot of time and energy to not have to do both. But it becomes so much smoother and seamless when you have a system around it. And also that system can change, obviously. My husband and I have adjusted it so many times depending on what's working and the kids' ages and what they're doing.
And with any of these things, I want to emphasize that a conversation is so helpful. Communication is helpful, saying out loud what's working and what you want to continue, calling it out directly and saying it directly, not just assuming that your partner understands that there is a certain flow that needs to be followed without saying it. That is definitely a mistake that I've made, where I thought we had a system, but it was an unspoken system. And Chris did not know that we had a system.
So number one is planning out your week, all the things that have to do with the family, bringing your partner in on that plan, making sure they know their responsibilities throughout the week. System number two is really creating routines and systems around morning and evening. If you can find ways for you to take some of the load off of yourself in the mornings or evenings, it's amazing how much time and energy you will save.
System number three is all about creating time for you. So the third thing I'll talk about is something that my life was missing until recently, and it has definitely been a game-changer from my time, energy, and pure joy in life. This is something I wouldn't have told you I needed initially. I didn't know I needed it. And then once you have it, you kind of look back and you're like, oh my gosh, how did I live before this? And I don't even remember how Chris and I actually came up with it as a weekly system, but I'm pretty sure it happened because Adley stopped napping. And that took away a good chunk of time when he or I could do whatever we wanted, right? We had time for us. And now that treasured time was a hit or miss, it became so much more obvious how much we valued that time for ourselves once it was taken away, once Adley was no longer napping.
So almost naturally, but through a lot of tension and negative emotions, mostly towards Adley, we came up with a system that gave us back some of our own individual alone time. Not every weekend, but most weekends, one morning is family time. We do things like go on a hike, maybe we go to the zoo, maybe we play in the basement together, or go to a diner. And the other morning, we split. So we each get two hours to ourselves. We decide in advance who has which time and it's completely up to that person what they want to do with those two hours. The other person is happily watching the two boys at home or doing some sort of activity with them. And it has been such a game-changer. That's essentially why and how I started rock climbing at the gym just recently, about a month ago. And it's completely guilt-free because I know that both of us are getting our own individual alone time and we each have the freedom to choose what we're going to be doing with that time. So it's completely guilt-free for both of us. I can also choose if I want to go shopping or read or write or just hang out at a coffee shop.
It's permission to do whatever you want and it gives us so much energy. It's so nice to be able to turn off the parenting responsibility for two hours and just take advantage of your interests or things that you need to get done or just to hang out again without that responsibility. And maybe for you and your family, the weekend doesn't make sense, but this is the part of the larger conversation of creating systems around time that's dedicated for you. So it's not necessarily time for you to do work, it's time for you to fill up your cup and tap back into interests or hobbies that may have laid dormant for a while. It's also not something that you and your partner do together. You were individual humans prior to deciding to share your lives together, and this is an opportunity to do what you want to do without outside opinions. Not that I don't condone alone time with your partner, which I'll talk about in a second, but I want you to tap back into your own interests and identity outside of your family.
Just like some of the other suggestions, this is something that's so much smoother when it's communicated in advance and when we have a system around it. It's something each person can count on happening, that they are either taking the kids for two hours or they get to plan an exciting or boring kidless adventure for two hours. If you don't have a partner that this makes sense with, I want you to consider calling on a family member for two hours each week. You can pick a pretty painless two hours where there's no complicated routines that are involved and just have them take over your parenting responsibilities so you can go and do your own thing. It's so much easier to implement when we've decided there's a routine or system around it. Maybe it's every Sunday from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m., grandma comes over and you go and do your thing. Or maybe a family member or, you know, maybe there's a babysitter that will come over for those two hours and watch the kids. Maybe a high schooler in your neighborhood who can handle it.
I want you to take a second and think about what could work for you and your life. If there are things you want to be doing more of, if you want to be working out or writing or reading or hiking or climbing or a client just earlier today in our group coaching talked about aerial workouts that she tapped back into and were giving her so much life. So if there are things you want to be doing more of, but you're having trouble finding the time, that is a very important sign that a system in your weekly schedule would be worth looking into. A system that incorporates some of these things, a system that makes them a non-negotiable.
And if you have absolutely no help for this, like there's no other humans on Earth that could help you to get time, which I want you to be honest because there probably are some humans at your disposal, but I want you to pick a day and time during the week that you have childcare, maybe a daycare, school, or treat yourself to a couple hours of doing your own thing instead of working. So maybe it's an extended lunch break where you read or take a walk. Maybe it's leaving early on Friday to work out for an hour before picking up the kids. And if you're a stay-at-home mom, I definitely recommend taking advantage of at least two hours on the weekend that are just to yourself.
And again, if that's out of the question, which if all of these things are out of the question, I definitely recommend us connecting for a free consultation because we really need to investigate some of these things. We really need to make sure that you feel supported, and sometimes we have mental blocks to see where that support might be. I'll talk more about the free consultation at the end. But I want you to be intentional about things for you if you're a stay-at-home mom and you have no time that you can spend for yourself on the weekends, I want you to be intentional doing things for you during nap time. And my hope is that if your kids don't nap, they will soon be in school and you will soon get time back.
The bottom line of all of this is really to be honest with yourself and act on systems that give you energy back in your week. Have the conversations with your partner, with your family, with yourself and create the systems. The systems, again, they help to take some of the tension out of the conversations. They help both parties to act from a really proactive place instead of reactive and emotional, which sometimes doesn't go well.
The fourth system I want to talk about that my husband and I have adopted and that I just want to share because it's working so well is a system for any mom listening who works during the week and whose kids go to childcare of some sort, okay? So those are the two prerequisites. You do have to have childcare outside of the home at some point for this to work. Chris and I recently moved away from basically our entire family. We moved last August from Maryland to Colorado. The only family out here is my sister-in-law. She's Jude's nanny. So she's already super helpful to the family.
But even when we lived near all of the grandparents, we realized that going out on date nights was complicated. Chris and I aren't necessarily foodie people, and organizing childcare and prepping everybody about the bedtime routine and the feeling guilty about staying out late and wanting to come home earlier so that the person watching the kids could go home and get some rest. Like all of that was stressful. So we started to implement something we call day dates, which is basically that you do fun stuff and you go out on date-like activities during the day. And this is super genius and powerful for a few reasons.
When you go out on a date during the day, there is no childcare stress. The kids are already in their places, right? For us, Adley goes to preschool. Jude has my sister-in-law who is his nanny. At this point in time, he'll start school in a couple months. But you don't have to figure out who's watching the kids. You don't have to prep anybody for the routines. The kids just go to where they go when you're working. You drop them off, and instead of returning home or going to work or returning home to your computer, you go out and do something fun together. And it's so nice not to have to stress about that childcare portion.
The second reason that day dates are amazing is because you have so much more time and options to do things. We drop Adley off around 8:30 or 9 and we pick him up at 3, which is six hours of fun. Usually if you're going out to dinner, you can stretch it to six hours. But then you're paying extra for those six hours. And it also means that it's really late. And if you're anything like me and you like getting to bed by like 8:30 or 9:00 p.m., then the evening dates always bleed into the next day being tired and groggy. There's none of that with day dates, even if your date includes a margarita or two.
Most recently, Chris and I went to our most recent day date. We went to a coffee shop and enjoyed an amazing breakfast burrito from Silvia's in the Rhino area in Denver. We read our books at the coffee shop, and we went to Meow Wolf, the museum in Denver, and it was delightful. And our day date prior to that included a nice little hike in the mountains. We went out to lunch, and then we actually did a couples massage after that. You can fit so much in such little time.
The third reason that I'm just such an advocate of day dates and why they're so awesome, it feels like there's so many more things you can do. At night, depending on where you live, there are some shows and movies or nightly activities that you can go to. But during the day, there's so many more fun things. Some of the things that I just mentioned, of course, in our past day dates, but we've also gone golfing before and we've walked the mall when we were living in Maryland for visiting the museums. We've done a lot of things that are mostly off limits in the evening, but still we can include eating and great food by going out to lunch. I just love day dates because it's a guilt-free, low-maintenance way of getting alone time together.
Now, day date does require that you request time off work if you're working in a traditional role. Chris and I both own our own businesses, so being able to easily choose days and not worry about PTO running out is a benefit of entrepreneurship, of course, but I would also recommend considering this important enough to use a PTO day every now and then. Even if it's just once a quarter or twice a year. Going on a magical day date where you're able to talk and have fun and experience new things without paying extra for babysitters or childcare or relying on family is so life-giving.
So that's the four systems that I wanted to share, and each of them bring in new moments of joy and peace and calmness into your life. Again, the first system that we talked about was planning out your week and bringing your partner into that process. The second system is really having routines that divide and conquer responsibilities for morning and evening, two of the most stressful times of parenting. The third system is having a way for you to have pockets, at least two hours a week of alone time where you can choose anything that you want to do, anything that lights you up. And making sure also in all of this that depending on your relationship, your partner has that built in too. The fourth system is day dates with your partner. And I should say, if you do not have a partner that it would make sense to go on day dates with, go on day dates with your girlfriends. I haven't even considered that, but as I'm saying it now, I'm going to add that to my list because Chris is great company, but there is nothing better than going on a date with one of your besties.
So the bottom line of all of this is really to be honest with yourself and act on systems that give you energy back in your week. And not just acting on the systems, but really take time to create the systems. Have the conversations with the people who are involved and create those systems. As I said, if you're listening to this and thinking, this sounds great, but I don't even know where to start in my own life. I'm so overwhelmed. I don't have a lot of help. I don't have a lot of resources. I feel like I'm on my own. I want you to know you don't have to figure it out on your own. And I want to assure you that I've never met a mom who didn't have any possibility of systems that she could create to make her life easier in terms of giving her back more time and energy. We just have blind spots sometimes when we are in the habit of everything falling on us and so much responsibility.
So I offer free consultations where we can actually look at your life, we can look at your schedule, your family dynamic, and figure out what systems would support you specifically, okay? I know I gave a lot of hypotheticals. I gave in this episode what works for me and my partner. I gave a few options for if that wouldn't work for you. But this isn't about copying what I do or what works for me. It's about creating something that works for you. That's the most important piece. If you're trying to just do whatever works for Chris and I, it may just not fit into your life. It may not fit with your family dynamics. So it's always helpful to have those conversations and get support that's unique to what you need. So if that feels helpful, you can book a free call with me in the show notes. You can go to Jenna.Coach/99 to schedule a free consultation, or you can go to my website, Jenna.Coach, and there are plenty of links to schedule. The first one being in the upper right corner of the page.
It's easy to think that we need more time. We need to find more time and energy, or that we just are in a season of life where we don't have it. I regularly have moms that want to argue with me that they just don't have time and energy. They want to argue for their limitations. But I want to offer that it might just be that you need a new look on support and structure, and you may just need permission to do some of these things.
This episode is permission for you to start creating systems and structure in your life that support you being the best version of yourself. It might not be all of these things. It might just be a version of one, but whatever you can do to create some time for yourself is life-giving. And when you give yourself that, you don't just become a better mom, okay? You become a woman who has the energy and time to build the business and life that she actually wants. She can actually start taking small actions towards building that business, starting that business, and creating change towards the life she envisions. You don't have to have it all figured out, but you do need little pockets of time and energy to take each small step. Okay. I'll see you next week.
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. If you want to learn more about how I can help you stop making excuses and start making moves, head on over to www.jenna.coach. I’ll see you next week.
But there's one thing that I see over and over again that many of my moms have at their disposal but aren't properly taking advantage of. And it may not seem business-related, but everything in our life is business-related because we are one human. So anything that impacts us, holds us back, gets us tired, gives us energy, also impacts the likelihood and success of the business.
Welcome to How to Quit Your Job, the podcast for moms ready to ditch the nine-to-five and build a life and business they love. I’m your host, Jenna Rykiel. Let’s go.
In today's episode, I'm going to share a few systems that I've adopted that help me to not only work on my business from an energized place, to feel that my cup is filled up, but also so that I have more time, energy, and joy throughout my days and weeks. Now, these aren't systems that magically appeared when I became a mom. These are systems that gradually developed over time, as my two boys, Adley, who is at the time of this recording three and some change, and I also have a 19-month-old, Jude, but these systems gradually developed over time as my two boys have gotten a little older and as dynamics have changed.
But there's an overarching goal and process that I'll share that works no matter how young your kids are. And these are systems that I want to talk about because initially, they seem unrelated to business, but I talk about them enough with clients that I want everyone to be privy to the conversation. So I'm going to talk about the biggest mistake we make when we're short on time and energy. I want to talk about some systems to help us create more time and energy, and joy in our life, of course. And I'm going to talk about some alternative options if it feels like the systems that I talk about are just out of reach for you right now, depending on your family dynamic in general. I know that there are so many different ways that we all family and the dynamics and the people involved. And so I'm going to give some alternative thoughts and options depending on whether you neatly fit into the buckets that I talk about in these systems or not. And by the end of this episode, I hope you feel like you have tools to create change and permission to engage with these tools and systems on a daily and weekly basis.
So let's start with one of the biggest mistakes. And this may sound simple. You might feel a little defensive when you first hear it, but I want you to hear it with an open mind and open heart. One of the biggest mistakes that we make when we're drowning in our current environment, work is draining, the kids are demanding, the mental load is overwhelming, this current environment that many of us are in, is that we don't create proper systems to engage help. It's not that we don't ask for help, although definitely some of us could ask for more help, 100%, and receive help, but it's not that we don't ask for help because many of us do. But oftentimes, even when we ask for help, we are less than thrilled by the outcome. Sometimes we might have high expectations for what our partner or maybe our parents can do, and they just don't cut it, or our job becomes even harder or more complicated because we've elicited some help.
But that's not exactly what I'm talking about here. And in fact, there are clearly ways that asking for help can go wrong. I don't want to put extra work on you in this whole asking for help piece, but there is a way that help can be communicated that can get us better outcomes, which is of course what we want, right? Because if we have more help and more support, we have more time and energy, 100%. The way I'm going to talk about it today actually makes it a lot easier to get a win-win out of asking for help. Because when we have a system for things, it takes the emotion out of it. It takes a lot of the discomfort or tension out of the conversation because there's a system to discuss and agree on and follow for you and your partner, or you and your in-laws, or you and your family versus the in-the-moment emotional outbursts that are a cry for help but that leave everyone feeling like they're doing a terrible job.
And maybe yours aren't emotional outbursts. Mine have usually been emotional outbursts that are a cry for help. That's always what used to happen with my husband and I. He's extremely helpful, but there were still enough moments that it felt like the emotional load and mental load was all on me, and tension would build and build. And then I'd find myself losing it over something so small, all because there were little and big moments over time that were weighing on me enough that I eventually cracked. What I want for me and for all of us is that we don't get to a point where we need to explode. And we don't get there because we've created systems along the way that bring people into our lives so that we have our moments of reprieve. And I know that our partners and our families, they are in our lives, but I want us to bring them into our lives in a really meaningful way and an intentional and purposeful way so that we have moments of reprieve.
We have our moments where we purposely seek out our own joys, not moments of joy that make us happy because our kids are happy, not moments of joy because the boys are playing together and it's oh so cute that mom and dad get a rest because the kids are playing together. But moments of joy that are just ours, just us moms, ones that we can be intentional about and that can help us fill up our cup so that we can pour more love and joy into those around us. I promise that creating systems in your household and being intentional about where you can gain back time and energy will have a positive ripple effect.
I'm going to share a few systems in my own household that clients have really loved. And most of this doesn't depend on whether you have a business or how far along you are in your business, or even if you want a business, okay? These are things that I would recommend for every family because a family that operates under routines and systems is calm and smooth. And without systems, honestly, it's pure chaos. And that chaos mostly falls on you. You absorb the chaos so that everyone else can function. So everything looks like it's functioning calmly most of the time, but it's really because you have to absorb the chaos. Most of the weight and mental load fall on you so that things don't get too out of control.
I'm going to share just a few systems, four systems that work for me and my partner and for clients that I've worked with and shared these with. Now, if you don't have an active partner, you're co-parenting with, if you're a single mom, or maybe you're a mom of four and your partner leaves for work before the kids wake up and gets back after they're already asleep during the week, like one of my clients, there are things in this episode for you. So even though some of these things are leaning on what works for me and my partner, there are things to learn and actions to take even if you don't have that same family dynamic. I want you to think about your own extended family and community dynamics and see what you can take from this episode that inspires you and what you want to leave because it doesn't align with your family. So it's kind of like a buffet where you take what works and you leave the rest. You take what's good and yummy and leave all the rest of it.
The underlying theme in what I'm talking about today is remembering that part of this process is learning how to use our voice to ask for what we need. And a layer even deeper than that, part of this is really being honest and figuring out what we need, because oftentimes we're just going with the flow. We're drowning a bit, and it doesn't even occur to us to ask for a life vest. We don't even know life vests exist or that there's someone standing on dry land right next to us that's able to help.
I'm going to talk about these things very personally, what works for my family initially, and then things for you to consider for your own family. The first thing that I take for granted because my husband and I have been doing it for so long, but that really is life-changing, and I see that every time I teach it to my clients, is to bring your partner in on your planning for the week. Now, I recommend everyone plan out their week before the week begins, and it's so powerful when we do that. And so if you're not doing that, I recommend first you starting to do that because that's such a powerful process, but it's even more important and powerful when we invite our partners into the fold. This planning includes everything from like pickup and drop-off to weekend plans to what's being made for dinner each night. If you can get all of those things on a visual calendar that you and your partner share, I promise it's life-changing.
Chris, my husband and I, we use a simple Google Calendar because you can have multiple calendars visible at once. So we have one calendar specific to family things, the stuff that both of us see, and then I have my own work calendar that has my weekly client sessions and all other administrative and life activities that I personally have planned for the week. I remember when I first taught this one to one of my clients and her life was forever changed. Her and her husband both helped with drop-off and pickup of their daughter. They both had some mornings that they had specific workout classes that they enjoyed. I think she's a spin instructor, and they had been approaching each day completely blind, just figuring it out in the morning or talking about it the night before. And sitting down and deciding it weekly before the week began was a game-changer. It relieved so much mental load throughout the week because it was predetermined who was doing what and when. They didn't have to talk about it. They went to bed knowing what their responsibilities were the next day. And of course, as things shifted, they were able to help out and help each other with the shifts.
Another client of mine, we had this conversation, and her and her partner had a scenario where he did morning duty because she started work earlier, and she did pickup duties. And after talking through some pain points and stressors within the current system, we figured out that it actually made more sense for her to help in the mornings to get everyone out the door earlier, so she could actually focus on work and not be interrupted. There are a ton of little tweaks that can happen within any given routine. So it's important that you're creating a schedule, you are finding consistency as much as possible, but it's also important that you investigate and figure out what pieces aren't working and need to be shifted so that you have more time and energy in the day.
When you have the whole week laid out in front of you, you can see more clearly where and how things need to be shifted. If you're in a partnership that aims to be 50/50 as much as possible, which is what Chris, my husband and I are, if you see it visually laid out, you can see where one partner is actually taking on more of the brunt work and easily shift duties to make it more even.
The next thing is, let's say system number two, it has to do with morning and evenings. This may be a given for some, but I've noticed that the start of the day and the end of the day bring a lot of stress because there's usually more collaboration and less powerful communication techniques. So a system in the evening may look like one partner who is cleaning the kitchen and dinner plates while another partner is doing baths and bedtime. It may look like alternating each night, so each partner gets good at duties with the kids for when the other person's out of town. A routine in the morning might look like one person getting the kids up and getting them ready and getting them dressed while the other person works out, and then alternating.
I know for Chris and I, we have recently created a system where on any given day, one of us gets the kids ready and takes Adley to school, and the other one is able to do whatever they want in the morning. So whether that's working out, starting work early, going to the gym, going for a walk, reading or taking notes or sleeping in, one person has the morning to themselves to really wake up slow and not have parenting responsibilities, while the other person takes the brunt of the work. And this alternates every day and it's on the calendar, so we always know who's doing what.
Similarly, in the evening, I remember when Adley, who is now three and some change, was just a baby. He was our first and we had terrible systems or non-existent systems. We both felt like we had to be there for every bedtime routine moment, for every bath and for all the books. And honestly, it felt like that's the only way we would survive. I remember reading somewhere a mom sharing that her life changed when they decided that one person could do bedtime and the other could clean the kitchen. And I remember thinking, “No way. We both have to be there for bedtime. We both have to be there for bath." But now I look back and I think that was obviously our choice, but it wasn't a choice that made our lives easier or saved us time and energy, which is okay that we wanted to be there for our firstborn for all the moments. But now we are very strategic about who is doing what when, so that it maximizes our energy, especially at the end of the day when we are so tired and exhausted from the day.
Because every night after bedtime routine, when Adley was younger, we'd then have to come down the stairs to clean the kitchen. And it was the worst. There's nothing better than putting the kids down for bedtime and then walking downstairs to a clean kitchen. It saves a lot of time and energy to not have to do both. But it becomes so much smoother and seamless when you have a system around it. And also that system can change, obviously. My husband and I have adjusted it so many times depending on what's working and the kids' ages and what they're doing.
And with any of these things, I want to emphasize that a conversation is so helpful. Communication is helpful, saying out loud what's working and what you want to continue, calling it out directly and saying it directly, not just assuming that your partner understands that there is a certain flow that needs to be followed without saying it. That is definitely a mistake that I've made, where I thought we had a system, but it was an unspoken system. And Chris did not know that we had a system.
So number one is planning out your week, all the things that have to do with the family, bringing your partner in on that plan, making sure they know their responsibilities throughout the week. System number two is really creating routines and systems around morning and evening. If you can find ways for you to take some of the load off of yourself in the mornings or evenings, it's amazing how much time and energy you will save.
System number three is all about creating time for you. So the third thing I'll talk about is something that my life was missing until recently, and it has definitely been a game-changer from my time, energy, and pure joy in life. This is something I wouldn't have told you I needed initially. I didn't know I needed it. And then once you have it, you kind of look back and you're like, oh my gosh, how did I live before this? And I don't even remember how Chris and I actually came up with it as a weekly system, but I'm pretty sure it happened because Adley stopped napping. And that took away a good chunk of time when he or I could do whatever we wanted, right? We had time for us. And now that treasured time was a hit or miss, it became so much more obvious how much we valued that time for ourselves once it was taken away, once Adley was no longer napping.
So almost naturally, but through a lot of tension and negative emotions, mostly towards Adley, we came up with a system that gave us back some of our own individual alone time. Not every weekend, but most weekends, one morning is family time. We do things like go on a hike, maybe we go to the zoo, maybe we play in the basement together, or go to a diner. And the other morning, we split. So we each get two hours to ourselves. We decide in advance who has which time and it's completely up to that person what they want to do with those two hours. The other person is happily watching the two boys at home or doing some sort of activity with them. And it has been such a game-changer. That's essentially why and how I started rock climbing at the gym just recently, about a month ago. And it's completely guilt-free because I know that both of us are getting our own individual alone time and we each have the freedom to choose what we're going to be doing with that time. So it's completely guilt-free for both of us. I can also choose if I want to go shopping or read or write or just hang out at a coffee shop.
It's permission to do whatever you want and it gives us so much energy. It's so nice to be able to turn off the parenting responsibility for two hours and just take advantage of your interests or things that you need to get done or just to hang out again without that responsibility. And maybe for you and your family, the weekend doesn't make sense, but this is the part of the larger conversation of creating systems around time that's dedicated for you. So it's not necessarily time for you to do work, it's time for you to fill up your cup and tap back into interests or hobbies that may have laid dormant for a while. It's also not something that you and your partner do together. You were individual humans prior to deciding to share your lives together, and this is an opportunity to do what you want to do without outside opinions. Not that I don't condone alone time with your partner, which I'll talk about in a second, but I want you to tap back into your own interests and identity outside of your family.
Just like some of the other suggestions, this is something that's so much smoother when it's communicated in advance and when we have a system around it. It's something each person can count on happening, that they are either taking the kids for two hours or they get to plan an exciting or boring kidless adventure for two hours. If you don't have a partner that this makes sense with, I want you to consider calling on a family member for two hours each week. You can pick a pretty painless two hours where there's no complicated routines that are involved and just have them take over your parenting responsibilities so you can go and do your own thing. It's so much easier to implement when we've decided there's a routine or system around it. Maybe it's every Sunday from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m., grandma comes over and you go and do your thing. Or maybe a family member or, you know, maybe there's a babysitter that will come over for those two hours and watch the kids. Maybe a high schooler in your neighborhood who can handle it.
I want you to take a second and think about what could work for you and your life. If there are things you want to be doing more of, if you want to be working out or writing or reading or hiking or climbing or a client just earlier today in our group coaching talked about aerial workouts that she tapped back into and were giving her so much life. So if there are things you want to be doing more of, but you're having trouble finding the time, that is a very important sign that a system in your weekly schedule would be worth looking into. A system that incorporates some of these things, a system that makes them a non-negotiable.
And if you have absolutely no help for this, like there's no other humans on Earth that could help you to get time, which I want you to be honest because there probably are some humans at your disposal, but I want you to pick a day and time during the week that you have childcare, maybe a daycare, school, or treat yourself to a couple hours of doing your own thing instead of working. So maybe it's an extended lunch break where you read or take a walk. Maybe it's leaving early on Friday to work out for an hour before picking up the kids. And if you're a stay-at-home mom, I definitely recommend taking advantage of at least two hours on the weekend that are just to yourself.
And again, if that's out of the question, which if all of these things are out of the question, I definitely recommend us connecting for a free consultation because we really need to investigate some of these things. We really need to make sure that you feel supported, and sometimes we have mental blocks to see where that support might be. I'll talk more about the free consultation at the end. But I want you to be intentional about things for you if you're a stay-at-home mom and you have no time that you can spend for yourself on the weekends, I want you to be intentional doing things for you during nap time. And my hope is that if your kids don't nap, they will soon be in school and you will soon get time back.
The bottom line of all of this is really to be honest with yourself and act on systems that give you energy back in your week. Have the conversations with your partner, with your family, with yourself and create the systems. The systems, again, they help to take some of the tension out of the conversations. They help both parties to act from a really proactive place instead of reactive and emotional, which sometimes doesn't go well.
The fourth system I want to talk about that my husband and I have adopted and that I just want to share because it's working so well is a system for any mom listening who works during the week and whose kids go to childcare of some sort, okay? So those are the two prerequisites. You do have to have childcare outside of the home at some point for this to work. Chris and I recently moved away from basically our entire family. We moved last August from Maryland to Colorado. The only family out here is my sister-in-law. She's Jude's nanny. So she's already super helpful to the family.
But even when we lived near all of the grandparents, we realized that going out on date nights was complicated. Chris and I aren't necessarily foodie people, and organizing childcare and prepping everybody about the bedtime routine and the feeling guilty about staying out late and wanting to come home earlier so that the person watching the kids could go home and get some rest. Like all of that was stressful. So we started to implement something we call day dates, which is basically that you do fun stuff and you go out on date-like activities during the day. And this is super genius and powerful for a few reasons.
When you go out on a date during the day, there is no childcare stress. The kids are already in their places, right? For us, Adley goes to preschool. Jude has my sister-in-law who is his nanny. At this point in time, he'll start school in a couple months. But you don't have to figure out who's watching the kids. You don't have to prep anybody for the routines. The kids just go to where they go when you're working. You drop them off, and instead of returning home or going to work or returning home to your computer, you go out and do something fun together. And it's so nice not to have to stress about that childcare portion.
The second reason that day dates are amazing is because you have so much more time and options to do things. We drop Adley off around 8:30 or 9 and we pick him up at 3, which is six hours of fun. Usually if you're going out to dinner, you can stretch it to six hours. But then you're paying extra for those six hours. And it also means that it's really late. And if you're anything like me and you like getting to bed by like 8:30 or 9:00 p.m., then the evening dates always bleed into the next day being tired and groggy. There's none of that with day dates, even if your date includes a margarita or two.
Most recently, Chris and I went to our most recent day date. We went to a coffee shop and enjoyed an amazing breakfast burrito from Silvia's in the Rhino area in Denver. We read our books at the coffee shop, and we went to Meow Wolf, the museum in Denver, and it was delightful. And our day date prior to that included a nice little hike in the mountains. We went out to lunch, and then we actually did a couples massage after that. You can fit so much in such little time.
The third reason that I'm just such an advocate of day dates and why they're so awesome, it feels like there's so many more things you can do. At night, depending on where you live, there are some shows and movies or nightly activities that you can go to. But during the day, there's so many more fun things. Some of the things that I just mentioned, of course, in our past day dates, but we've also gone golfing before and we've walked the mall when we were living in Maryland for visiting the museums. We've done a lot of things that are mostly off limits in the evening, but still we can include eating and great food by going out to lunch. I just love day dates because it's a guilt-free, low-maintenance way of getting alone time together.
Now, day date does require that you request time off work if you're working in a traditional role. Chris and I both own our own businesses, so being able to easily choose days and not worry about PTO running out is a benefit of entrepreneurship, of course, but I would also recommend considering this important enough to use a PTO day every now and then. Even if it's just once a quarter or twice a year. Going on a magical day date where you're able to talk and have fun and experience new things without paying extra for babysitters or childcare or relying on family is so life-giving.
So that's the four systems that I wanted to share, and each of them bring in new moments of joy and peace and calmness into your life. Again, the first system that we talked about was planning out your week and bringing your partner into that process. The second system is really having routines that divide and conquer responsibilities for morning and evening, two of the most stressful times of parenting. The third system is having a way for you to have pockets, at least two hours a week of alone time where you can choose anything that you want to do, anything that lights you up. And making sure also in all of this that depending on your relationship, your partner has that built in too. The fourth system is day dates with your partner. And I should say, if you do not have a partner that it would make sense to go on day dates with, go on day dates with your girlfriends. I haven't even considered that, but as I'm saying it now, I'm going to add that to my list because Chris is great company, but there is nothing better than going on a date with one of your besties.
So the bottom line of all of this is really to be honest with yourself and act on systems that give you energy back in your week. And not just acting on the systems, but really take time to create the systems. Have the conversations with the people who are involved and create those systems. As I said, if you're listening to this and thinking, this sounds great, but I don't even know where to start in my own life. I'm so overwhelmed. I don't have a lot of help. I don't have a lot of resources. I feel like I'm on my own. I want you to know you don't have to figure it out on your own. And I want to assure you that I've never met a mom who didn't have any possibility of systems that she could create to make her life easier in terms of giving her back more time and energy. We just have blind spots sometimes when we are in the habit of everything falling on us and so much responsibility.
So I offer free consultations where we can actually look at your life, we can look at your schedule, your family dynamic, and figure out what systems would support you specifically, okay? I know I gave a lot of hypotheticals. I gave in this episode what works for me and my partner. I gave a few options for if that wouldn't work for you. But this isn't about copying what I do or what works for me. It's about creating something that works for you. That's the most important piece. If you're trying to just do whatever works for Chris and I, it may just not fit into your life. It may not fit with your family dynamics. So it's always helpful to have those conversations and get support that's unique to what you need. So if that feels helpful, you can book a free call with me in the show notes. You can go to Jenna.Coach/99 to schedule a free consultation, or you can go to my website, Jenna.Coach, and there are plenty of links to schedule. The first one being in the upper right corner of the page.
It's easy to think that we need more time. We need to find more time and energy, or that we just are in a season of life where we don't have it. I regularly have moms that want to argue with me that they just don't have time and energy. They want to argue for their limitations. But I want to offer that it might just be that you need a new look on support and structure, and you may just need permission to do some of these things.
This episode is permission for you to start creating systems and structure in your life that support you being the best version of yourself. It might not be all of these things. It might just be a version of one, but whatever you can do to create some time for yourself is life-giving. And when you give yourself that, you don't just become a better mom, okay? You become a woman who has the energy and time to build the business and life that she actually wants. She can actually start taking small actions towards building that business, starting that business, and creating change towards the life she envisions. You don't have to have it all figured out, but you do need little pockets of time and energy to take each small step. Okay. I'll see you next week.
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. If you want to learn more about how I can help you stop making excuses and start making moves, head on over to www.jenna.coach. I’ll see you next week.
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