Ep 98. How I Structure My Day: Stay At Home Mompreneur Schedule With 2 Toddlers

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Welcome to episode 98 of the Mom CEO Suite podcast.

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How I structure my day as a stay at home mom entrepreneur with two toddlers.

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Now, if you are a listener of the podcast, then you know I have done episodes like this previously, but I wanted to come in and talk about how I structure my day again because as you know, things change on a day to day basis.

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And so as we are going through this episode and as I am sharing these things, I just want you to keep in mind that when you create a daily rhythm or a daily schedule, whatever you decide to call it, just understand that it is going to continuously evolve.

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And it has done that in my home.

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And so I'm coming in and sharing how things look now.

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I think the first time I did this episode I only had one child and then I did another one when I had my son.

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And so life, you know, going from one to two children, that was definitely a transition.

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And so now that they're a little bit older, their needs have changed, the scheduling has changed and so I'm coming in to share pretty much how I am operating day to day with two toddlers.

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Hey friend.

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Welcome to the Mom CEO Suite podcast where faith, family and business come together.

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I'm your host, Felicia Pugh, Christian wife, mom of two and life and business system strategist for mom entrepreneurs.

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With over 10 years of experience working behind the scenes of businesses and ministries and as a work home mompreneur, I'm here to share my personal journey and practical strategies to help you design systems that bring peace to your work and home life.

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While many strive for balance, I believe it's harmony, an integrated flow that works for you that truly sustains.

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Together we'll explore how to grow your service based business in a way that is sustainable and keeps your family at the heart of it all.

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Plus hear real life stories and expertise from other mompreneurs who are walking the same path.

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Motherhood gets hard, entrepreneurship gets hard, but together we can do hard things.

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Welcome to the suite.

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Hey friend.

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Welcome to the episode.

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Thank you so much for being here.

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As I was prepping for this episode, I remembered this one particular day I was, this was when the kids were younger, so maybe some months ago because my son, he was still in the like in the bouncer chair and now he's walking.

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So this one particular day I was in the kitchen, I was washing dishes, my son has started whining a little bit and so with my foot I'm bouncing him in his bouncer.

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And then my daughter, she was in the living room doing something she wasn't supposed to do.

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And so I'm talking to her, trying to get her to stop doing that thing.

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So I'm verbally doing something, I'm physically washing the dishes, and I'm also physically soothing my son.

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And so in that moment, I chuckled a little bit because I felt like I was the image of what we see a lot of times on social media when it comes to mothers and how they are handling life with their children on a day to day basis.

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A lot of times it looks very chaotic, it looks very stressful.

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And yes, while some moments are like that, in that moment where I was, you know, trying to discipline my daughter, washing the dishes and soothing my son, it did not feel chaotic.

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It really just felt like me easing through the rhythm that I had created for my my day to day.

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And it felt more peaceful than it did chaotic.

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Even though there were things that might seem hectic, we were just kind of flowing through the day and this was or ahead become the norm.

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Right.

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And so a part of what made it feel peaceful though was because that I had this structure in place for my day.

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Again, I don't really go by routines.

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I like to call it a structure or a rhythm because it's more so like a flexible framework for your day instead of this rigid time bound situation where you are attempting to do things every hour, on the hour, at specific times.

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So again, I'm talking about structure, I'm talking about rhythm.

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And so what has helped me to kind of almost seamlessly, not 100% right, because things can sometimes go haywire, but what has helped me to kind of have this seamless integration between work and home life is having this structure and having this rhythm.

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So that's why I want to talk about this again today and I will probably talk about it again later on as my kids continue to grow and things change.

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Okay, now I know you might be thinking like, listen, I have tried to create a schedule, I have tried to create a routine and it just has not worked.

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Things just fall apart.

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And that can happen sometimes, right?

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And I don't want to minimize that for you.

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It can happen, things can fall apart, right?

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But I want you to again try to reframe the thinking around a routine and think of it more as this flexible framework.

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So if things do not happen at the specific time that they are supposed to happen, then there is not this huge disappointment or this feeling like things are not going the way that they are supposed to.

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And so we want to be flexible, we want to be adaptable but we have these, I'll call them, core components in our day and these core priorities of things that need to get done.

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And this is what the framework, this is what the structure provides, right?

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And so if you've tried to do the routine kind of based on time and it didn't work, I would encourage you to just try to have a flexible framework and create something that's more adaptable and something that is less rigid.

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Okay?

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And that's what we're going to talk about today.

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Now, maybe you are a person who's listening and you're like, I don't want to hear anything about structure.

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You know, I am more of a free flowing, go with the flow type of person.

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And you want freedom and you want flexibility.

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And listen, I totally get it, I understand it.

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Sometimes we don't want to be bound to structure.

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But I want to argue that having this structure actually creates more freedom for you because this helps you to get things done and both of your worlds, right?

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So you're able to do the work that you need to do, but you're also able to spend the time with your children and you're able to do that without the guilt, because you have the structure, because you have those boundaries in place.

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And so if you have young children, though, the flexibility is already going to be there because just by nature, toddlers are unpredictable and you are going to have to go with the flow.

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So if that is something you're desiring, if you have toddlers, then that's probably already a part of your daily life.

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You are already being flexible.

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But again, this structure piece really does support the freedom that you are seeking and you are desiring.

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Okay?

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So just keep that in mind as we go through the rest of this episode.

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Now I am going to get into literally how my day looks from morning to evening.

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But before I talk about it on a daily level, I really want to talk about how I structure my work starting from the month level.

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Okay?

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So in my business, the main things that I'm focused on right now are one done for you service.

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It's done with you and done for you, but primarily done for you one done for you service, the Harmony System, Sprint.

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And that is a one week intensive.

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If you want to hear more about it, there's a link in the show notes that you can get more information about it.

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But just for the context of this episode, I dedicate one week to completing this done for you work for clients.

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So I have given myself, based on my capacity, I say, okay, I can do two of these per month.

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Okay, so on a monthly basis, two of those weeks are dedicated or kind of blocked out for the Harmony System Sprint, and then the other two weeks are blocked off for podcast production.

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So I've talked about how I batch record and edit the podcast.

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Okay, so there is a week of me doing that and I also am starting to kind of have an admin day in my month where I'm not doing too much of anything else but just focusing on admin, focusing on my systems, focusing on getting things together behind the scenes.

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So that's what it looks like on a monthly basis.

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So two weeks of done for you client work, one week of admin, and then one week of podcast production.

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Okay, so that's monthly.

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And so now on a day to day basis, how does this fit in with me being home with my kids, my almost one year old and my three year old?

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Like I mentioned before, they're home with me all day.

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They don't go to daycare or school or anything like that.

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Okay, so my day starts typically around 6am that is now when my son is waking up.

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You know, I am attempting to be a 5am Girly.

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I'm just not there yet.

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I'm not there yet.

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But ideally the goal is for me to wake up at 5am so I can do my workout and I can read my bible before the kids get up.

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But I'm waking up with my son, he wakes me up at 6:00am now it's not always 6:00 on the dot that he wakes up.

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It's, you know, sometimes it's 6:15, sometimes it's 6:30, right?

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He gets up, I feed him, I read my Bible and then I'll get him dressed.

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Okay, I'll get him dressed.

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Once he's dressed, I put him in his little skip hop thing.

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He'll sit there since he's nice and fed and then I will get dressed, I'll take my shower, get dressed, all those things.

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Once I'm dressed, then I'll get my daughter up for the day.

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By this time it might be around 7 or 7:30, right?

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Depending on when my son actually woke up.

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So once she's up, I'll get her dressed for the day and then we'll go and have breakfast.

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Now this is where I'm gonna give you an example of being flexible.

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Because there have been a few days in the past, I'll just say this year where she was adamant about not getting dressed when she woke, when she woke up.

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And you know, some days I, you know, I have enough energy to kind of take on that battle with her.

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And some days I don't.

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So on the days that I don't, I'm saying, okay, we're not going to get dressed right now.

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Let's just go down and have breakfast and then I'll get her dressed after we have breakfast.

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Okay?

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So again, when we're creating this rhythm, it's not about, okay, things need to be done at this certain time.

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We're just getting things done.

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Okay, so after we have breakfast.

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By this time it usually is around 8:30, I will put my son down for his nap.

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Now this is the one thing that is consistent throughout the day because he is still young and he kind of operates off of wake windows.

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And so I just make sure that he's only awake for maybe two, two and a half hours and he'll take a nap.

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Sometimes it'll be three hours, but he woke up at six.

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So now he's going down at 8:30 for a nap.

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So 8:30 now it's just me and my daughter.

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Sometimes she'll want to read.

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Most of the times I am praying during this time and then I'll start doing some light work.

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ut I don't let him sleep past: 10:30

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ut I don't let him sleep past: 10:30

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f them are awake, it's around: 10:30

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Then this is really flex time.

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Like we can do whatever we want to do.

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In the summertime, sometimes we might go out.

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If it's hot, we'll go outside early in the morning so that it's not too hot for them.

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We might just do activities.

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My kids might be independently playing, which a lot of times they do in the morning.

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They do better with independent play in the morning than in the afternoons.

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And so I might take this time to kind of fit in some light work, like some emailing or engaging on social media or something like that.

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And then around: 11:30

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Now again, this will depend on what I have to do during my work block.

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r the day starts typically at: 12:30

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Now this is when both of them go down for the nap.

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call, and it's scheduled for: 12:30

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are down for their nap around: 12:15

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Or just like breathe and woosah before I do my, you know, my interview or my call or whatever.

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It's supposed to be okay.

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ing down for their nap around: 12:45

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Right.

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So everything is really flexible and it's really just kind of based on what's scheduled for the day.

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So basically after lunch they go down for their nap.

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This is my first work block.

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This is my first work window.

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And I am working on whatever I have planned, whatever is in my planner for the day.

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That is what I am starting to tackle now in terms of what I do day to day.

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Sometimes I do theme my days, but not always Sunday nights.

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I do always kind of look ahead to the week and map out what I'm going to do on each particular day.

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I'm getting into a kind of a rhythm where Mondays and Fridays, I try to keep it light.

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So I'm easing into and easing out of my week, which I have found has been really helpful for me in just increasing my productivity and not feeling just so much pressure to do so many things.

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And sometimes on Mondays, I like to think of that as my CEO day.

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So where I'm looking at metrics, I'm looking at numbers.

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And what I've also been doing is scheduling my emails a week in advance.

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I typically do that either on Wednesday or Thursday.

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And right now outside of that, I'm not doing too much more theming.

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I used to do more theming of my days, but I've, you know, cut back on that a little bit.

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And you know, Monday, I try to keep it as like a CEO day.

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Friday, I typically don't schedule anything for Friday unless it's like a podcast interview, because I want to keep my Fridays flexible.

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And I have this, like this whole list.

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I did a brain dump a few a few days ago and I have an entire list just of things that I want to do that I want to tackle.

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And I'm keeping Fridays open kind of to be my fun, flexible day so I can attack some of these things that I have been meaning to do for some time.

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And then also Fridays, you know, my husband, he sometimes gets home early and we want to do Family things.

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So I just keep that open.

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I don't keep my Fridays heavy.

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All right, so that's my first work block.

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My son, he'll wake up from his nap typically between 1:30 and 2:00.

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So I have maybe about an hour to 90 minutes of free time to do work.

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And then my daughter, she typically has a two hour nap.

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Now she is not, she's not always napping, but she's in her room.

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She might be reading her books or playing with her desk, but she's in her room for those two hours.

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And so I get that break.

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I get time to do a little bit of work.

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And so 2:30 is when again, they're both kind of up.

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After that I'm not doing too much work again for the rest of the day until the evening.

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Okay.

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When 2:30 comes again, this is like a flex time.

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So I might be doing some things with the kids or I might be prepping meals.

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Depending on the day, I tend to prep meals if I don't do it Sunday because sometimes Sunday is more family day and I don't feel like prepping.

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But Mondays and Wednesdays, from what I've been noticing, are days where I am prepping food more.

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So the afternoon I might be prepping for dinner or just prepping things for the week.

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And then we have dinner early here in my house.

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So we'll start eating dinner around 4:00 and 4:00 is when my son goes down for his last nap of the day.

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So while he's down, I and my daughter, we will have our dinner.

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And again, this is just time for us to kind of hang out.

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We're eating, I'll start cleaning up, the sun will wake up.

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And then once he wakes up, I don't let him sleep past 5:30 because again, he's going to go down for bed at 7:30.

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So between 5:30 and 7:30 I am, you know, cleaning up.

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I might be folding clothes that I washed earlier.

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This is really just family time.

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And so again, it's flexible.

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I might be doing things like planning for family things like deciding what we're going depending on the day, deciding what we're going to be eating, or planning a family outing.

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My larger family, like my siblings and my parents, we're having a family retreat in December.

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So I might be planning some things related to that.

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Yeah, and that's pretty much it.

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So around 7 o'clock I start winding the kids down so that both of them can be in bed by 7:30.

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And you know, we Have a nightly routine.

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First I'll put my son down, I'll get him changed, I'll put him down once he's in his crib.

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Then, you know, I'll go with my daughter to her room, get her changed, get her teeth brushed.

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And you know, depending on the day, again, we might take showers at night or we might take showers in the morning.

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So again, there's that flexibility component.

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And that is it.

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7:30, they are in bed and that is when I'm coming back down to my workspace to get work done for my second work block.

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until: 10:00

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I try to shut down by: 10:00

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So that gives me, you know, two, two and a half hours to get some work done.

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So in a given day, I might have three to four hours per day to get work done.

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Other things like handling the clothes, right, washing the clothes.

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I don't designate a specific day for washing clothes.

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The clothes are already sorted by color.

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And so whenever one of the sorters gets full, I'll just throw it in the machine.

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And so I'll throw it in the machine typically in the morning before we come downstairs for breakfast, so that by the time I go upstairs to put them down for their naps after lunch, then I am taking the clothes out of the machine, putting them in the dryer, and I might be folding them in the evening.

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You know, sometimes it might be more than that where I'm washing more than one load, but it's not like I am designating a day for washing clothes, which just helps to kind of minimize the overwhelm of the whole idea of laundry.

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Okay, so that's pretty much what the structure of my day looks like.

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And I think that once my son starts sleeping through the night a little bit more, I'm going to get to that space where I can wake up at 5am, get my workout, and then right now, my workout, it might happen at night or it'll just happen randomly through the day during one of those flex times.

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But I really, really want to get to a place where I'm doing it in the morning before, you know, before the kids get up and I can just get it out of the way.

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So, yeah, that's the structure of my day.

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I have two work blocks and a lot of the time is really just dedicated to the children.

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And there are learning components within the day.

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You know, we listen to music.

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There's, you know, lots of singing and dancing.

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My kids love music, they love singing.

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So there's Lots of that happening.

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And we minimize TV for the kids.

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So I try to go the entire week without putting the TV on for my daughter, unless there is something that is happening, which this is very, very rare.

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For example, at 4pm on some Mondays, me and my husband, we have our marriage counseling.

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And so my daughter, she's up during that time, so I will put the TV on for her just so she can not continuously interrupt us.

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So there are certain times where I'll just put the TV on just so we can get through something uninterrupted.

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But I usually do not schedule things for my business during times where she is awake just because I don't want to use the tv.

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As you know, I'm not going to get on that soapbox.

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But we try to minimize the TV in the house.

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If we do.

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If I do allow her to watch tv, it's for like max an hour a day.

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So on a weekly basis, she might watch two hours of TV a week, if that.

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Because there's some times where we can go a whole entire week and weekend without any tv.

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So yeah, that is what my day to day, what my month looks like.

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If you have any questions about that, feel free to shoot me a message over on Instagram.

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You know, if you need help creating your routine, let me know.

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I'll be happy to help you and I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.

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Thank you for listening to the Mom CEO Suite podcast.

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Leave a review on itunes and share with other moms in business like you.

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