Cara Harvey 00:00:03 Welcome to the Purpose Driven Moms show here at A Purpose Driven Mom, we believe that it’s possible to manage your home, work on your personal goals, and grow and scale an online business. Most productivity tips out there tell you to hustle more and make you feel shame about not being motivated enough. And we’re here to dispel this myth. I’m Kara Harvey and I am on a mission to help work at home. Moms realize that they have the power to go after their dreams, take care of themselves, and manage their home without perfectionism, guilt, or having to sacrifice their sleep. If you’re ready to shift your thinking around productivity and get some practical tips to help you manage your mom life. Toss your earbuds in while you fold the laundry. And let’s do this. All right, I think I’m live in all the places I’m live over on Instagram. Hi, Instagram. How are you? I’m live in our free Facebook group. Hello everybody. And I’m also going to be reading this on the podcast and our YouTube channel.

Cara Harvey 00:00:55 So if you don’t know, Purpose Driven Mom has a YouTube channel where you can watch all the videos, things that I talk about. You can also make sure you comment and it’s very visual sometimes what I teach. So come search us on YouTube and then also just plug I’m trying to be over on TikTok. So come hang on TikTok today I want to talk about a topic that came up on last Thursday’s workshop I did, which was on holiday planning, and it was about the difference between tasks, goals and habits. And I want to speak today on the fact that your tasks are not your goals, and it can be kind of confusing. So I’m going to do my best to break it down for you if you have questions again, hey, Instagram Live there or over here on Facebook, hello, feel free to drop them. Or if you’re listening on the podcast show notes will be at a Purpose Driven mom.com/podcast for 33. When this episode airs over in November, we always kind of like to put them on the podcast because we know not everyone is everywhere.

Cara Harvey 00:01:45 Let’s talk about it. This can feel really confusing sometimes when we’re planning out our goals, but one of the things that happened was I was helping the moms and we were planning out our holiday tasks versus our goals, and I wanted to remind them that the tasks that you do day to day, right? Like I had to make a doctor’s appointment for my daughter this morning. I the other day had just finished hemming and sewing my son’s Halloween costume. I had to actually go and order some birthday gifts on Amazon. Those are my tasks. Those are not my goals. And it’s a very nuanced shift, but it’s a shift that I think can change our mindset around things, because so often as moms, we associate our tasks with our goals, which makes us think that when we’re working on our tasks or moving forward on our goals, but we’re not, what we’re doing is we’re completing our tasks. So yes, is one of my goals in my week to complete my tasks. My we call them the thought catcher.

Cara Harvey 00:02:42 My tiny things that I have to get done. Yeah, I mean, I need to get those things done. I need to make sure I send in the dollar for the paw print party my daughter has at school on Friday. Right. I need to make sure that I bought my Halloween candy. I need to make sure that I made those appointments, but that’s not the goals that I want to think about anymore. Those are the goals in my home CEO job, and I want you to start thinking about you as a person in multiple facets, because you are not just mom, right? I consider myself my home CEO. My husband and I were co-CEOs. We weren’t for a bit, but now we’re getting better at it, right? So as a home CEO, I have tasks that I need to complete, and I like to look at my home CEO as my job. That’s my job. I got to get it done. I got to get those things completed. My goals are the things I work on as Kara, okay.

Cara Harvey 00:03:32 Those are the things that are important to me. These are the things that are personal for myself and I also often will share. Like my personal goals are also not my home goals. I want to work on a cleaning routine and a habit, but well, that’s a habit. And we’ll talk about habits like. Third, it’s not so much my goal. So let’s talk about tasks. What tasks are and are not in the way that I teach it. And then let’s talk about goals. And I want us to then think about how we can approach life on our day differently. If we split our time into time on our goals and time on our tasks. All right. So if you have questions again, if you’re alive, just drop them. What are tasks? Tasks are the things that I do that are not connected specifically to my goals. So here is where I think people are going to confuse out the workshop. And we had a lot of questions planning out the holiday season, planning my holidays, getting those things done.

Cara Harvey 00:04:28 That is a goal of mine. I would like to complete the planning. Any time I’m thinking about planning, I’m thinking about. That’s a goal. I want to plan out what I’m doing, the actual things that I’m doing for the holidays, the gifts I have to buy, the cards I have to write, the cookies I have to make. Those are not my goals. Those become my tasks. Because really getting my holiday cookies made is not moving me forward in any way of my life. Right? What it’s doing is it’s checking boxes off my day to day. So this is kind of how you can filter. It’s checking boxes off my day to day. It’s making me feel like less stressed because I’m getting things off my plate. But my goals are things that move my life forward, or help my life feel more joyful, or help me progress in any sort of way as an individual and as a person. Buying holiday gifts, that’s not that, but it’s still a task I have to complete.

Cara Harvey 00:05:22 And this is where I think we struggle as moms. I think most of us are planning our weeks and we’re just trying to get our tasks done. Is that you? Let me know in the comments. Like, are you just doing your best to complete your tasks? We still have to get the tasks done, but I don’t want you to think as the of the tasks as your priority. Because here’s the thing that I know about you. I know about me. I know about most moms. If it’s got to get done, if I need to go get my kid. The soccer cleats for soccer. My son yesterday, he plays football. Somebody took him to football for me because I was at another activity. They came home. They’re like, he couldn’t find his mouthpiece. I don’t know where it is. I need to go buy my son a mouthpiece before practice tomorrow. Right. That’s a task. I’m going to do it no matter what. Going to target to get a mouthpiece is not anything that’s going to move me forward in any sort of way, but I’m going to get it done no matter what.

Cara Harvey 00:06:07 But if I’m only looking at how I’m completing my tasks, I’m never going to move forward on my goals. So what are our goals? Our goals are those things exactly for me, my goals could include habits, and I think sometimes when I talk about habits, we can get a little confused. Again, let me say this too. There’s no black or white. There’s no right or wrong. This is just the way I look at it and the way that I, as a busy mom of three who is running a business, is able to do my best, not perfect, do my best to show up in a way that helps me run grow this business that I’m doing right now, make money for my family, work on my own personal goals and things that are important to me and get my tasks done. I don’t do it perfectly. I had three things on my list yesterday that didn’t get done. I will never complete it all, but I do my best to move forward. Okay, so your goals, what are the things that you do for you? I’m gonna say quiet for a second.

Cara Harvey 00:06:59 Do you have anything? Are you working on anything that is outside of work? And we’ll talk about work next. But outside of work and outside of your tasks in the way that I describe tasks, do you have any goals? I don’t know, and a lot of moms I work with are like, I don’t. A lot of moms I work with, what they’re actually doing is they’re coming to me with help for their tasks, and I need to help. I learned that I have to help them manage their tasks first before they can even think about their goals. But I want you to look at it this way. Pick some goals for you. I want to chat with you now, and invite you to grab one of my top free resources that have been downloaded almost 4000 times, and this is my ultimate weekly planning checklist. If you are ready to go into your week feeling less frazzled and more in control, this checklist is for you. It’s going to help you set up your week, save time running around, and plan out all the time you need for you, your goals, your family, your business, the whole thing.

Cara Harvey 00:07:53 It’s the exact same checklist that we use in the Purpose Driven Mom Club every Sunday, and not only do I give you the checklist of what to follow to plan your week, but I will give you a Trello board if you want to use Trello with it. Absolutely free with a video tutorial, it is going to take you less than 30 minutes a week to plan the week and save you hours. If you want to go and snag this checklist, you can go to a purpose driven romcom slash podcast checklist and it will be there absolutely free for you. Again, go to a purpose driven romcom checklist and get your copy. So goals that I have that are not tasks right are exercise. I’m 40. I want to build some muscle. I you know I want to be healthy for my grandkids one day. I want to live a nice long life. I saw this thing on social media somewhere and it said, like the life we have in our like 70s and 80s, if we, you know, if we make it that far, which is as I hit 40, I feel not that I’m like in this like, oh my gosh, morbid state of mind, but I definitely feel like I’m thinking more about things like, quote, retirement age.

Cara Harvey 00:08:52 My dad just retired. So it’s like top of mind for me thinking about what my body is going to be like, like this body at 40 is not that body at 20. Right. And so it’s like what am I doing. So anyway it was like the body and the life you have in your 70s and your 80s is created in your 20s, 30s and 40s. And I was like, oh shoot. Right. So I need some muscle. I need muscle because moms, women like, we lose muscle mass. And that’s part of why our bodies hurt and it struggles to lose weight, all the things. So anyway, my exercise, I work out 4 to 5 days a week, lift weights. It feels good, I enjoy it. That is a goal that I have, okay, other goals that I have is I like to read one personal growth book a month, and I do this in the morning, so I have a habit around this. In the mornings. I read my book, so it’s a habit inside of my goal.

Cara Harvey 00:09:36 Again, let’s not think about what type of goal it is so we don’t get confused. But the goal is that I read one personal growth book a month, whether it’s audio or in real in a real physical book. Cool. Okay, that’s a goal. That’s something I do. For me, that’s not a task, right? That’s a goal. Other personal goals that I have right now that I’m working on some craft stuff for fun. Do you have fun goals? Do you have a hobby? You can have a hobby. Did you know that you can have a hobby? You can do things. I’ve done a lot of analysis of the crafting for me. I keep trying to make everything happen. I like to latch hook. It’s rewarding. It slows me down, I enjoy it. Working on my latch hook. That’s a goal I have for me now. I also have some goals for my home that are goals and not tasks. Okay, so this is where I want you to lean in and listen to the nuance difference okay a goal.

Cara Harvey 00:10:22 So those are my personal goals. So I want you to write down what are your personal goals. Those are my personal goals. Now I also have some home goals. But I always like to distinguish because again, my home goals are not my personal goals. I want you to have a goal for you. If I could go to every mom I see and be like, what do you do for you? Right? You need to have something for you. We’re reading the book Fair Play by everybody right now in the book club, in my membership, and I just was reading this chapter about having, I think she calls it like unicorn time. Something you do that lights you up. And then she was saying, most some people have it where it’s their job, like they would do it even if they won the lottery. That I would do this, I would do this even if I didn’t need to. I adore it, right? But I also try to find unicorn time for me outside of that, because I don’t want to start to put my identity in my job, right.

Cara Harvey 00:11:05 So I also do these things that fuel me up. I want to tell every mom like, you need something for you, even if it’s 15 minutes a day, you deserve that, right? So going ahead and picking that. But I also have home goals, okay, so clean it. Home goals are things that I do that I want to do for my home. This is for most people. I work with a decluttering goal, right? Like you want to declutter something. You have a home Reno project, financial goals. Those could be I consider those personal, but they could be in home either. Okay, so those are goals. So decluttering itself is a goal and not a task because it’s moving me towards something I want to accomplish. I want to accomplish decluttering my office. So doing it in 15 minute chunks, getting it done. That’s a goal. Okay. My tasks are those things that I just have to get done. Okay, now I am a Girl Scout leader and I always give these examples because it’s just very real time for me.

Cara Harvey 00:11:59 I don’t have goals around Girl Scouts. I have tasks. I show up about three hours a week to get my stuff done. I plan lessons, I make phone calls, I reconcile our financial spreadsheets like it is a little bit of a part time job over here for me, and I love it. Those are still my tasks, all right? Those are not goals. Sometimes we get them confused, and when we get them confused, we get into this place in our scheduling. So let’s talk about what do we do with this information. We get to this place in our scheduling where what we’re actually doing is just finding time for tasks. Let’s flip that. This is my weekly planning system that I teach. If you’re on Instagram with me, you can comment weekly checklist and I’ll DM you a link. You can get it for free if you’re on the Facebook Comment weekly checklist, I’ll get you the link. And if you’re listening later on the YouTube or on the YouTube. Oh my god, I sounded like I was 60 on the interwebs.

Cara Harvey 00:12:47 Friends, if you’re if you’re listening on YouTube or on the podcast a Purpose Driven mom.com/podcast 433 when this airs in about a month, you can go to a purpose driven rom com slash weekly checklist. Okay. You can get this checklist. This checklist walks through my planning system that works for me, that has me doing more than just my tasks. You are more than just your tasks now. You’re also more than just your to do list. But I think it’s important to intentionally place time in your schedule for your goals. If not, they’re not going to happen. I also think it’s important to intentionally have time for your tasks. If not, you’re going to feel frazzled and behind. So here’s what I recommend you do first. Okay, here’s my planning system in a nutshell. We’ll focus on sections two and three. Section one is you put in all the appointments that you can’t change okay. This is, you know, today 4:00 we have to go to the orthodontist after school. My son has Cub scouts tonight.

Cara Harvey 00:13:38 Right. Like the things that we have to do. Right. That’s step one. Because you have to do them. You have to show up. And you can’t plan around this beautiful, fictitious life you want. You have to plan around the life you have. And every week is different now. Step two is where we’re putting in things for our goals, not our tasks. Here me goals, we’re going to put the tasks in. We’re going to put the goals first I want you to put at least 15 minutes a day of something. That is a personal goal. We’ll get to the other goals in a second personal goal. Again, I do the work that I do. Right now. It’s 20 minutes. I’m not trying to be at the gym for an hour. I want to move my body and feel healthy. I don’t have goals of being a bodybuilder or whatever. I don’t need to be there for an hour, but can I do 15 minutes? Finishing one personal growth book for me, a month is 10 to 15 minutes in the morning.

Cara Harvey 00:14:23 I’m not joking when I talk about you can’t see on Instagram, but I have my book, the 15 Minute Formula, right? I wrote this book because I follow it like I’m not joking when I say 15 minutes at a time, 15 minutes at a time. It’s real sorry. I feel like I’m shouting today because I’m so excited, but it really does work. I, I read 15 minutes a day and I get a book done every single month. Take a quick second because I want to get you to join. One of my new favorite apps is called Brain Club. I am all about trying to get my side hustle on right, and one of the things I hate doing is taking money out of my pre-planned budget for tiny things that pop up, like the snack stand during football season or the ten miles, you have to Venmo somewhere else because you need it for school. And I found Brand Club to literally fill that gap for me. Here’s what I do with it. Every single day I go in, I earn between a dollar and $1.50.

Cara Harvey 00:15:10 It takes me two minutes and I just fill in some surveys. Super simple. Very easy. I also will link it to my Amazon, my Walmart and my target account. So when I buy things anyway, I get cash back. Takes me about ten days, but I earn $10 and when I get my $10, I cash it to my Venmo girl math. I’m using it all the places I want to share with you a $3 code to get started, because you need $10 to cash out. So let me give you $3. I’ll get $3 if you sign up. I really appreciate it. Go to a purpose driven romcoms brand club. Do it on your phone because it’s going to bring you up to the app so you can download it. It’s a really easy way to just get some side money going, so you don’t have to take it out of your regular budget and make some money for yourself. That’s a purpose driven, romcom slash brand club. So here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to put in 15 minutes minimum.

Cara Harvey 00:15:57 I always give the minimum because 15 minutes is enough where you can make traction. I can read a small piece of a book every single day, five times a week for 15 minutes, and finish it by the end of the month. It’s also enough that it doesn’t feel to our bodies and our brains, like it’s going to take all day to do. I know I have all these things to do, but I’m going to just sit for 50. It’s just 15 minutes, right? I spend 15 minutes scrolling TikTok like, you know what you mean? Like it’s fine. So 15 minutes for at least one personal goal. Now, I shared with you, I have multiple personal goals, so when I’m planning out my week, I make sure I have minimum 15 minutes for each of my personal goals. Not every day. So here’s the thing. Right throughout the week, I want to have 15 minutes for each of my personal goals. They need at least 15 minutes a week. I recommend some goals get more than that.

Cara Harvey 00:16:44 They get more than once a week. My exercise gets every morning five times a week. Okay, my latch hook might only get two times a week that you can depend on. You put in your personal. Then you can go through and ask yourself, what are some habits and routines or home goals that I want to work on. So it’s like, all right, I’m taking care of me. First. I’m going to work on what I need to work on. I’m going to step back from my calendar and notice I still have all this time. I also want to move forward in my home because as moms, I feel like we have to look at things. For me, as a work at home mom, I’ve got four kind of parts of my circle, my square, whatever shape we’re talking with today, my personal goals, my home goals. Because as a mom, like I’m managing most of my home goals, right? Like I don’t think my husband’s ever going to be like, we should declutter something.

Cara Harvey 00:17:26 It’s just not his style. So most of that falls on me. I’ve chosen I’m okay. We’re fine. Right? But then we also have maybe some home habits, which my husband does help out with and stuff like that. But we have home habits. Then I have tasks, right? The tasks that have to get done for my week, and then I have my work. Things that are kind of like outside my circle because I plan them a little differently. So I’ve planned out my personal goals. Cool. Now, can you plan out some 15 minutes at least once a week for a home goal, a home, a home goal? Almost a tasks? Nope. A home goal or a home routine. So my home goal might be decluttering my office like that’s a home goal I have this month. I’m gonna spend 15 minutes on it. A home routine that I have. I follow the clean mama shout out clean mama mama plan. My home routine is there’s a set of weekly tasks now.

Cara Harvey 00:18:15 There’s daily, weekly, monthly, yearly tasks. She has. I’ve only gotten to the dailies. My daily cleaning routines are enough to like maintenance. My home where like, someone could come over and it’s okay. It’s not clean ish. It’s just picked up, we’ll say, and I’m okay with it. Like the counters wipe down towards her, wipe down dishes in the sink. I’m cool with that. That I’ve made solid. I don’t have to worry about that. But I am working on my weekly routines. I’m struggling a little bit to make those work. So I have these home routines I want to focus on. They don’t move me forward as a person, but they’re going to like decrease my stress in other areas. So I’m down with it. I’m like, cool. So then I’m going to put those in 15 minutes. So according to the plan I’m following, there’s I think she’s got six weekly tasks, right? I don’t like I like to put them on certain days. Sometimes I couple them together.

Cara Harvey 00:19:00 She recommends one a day that doesn’t really, I’ve found isn’t working for me. So I kind of put three and three. I do three and three and that works for me. Okay, so now put 15 minutes in for that. Excellent. Okay. I’ve already done that. Now let’s put in the tasks okay. Cool. Now we’re going to add in all those tasks you have to get done because they will still need to get done. Planning your tasks this way right is what helps them be less stressful right. It’s what helps them be like, all right, they’re going to get done, but can I plan them in a way that’s less stressful? Now I teach all this in my program, the Purpose Driven Mom Club, all about the quadrants and the systems of how to plan them. We’re not going to do that today, but I want to encourage you to go and plan this week. It’s only Tuesday. The week is not over. Right? And if you’re listening to this on the podcast in about a month, it’ll be Monday.

Cara Harvey 00:19:45 So it’s not over yet. Plan out your week like that. Ask yourself, looking at the whole week, where is my space for my goals? At least 15 minutes per goal a week. Okay, where is my space for my home goals or home routines? at least 15 minutes for each one a week. Okay, where am I getting my tasks done? Where am I doing that? So I actually separated my tasks this week because I was feeling overwhelmed with all of my tasks. Actually, I’m going to see if I can flip over really quick to my Trello board because that’s where I did it. All right. So what I did was I made a couple categories for my tasks calls. I have phone calls, let’s be real texts that I want to make. I have friends that I’m trying to schedule with, people I want to check in with. I have that I need a referral for the doctor, etc. so I put all my calls together. All right. I then put all my Girl Scout stuff in one bunch.

Cara Harvey 00:20:30 I then put errands. I call them like errands. I put them in one bunch and then I put home admin things in one bunch. So let me give you examples of my of my categories. So calls. That’s pretty easy Girl Scouts. So errands for me. Just so you know what, I considered an errand. I need to run and get a mouthpiece for my son. I shared that I also need to get cards. My daughter got some sponsorships for cheer, so I want to print out her picture, like her cheer picture, and send thank you cards. I wanted to do that months ago. It didn’t happen. So I’m like, I want to do it now, right? Like a thank you card. So those are errands for me, my home admin, things like that. I got to pay the tier tuition. We have a snake. We got to feed the snake this week. We have to pick a date for my daughter’s birthday party and I’m doing scholarship research. My oldest is a senior in high school.

Cara Harvey 00:21:14 We’re applying for colleges. I’m researching scholarships. I’m putting them on a doc, and I told him I will not add new scholarships until you complete the ones. And so he texted me is my stepson. So he’s not with us all the time. So he’s not with us right now. So he texted me and it was like, Cara, I got the scholarship essay submitted, I’m ready for more. And I was like, yeah, you’re responsible. So I’m going to go do some more for him. All right. So you see the difference? I categorized them. So there’s multiple things under each categories of my tasks. And when I planned my week this week I didn’t just say do my tasks. What I did was I put one section of my week for 15 minutes to work at least 15 minutes. It’s always at least 15 minutes to work on calls, girl Scouts. Now, I looked at Girl Scouts for me. Girl Scout stuff takes longer, so I gave myself two blocks to work on Girl Scout stuff, 15 minutes minimum a week to work on my errands, and 15 minutes minimum a week to work on my home errands.

Cara Harvey 00:22:05 So as I’m going through and planning things, what I’m really doing is setting myself up for success. Because I’m not just saying, let me get these tasks done. If you just live your life worrying about, let me get my to do list done, you’re never going to move forward on your goals, mom. You’re never going to move forward of that dream business you want to start. You’re never going to start that fun project you’ve been meaning to do. You’re more than your tasks. Your tasks have to get done, but you’re more than them. All right. So let’s kind of recap. We’ve got our goals things that you’re doing personally to move forward for you. You got our home goals things that will maintain your home. Cool. You’ve got your tasks okay. These are the things you have to get done. You plan your week. You put the goals in first, the home goals next, then your tasks. Okay. That’s how you plan it. So you’re doing something for you while also doing something that needs to get done.

Cara Harvey 00:22:57 Like I said, this is going to air on the podcast. If you want to read this on YouTube. A purpose driven romcom slash podcast for 33, thank you, everybody in the Facebook group if you are watching me live. Hey Meg, I see you there. Yes, you said getting to the to do list is definitely not going to get your goals done. Yes, and I think this I clicked with me last week when we were doing the workshop. I feel like a lot of the moms that are getting in the club, like they’re moving forward on things, but what they’re moving forward on is their tasks, their getting their tasks done, or they’re really good at getting their home routines done or their home goals. But there’s this gap of personal goals that is just sitting there of, I’ll do it when I have time, I’ll do it later. I need to do everything for everyone else. First. I want you to look at things this way instead, and I think it’s going to help.

Cara Harvey 00:23:37 Facebook friends, I am trying and if you’re not on Facebook, come search purpose driven mom community, I want to I’m getting in here once a week to do some lives, and I have some new stuff coming where I’m giving you more, answering more questions. So make sure you hang out here. I’m going to say goodbye, ask me any questions. I’ll get to the replay on that. And then friends over on Instagram. I’m also going to be trying to get one live here, but if you have questions, head over to my posts. I’m starting to do more videos. Head to my stories. DM me if you have a question. I’d love to answer it on the podcast. And if you’re listening on the podcast or the YouTube channel later, thank you for being you and we will chat soon. I will put this over in my reel so you can check it out by on Instagram. Have a good one! Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Purpose Driven Mom Show.

Cara Harvey 00:24:22 If this episode served you in any way, we would really appreciate it if you headed over to wherever you listen to podcast, hit that five star and leave a review and a rating. That’s how more moms can find us and we can grow our community. If you had a tip or an make sure you come over and tag me at a Purpose Driven Mom on Instagram and share it with your friends. The best way for us to get this message out there of less hustle and less shame and more intentionality, is for you to share it with people you know need to hear it. Thanks for listening. We appreciate you and I can’t wait to connect with you more outside of the podcast.