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! Hey friends, let’s jump into the episode. But first, I want to give you a quick tip on how I have cut my caffeine almost in half and am helping working on my own hormonal levels. I mean, mom in the 40s, right? Perimenopause, trying to ditch the high cortisol stressful things, which it’s hard enough.

Cara Harvey 00:01:01 Right. And listen, this company, magic mind, they reached out to me and they were like, listen, we have these new gummies. We have these things that’ll help you kick your caffeine. You want to give them a try? And I thought, let’s give it a go. So I want to share with you how I went from feeling like I couldn’t cut my caffeine habit. Friends, three cups a day and pre-workout every day with like 2 to 3 Celsius a week minimum. All right. To I’m at a place now where I’ve gotten it down to no Celsius. Pat me on the back. Right. And I have the two cups some days, even just one of coffee and I’m excited to share it with you. They are launching a new gummy, so I was able to try their shot their gummy. I like them both. I did some reviews on my Instagram stories so you can check them out too. But one of the things that I liked about the shots was they don’t have caffeine because you could also like potentially give them to kids eight and older.

Cara Harvey 00:01:49 I’ve not given them to my kids yet for like focus, but I’ve been using them to replace that for a club habitual cup. You know, the one you have that you don’t really need, but you’re like, oh, let me get some coffee in because I think I need needed and it has been phenomenal. I honestly did not think I would be able to survive my nights as a Girl Scout leader, as a sports mom. Like, I didn’t think I’d be able to do it without that. And what I like about it is ingredients are natural. It’s got all the good stuff the adaptogens, the mushrooms, like all the things that you need to feel great. And, the gummies are great because one, they are cheaper than the shots. The shots were good, I’ll tell you. They have like turmeric in them. So they have that like spicy turmeric taste. Otherwise I was really pleased with them. But what’s cool about the gummies is they don’t have caffeine in them, so you can take them at 4:00.

Cara Harvey 00:02:34 And that was the thing I was looking. I was having a cup of coffee, friends like 4 p.m. not cool. Like it was obviously impacting my sleep. Right? So listen, they gave me a code PD mom 25. You can go to a purpose driven mom com slash magic. Mind if you want to check them out. It’s 25% off, but I really do recommend that you try them one the gummies also tasted I thought better than the shots, right? Because it wasn’t as natural. And they got a couple things in there. But it helps you for, you know, that tornado time when you come home and it’s homework, activities, dinner, bed. This has been really great. I’m excited now to try them with my kids. I wanted to have my own personal experience, like a full month on them before I gave them to my daughter. Because she does a lot of activities. She struggles. Her behavior struggles a lot at night and I thought this could really help. So now we’re going to test them out with her again.

Cara Harvey 00:03:20 Just go to a purpose driven mom comic mind. Use the code PDM mom 25. Get 25% off so that you can give them a try to. You know, I don’t promote a ton of stuff unless I try it first. And I’m going to tell you here. I am so pleased with my experience with my mind. It’s going to help you get more organized, feel more clarity in your thoughts like that. Perimenopause brain fog. For me, I feel like is actually lifting. And you know, if you have ever walked into the room and said the wrong word 12 times, you know what I’m talking about. You don’t feel like you’re going to ever feel like yourself again. I’m excited to find something that’s helping that. So a purpose driven rom com slash magic mind. Go check it out and listen. Tune in to the episode, take these tips and ask yourself, how can I use these to help myself feel more purpose driven with more clarity? Feel more on top of things? I know that you’re going to enjoy it.

Amy N 00:04:08 Hi, I’m Amy Nesbitt, a full time corporate world working mama to two boys who has spent large amounts of time in California in both Silicon Valley and San Diego. My journey started just as capturing joys on YouTube during Covid, just for fun, and that has morphed into so much more. It has become two YouTube channels. One is this Japanese American life, the other one is Amy and reads, because I love reading all kinds of things and more importantly, I share my passion for wellness, travel, books, and eats as a whole, wellness mamas on my blog, as well as Instagram and TikTok because I have a passion for empowering other mamas to find joy in their work and home life everywhere in their daily lives. But I have courses and summits to support all of that, and I also just love spreading the love and making sure everyone can find ordinary moments and joy in each of those. I am super excited to be part of this summit. And what is one thing I can’t live without? It is weekly planning as a full time working mom.

Amy N 00:05:06 This is so clutch for me to connect with the winds that I had organized the must do things of this week, sort the things I’d like to make time for, and plan a way to fit them all in. So I am not overwhelmed because there are always more things to do. So I have to be able to remember my value and goals to prioritize accordingly. We cannot do it all, but we can do all the things that are important to us. Of course, this then proves to help me communicate better with my family, where we have our family meeting to discuss our individual and shared obligations and plans for the week so that we’re all on the same page. So often, moms bear the heavy burden of planning and executing to ensure everything gets done for everyone, and I firmly believe that should not be the case. We have partners, we have kids. They can all do great things even if they do it differently. This helps our family divide tasks and make sure we all know who’s taking responsibility and put us all on the same page as a unified team.

Amy N 00:06:01 If you do feel like you’re doing away more than everyone else in your overwhelmed and friends, I have been there. Go to my website Whole Woman’s mamas.com to grab my stop doing this freebie because it gives you five tangible things you should stop doing to let others help and make time for you. I know you love helping others and that is fantastic, but it doesn’t have to all be you and you matter too. So I hope that you remember that you deserve time for yourself and your sanity. So go grab it! And I’m so excited to talk to you at the summit.

Emily N 00:06:35 Hey, Kara, thank you so much for inviting me to participate in your summit again. I love what you’re doing and your heart as well. Girl, this is Emily Nichols with habit Hack Your Health. I am a habit and fitness coach and host of the top ranked podcast, habit Hack Your Health, and more importantly, a midlife mom that is just doing a life with you. I help other midlife moms stop dieting and start training for life again via your habits.

Emily N 00:07:06 We do this with my atomic habit hacking system for women because women have to do habits differently now. I love this question for you. What is the one routine I can’t live without? For me, that is at least 15 minutes of movement every day. Why just 15 minutes? Because that’s literally 1% of my day. And when I reframe it like that in my head, I’m like, I can do that. This proactive routine is going to help give me so much more energy, eliminate the brain fog, give me a little more patience, and be quicker on my feet with all the reactive things that happen throughout my day as a busy working mom. Plus, it’s a keystone habit when I move my body. It influences other healthy habits throughout my day, such as healthy eating and talking nicer to myself. If you want to learn a little bit more about why women have to do habits differently and learn my Atomic Habits for women system. Go download the private podcast called Atomic Habits for women at bit.ly, slash Atomic Habits for women, and learn the system and start taking action today.

Emily N 00:08:18 Thanks again so much, Kara.

Caitlin D 00:08:24 Hello, I’m Caitlin Denning, I’m a certified life and executive coach for busy working moms who want realistic and real life tips and strategies for how to balance all of the different roles and responsibilities we have as a parent, as a professional, and as a person in the world. When I think about a routine that I can’t live without, it has to be choosing my family’s meals for the week in advance, with a dual income household, three young kids and all of the activities, events and responsibilities that I have as a business owner and a parent, I have to know the answer to that daily question what’s for dinner tonight? So each weekend, sometime before Sunday morning, which is when we do our grocery shopping, I look at the week ahead and note any evening activities or commitments that we have. And I decide then and there what we will be having for dinner each night. Some nights it’s a more involved recipe, other nights it’s leftovers or something that’s easy that we can throw together in no time, like breakfast for dinner or grilled cheese sandwiches, something like that.

Caitlin D 00:09:41 But there’s always a plan going into the week so that I know in advance what we’re having each night. This not only helps me make a grocery list that ensures we have everything we need for the week to cook dinner, pack lunches, have breakfast, and so there’s no last minute trips because, oh, we don’t have that thing that we need for the recipe we’re making tonight. But it also creates so much more mental space in my days, because I’m not thinking about what we should have for dinner tonight. I’m not wondering whether I need to try to fit in a quick stop to the store, because I need to grab some other items for what I now decided we’re going to have for dinner. I’ve already made those decisions in advance. I’ve shopped for what I need, and now all I have to do is follow my plan and prepare the meal. Or bonus, have someone else prepare the meal because the decision has already been made and everything they need is in the house. I know there are some who resist meal planning because they think it takes away from the spontaneity of being able to decide in the moment what you feel like eating day to day.

Caitlin D 00:10:53 and I get that. But for me and for all of the busy working moms that I support, having the decision made in advance creates opportunities for spontaneity, enjoyment, and ease in other areas of my life and that for me, more than makes up for it.

Marianne M 00:11:16 Hello, I’m Marianne Melling, I’m the founder of Extraordinary Family Relationships, and I help parents create just that extraordinary relationships with their kids. We create relationships that are deeply connected, authentic, lasting, and fun. Even if you doubt yourself. Didn’t have that with your own parents or your relationship is currently on the rocks. And today I’m excited to share with you a routine that I won’t live without. That routine is daily, personal quiet time. It’s a go to for maintaining sanity and living life fully because it shifts my mindset and the way I approach each day over time. The cumulative effects are life changing. I use my personal quiet time to learn, pray, meditate, journal, and reconnect with my priorities. So when can you do it? We have five kids who are currently ages six through 17, and I have done this through every stage of parenting.

Marianne M 00:12:09 Wow. Mornings are a beautiful time to make it happen. I’m also a big fan of sleep, so I have found various times during the day work well in different stages. Nap time when the kids are little while waiting for the teens to come home, or mornings if it works out. Now, if you’ve never had this routine, you’ll think you don’t have time for it. But trust me, it’s the kind of thing that creates time as it brings calm and clarity. Another powerful benefit of this routine is modeling for our kids the value of stillness, introspection, and intentionality which are fading in our modern, hyper busy, distracted world. As I help parents create extraordinary family relationships, I always emphasize the importance of starting with ourselves and daily personal quiet time is a really practical way to do that. You can find out more about how to show up in a way that supports strong relationships. In my free guide, The Ultimate Guide to Connection, you can find that at your Efr comm Y o u r f r com.

Marianne M 00:13:10 Even if it’s five minutes a day, personal quiet time is totally worth it.

Ashely L 00:13:19 Hello everyone! My name is Ashley Looker. I’m a wellness and empowerment coach, and I work with ambitious, overachieving women on how to slow down in their lives and align with their sole purpose so they can step away from overwhelm and busyness and into their joy. I have been a coach for going on 14 years now, which I cannot believe, and I offer several different one on one coaching programs. I have a year long journaling membership, and I have also created several physical products like 108 Day Happiness Journal, an Abundance journal, and I also have a journal prompt deck that is all about helping you create more happiness in your daily life through a journaling practice. So what is one routine that I can’t live without? this is such a great question. I would say that the number one routine that I can’t live without is actually prioritizing my joy at the very beginning of my day, and this, I feel like, might sound incredibly radical.

Ashely L 00:14:31 And it is actually incredibly radical because I know for many of us, we’re so used to putting everything and everyone else first. And as you can imagine, this is one of the most powerful things that I’ve learned how to do. But it’s also been one of the hardest things that I’ve learned how to do when I start my days with something that brings me immense joy, whatever that is. Whether it’s 15 minutes with my favorite cup of coffee or something a little bit more extensive, like a nature walk in a bath, I start my day from a place of fulfillment instead of feeling deprived. Right? I feel like so many of us, we wake up and we’re already bombarded with this sense of lack. Like I didn’t get enough sleep and I don’t have enough time to get ready and things like that. And so when I prioritize my joy and what makes me feel really good, I start my day already feeling energized and with my cup already filled up, which makes my days so much more energized and so much more joyful.

Ashely L 00:15:45 So I highly encourage you to give this a try as well.

Stephanie R 00:15:52 Hi there, I’m Stephanie Raggi from Mama Shark and I serve busy moms to help them streamline their mom life. The one routine that I can’t live without is my evening Trello planning session. So every evening before I go to bed, I sit down and look through the day’s tasks, see what I’ve accomplished, and then move things over to the next day and make my list for the coming day. So because Trello is super flexible and has drag and drop abilities, it makes it really easy to change things over and arrange my list. And then what I do is I take that list and I make a general outline for my day, starting in the morning, when I wake up to when I go to bed. I like the way that Trello allows me to put things in an order without needing to assign times unless I want to, and so I have a list of like start here, work through the day in approximately this order, but I can always change it.

Stephanie R 00:16:43 There’s flexibility there. Having that evening planning session really helps me to feel in control of my to do list, so that I can actually calm my brain down and get some good sleep at night without worrying about, oh, do I have this thing tomorrow? Or you know, what time was that appointment or whatever it might be, or thinking about? Oh, I need to make sure I do this before I do this in the morning, that sort of thing. I have it all in my Trello board, which I can get from both my computer and my phone so I can access it really easily, even in the middle of the night. If I think of something, and it just allows me to feel like I’m being flexible but also productive, and having an outline for the day basically reduces the in the moment decisions that I have to make as well. And so taking those moments of, oh, do I do this or do I do that and reduces those significantly because I’ve already got the day planned out ahead of me.

Stephanie R 00:17:32 And you know, I don’t have to stick with it. Exactly. But I have my general priorities and timeline already laid out. It just helps me feel in control of my to do list instead of my to do list controlling me. I also love to show other moms how to do this. And so I have a freebie of a bunch of different Trello board templates that I’ve already created and that you can edit yourself if you would like. You can find that at Mama Shark. Org slash Trello. And again you can check those out, download them for yourself. And it’s a free productivity app Trello. So it’s really easy to grab it, grab those templates and help your day to be more organized that way as well. So thanks so much again. I’m Stephanie Raji from Mama Shark Dawg, and thanks so much for listening.

Cara Harvey 00:18:17 Let’s stop and pause so that I can invite you to the 2025 Purpose Driven Mom Summit. It’s here. Our eighth annual event will be kicking off on April 7th, and the only thing missing is you go to a Purpose Driven mom.

Cara Harvey 00:18:27 Com slash summit 2025 link is up in the show. Notes to come join 25 presenters to help you have your day your way. We’re going to help you make a plan for your day. That’s not going to help you feeling super overwhelmed. And the best part? It’s free. We’re going to help you manage your life, your household, your goals, your business, all while feeling lit up about life and not feeling stuck in that day to day drudgery that a lot of us moms can feel. The eighth annual Purpose of Our Moms Summit will be kicking off on April the 7th, and you can get a free pass to join us and hear from some of the most incredible experts on the internet. Go now and get your ticket and we’ll see you soon.

Shanae S 00:19:08 My name is Shanae Spanish and I’m from Toronto, Canada. I’m organizing expert and content creator for my blog, City of Creative Dreams, where I help busy women organize all aspects of their lives, from homes to weddings. And I’m also the founder of Inspired by Organizing, which is a custom design organizing system that helps busy women see beyond their home clutter using custom organizing designs and personalized shopping list.

Shanae S 00:19:40 One routine that keeps my home and business life running smoothly is keeping my digital calendar up to date. As soon as I learn about an appointment, school events, or anything important I added to my phone calendar so nothing slips through the cracks. I use a Google calendar, which I find very easy to use and easy to color code items such as assigning certain colors like red for bills, orange for my son’s items, green for paydays, light blue for anything that involves me, and dark blue for anything related to maths. But color coding is a simple step to make life easier. You know what colors are for white, and that way at one glance you can see what is for you and others. My son even has a daily task to input his homework deadlines, so we’re always aware of what is due. The best part is that my phone calendar syncs to our skylight calendar, making it easy for everyone to see what’s happening throughout the month. If you don’t have one, you should consider checking it out.

Shanae S 00:20:59 I’ve tried many calendars throughout the years, from whiteboard calendars, planners, and then settled on a 12 month wall calendar before getting the skylight one. I find things are changing all the time, so digital calendars have made it easier to manage life. I’m constantly crossing things out on my wall calendar, which ends up looking messy. Digital calendars are way easier to move things around. Plus, the skylight calendar comes with a chore list feature, so each of us can check off things that are getting done. Another option would be a chore chart app you can download. You can also print out a physical chore chart to put on the wall. And as well as you can make a list on your phone, no app or list it on asana. Speaking about asana, I also can’t live without my asana. I rely heavily on it to manage everything from home tasks to blog and business projects. It helps me break down not only daily tasks, but also breaks down larger projects into smaller tasks. So I’m not overwhelmed.

Shanae S 00:22:16 I love taking the time to put down everything I need to do for a project, or for my day or week. My favourite is making a task repeat so I it will automatically go on my calendar on the day that I sign it to each week. Having both the digital calendar and the sauna app has honestly made my routine run smoothly, because I’m not having to write down anything or rely on my mind to remember all that I need to do. Having it on my phone gives me the flexibility to add or complete tasks on the go. This system keeps me, my family, my blog, and my business organized and on top of everything.

Cara Harvey 00:23:07 Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Purpose Driven Mom Show. 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.

Cara Harvey 00:23:26 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.