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! Welcome to the Purpose Driven Mom Show, episode 457. Today we are going to talk about how to create space and time for you in the midst of motherhood, busyness, and as we so fondly call here at Purpose Driven Mom Mason.

Cara Harvey 00:00:58 December, because May tends to be that month. For moms, that feels harder than sometimes. The back to school season starts or the holiday season because it’s like the end. Now my kids, they don’t end school till the second week in June, but we know because I work with moms from all over the country and the world. Everybody’s got different schedules, okay? And because it’s field trip and field day and end of school concerts and and and and right, we’ve got to get the gifts and all the other things are kind of coming to this culmination before summer. We like to call it May summer. If, you know, May summer is coming, then you can make a plan for it. That’s something we’ve been working on in the Purpose Driven Mom Club in the past couple of weeks, is how do we make a plan to feel less overwhelmed? One of the things I want to kick off today’s episode and May with, is, how do you make space for you? Now listen. Show notes.

Cara Harvey 00:01:47 They’ll be at a Purpose Driven mom.com podcast 457 so you can check them out there. If I say something and you want to go check out one of our links, you can also swipe up on your player. Here’s the thing though many moms feel myself included, right? That we are giving and giving and giving and there is barely time for us to recharge. And this is such a great episode for me to do because as of literally 20 minutes ago, I spent some time recharging with a friend and it was wonderful. She said to me, people are just kind of like houseplants. We just need some water and some sunshine. And we were going to go for a walk and it’s like a little cold. And she’s like, why don’t we get some blankets and just sit in your backyard and sit in the sun? And I was like, I love this idea. So we got some blankets, we got some coffee, we got some water, and we just sat in the sun and caught up for an hour and a half.

Cara Harvey 00:02:31 And I feel so energized and recharged right now. And before this I would have said, I don’t have time. Originally we were going to go walking. I was like, great, I can double duty with my workout. I have to find all this time to get all these things done. But by just pausing and recharging, I feel like I’m actually going to be better off for the rest of the day to get things done. And maybe you’ve been there where you’ve had those things where you’re like, I have nothing left to give this year. I feel like I say this every year, but this year in particular has been incredibly challenging emotionally, the state of the country. I’m having a lot of family things happening with health, some serious stuff. I’ve had some friendship relationship issues. I’m exhausted between that. And this was our first season full comp for cheer, actually, when this episode airs, I’ll be going away this week for cheerleading down to Florida. So it’s like our first big travel trip.

Cara Harvey 00:03:22 It’s a lot, and I have found myself feeling incredibly on edge, very highly frustrated, I snap easily, my nervous system is like shaky right now, right? I feel like if there was like a force field around me, you could see it bubbling because I’m feeling like I have nothing left to get. There was a study done right, and it was done by Welches, and it found that the average working mom, whether they work in the house, at the house, whatever it is, works 98 hours per week, which is the equivalent to two full time jobs. Okay, so whether you work out of the home, in the home, you’re the CEO of your own home as a stay at home mom. No wonder were exhausted. The amount of things that is put on our plates. I’m not shocked that moms feel burnt out. I’ve had this conversation with many friends in my circle. This. This country. You know, I want to say this world. But we’ll talk about I’m in America, right? So I only know my own experience.

Cara Harvey 00:04:16 But I can probably say this world because I’m sure there are issues like this all over the place. But for my personal experience, this country is not built for working moms, right? There are things during the day, the amount of things that we’re required to do. And I’ve actually thought about going back, getting a traditional job. And I thought the freedom that I have in my business right now to volunteer when I want to sit outside in the sun with a friend. Right. I would never give that up again. But it has been so challenging to find a career that does this, because this world is not meant for us moms to thrive. So we have to be intentional. All right. We’re going to talk about that today. We’re going to talk about some of the struggles that you might be facing with prioritization, some strategies and ways that you can create pockets of time. Some red flags of wait, do I need to do something before I hit burnout and practical tips today? Okay, because here’s the thing balancing home kids, your business.

Cara Harvey 00:05:07 There’s no stop. And this is one of the things I find the biggest struggle for us who do work from home is there is no boundary because it’s blurred. I’m in my office space at my house. When I was a teacher, I would go to work and I would come home. There was a distinct line of where one ended, where the other began. I don’t have that here, okay? I have laundry staring at me and dishes piling up, and I’m sitting in my office and I’m looking behind me at the craft stuff for my Girl Scout meeting I have to put away and organize. It is so challenging. And when you’re working from home or just in general, many of us, from the minute my feet hit the ground to the minute I go to bed, I’m on. I have. And especially now. I don’t know about y’all, but my kids are seven and nine. Their bedtime is 9:00, and I resisted that for a little bit. But because we do sports and activities, we don’t get home till 8:00 most nights and then they have to shower, get cleaned up, have a snack.

Cara Harvey 00:06:03 Right. So they go to bed at night. My son, he wakes up pretty early. Always has been an early riser. Often he’s up before me now. Lately he’s been. He’s just started baseball and he’s been so tired from baseball. Yes. Thank you. Baseball that he’s sleeping till six, sometimes 630, which for some of you you’re like, oh my gosh, that’s so early for me. I’m like, it’s sleeping in because my man is up at five, five, 15. Normally he’s up before me because I get up around 536, having to be on so much right that entire time where like the second I get up, sometimes my kid is up before me, but if not, he’s up very shortly after me and I’ve got to get breakfast. I gotta be on until I go to bed around 1030 11. I don’t have a lot of time for me, and because of that, I feel that I’m constantly multitasking. I feel like my brain is constantly switching. I’m never feeling truly present unless I’m intentional.

Cara Harvey 00:06:49 Maybe you feel the same, right? I was at dinner last night and we were talking, but in the back of my head I’m thinking, oh, I gotta get this work thing done. Or I’m sitting here at work and I’m like, oh, I gotta go run this errand because this personal thing has to happen, right? And it can be really challenging. So it feels like we don’t deserve to take the time to do the things we want for us, because there’s already a thousand things already on our list. So that guilt is huge, right? Because it’s like if during the day, right, my kids go to school 9 to 3. If during the day I go run a personal errand, I go sit outside with my friend. My brain does the thing. It’s not like I don’t think it where I’m like, I should be working. I have so much to do when I’m recording this. The next week is our summit. There’s a ton of work that I still need to get done.

Cara Harvey 00:07:33 I feel guilty sometimes going to sit outside with my friend for an hour and a half. Okay, because I should be, quote should be working. Now we have a phrase that the Purpose Driven Mom club where we say don’t should on yourself. So if you find yourself saying the phrase I should be, ask yourself where is it coming from? Like, whose voice is that really? Right. Like I should be working. Then there’s times where. Last night, for example, it was cold. We’re at baseball. My husband came. He got done with work early. So he’s like, I’ll meet you at the field. I was there with my daughter, too. We divide and conquer. We’re like a divide and conquer family. We’re not. Everybody goes to all the activities. We’re like, let’s split up and do things. And if you know, one of us can be home, we’ll take turns at the sports so that we can each have space. But if he’s working, I clearly have to have both kids with me.

Cara Harvey 00:08:16 So we’re at the field, my husband gets there. There’s like 40 minutes left in practice. My daughter is like, I’m freezing. And I looked at my husband and I was like, can I can I take her home? I was like, I’m gonna go take her home. And do you mind staying for the second half of baseball? And he’s like, cool, that sounds good. We don’t both have to be there. Did I feel guilty? Yes. These were the thoughts in my head. One I should watch my son practice. Now, baseball is new for us, so I’m definitely in the like. Let me stare at everything you do phase of it. So season baseball moms, you know, you’re probably laughing at me, but I’m like, so into watching him, I get a lot of enjoyment watching my kids do their activities. It is fun for me. I also like to read my book so it’s fine. So I felt guilty, like, oh, what if he wanted me to be there? Then we came home and got my daughter some hot chocolate because she was oh so dramatic.

Cara Harvey 00:08:59 I’m so freezing. I’m like, it’s not that cold, but okay. And then I looked around my house, which was a disaster. We’ve been traveling so much for a year. I haven’t had, I haven’t I’m going to do an episode on this, but I’m still trying to figure out the re-entry plan for it not to be so overwhelming. So my house needed to get picked up. Which. Side note because my friend came over this morning for coffee I didn’t need to clean. She’s not the type of friend that I. If I could have not picked anything up and it would have been fine, but it was like, that’s the best kind of friends, right? But I felt like I wanted to just tidy up a little bit. So in my head I’m like, oh, I should tidy up. But again, I had 15 minutes this morning and was able to do it, and instead of tidying up or doing anything that was like productive and productive, right? I was like, I really want to read my book.

Cara Harvey 00:09:41 I’m super into it. Side note I just finally got to read the women. That’s what I’m reading now. Hopefully by the time this airs, I’m done with it. By Kristin Hannah I love everything Kristin Hannah does, and I’ve not been able to get it from the library yet. And I’m trying to not shop on Amazon as much. So I was like, if I can’t, I’ll wait for the library. Finally got it. So I probably will be done because it has to go back to the library. It’s so good. I digress, I love books, okay, so and I love historical fiction. Okay, so not talking about books a day care focus in. So I was reading and I felt guilty. Oh I’m just sitting here reading. But then I had to coach myself through, which is the strategies I’m going to give you today because. So I want to let you know, like the guilt is not going to go away. Right. But it’s how you cope with it.

Cara Harvey 00:10:21 It’s how you strategize around it. It’s how you decide to make intentional choices about the guilt that’s going to help you create space for you. There was a study done by motherly, the website motherly in 2021, so I’m sure the numbers have probably even gone up right 2025. Over 90% of moms have felt burnt out, but they still don’t prioritize their self-care. Hands up. Right? And I want you to know that, like when I talk self-care, I don’t always mean the bubble baths, right? It could mean bubble baths. Is that you like? But it really is that time for you. Now, I want you to pay attention because maybe you’re hitting burnout, because what happens is we’ll hit this burnout stage, and then we start to feel things. And I want you to have your self-care and use it as a proactive way of taking care of yourself so you don’t get to the point where you’re snapping, like I mentioned, where your nervous system is high, where you feel like everything feels like a problem, right? Constant exhaustion.

Cara Harvey 00:11:12 Right? This is the kind of stuff that burnout can get you hospitalized for. So I say it in all seriousness. Pay attention to your body and how you feel like even if you’re getting a good night’s sleep and you’re just exhausted, that might be a red flag going up for you that you’re neglecting yourself. Let’s pause episode real quick so I can invite you to go check out our newest printable pack that’s over in the ePDM store, and that is our mental health, self-care, and gratitude tracker. This is perfect for you. If you are looking for a variety of trackers to help you journal, reflect, and just take care of your mental health. It’s got 75 printable pages. We’ve got self-care goal sheets, happiness logs, mental health trackers, mood trackers, affirmation, and some other journaling tips for you as well. I made this because I knew I personally needed it to be doing a better job at tracking some of my moods, figuring out my mental health issues while I’m in between therapists. And while this isn’t going to replace your therapist, I think it’s a really good tool for you to just pay attention to how you’re feeling.

Cara Harvey 00:12:11 You get the Self-care planner tips to help you be intentional about that. Guided reflection and gratitude pages, tons of journal prompts, and a variety of trackers just for your mental health. You can go to a purpose driven romcom Mental Health. Check this out right now it is our newest printable we’ve got in the store for you. Go head over and grab it today. If you find yourself having difficulty making decisions when I know I get to this point where I’m just so overwhelmed when I’ll be like, I don’t want to make a decision, Can you just decide to my husband, I’m like, I’m exhausted. I make so many decisions. Please just let me know what you think we should do about this, because I can’t think about it. Or when you feel unmotivated, especially with things that you normally love to do. And you’re just like, I just can’t get it now this happens, right? I had a day yesterday. It was not it. I had a hard day. I was emotionally eating like I just was not in the mood to be productive.

Cara Harvey 00:13:02 Okay, like that happens. I’m not going to beat myself up over that. But when you notice it happening over and over and over again, you might be saying like, let me think about that red flag. Another one might be you’re feeling resentful toward your family or towards your business tasks. Now, I’ve had a couple periods of burnout in my business where I knew I needed a break. And like I said, summit is coming up next week, so I know that this is the time of year where it’s culminating. It’s all coming together. We’ve just been working our tails off for the past few months to put this event on. I’m feeling it right now. I’m feeling resentful towards my business, but because I know this, I know that it’s short lived. I know that I just haven’t created enough space in my schedule to, like, decompress. And I’m okay with it. Maybe you feel that way towards your family. Or my big one for me is like I just start snapping. I will snap at the littlest thing becomes the biggest thing because I know that I’ve not taken care of myself, so I’m just on overdrive.

Cara Harvey 00:13:53 So what do we do about it? Right. Let’s shift your mindset a little bit because you deserve to take time for yourself. You deserve quiet space. Even if it’s just 15 minutes in the car where you’re hiding, you deserve to go after that hobby you want. You deserve to take time to read, to go see a friend, to have coffee, to do all these things right. It’s not selfish. It is necessary. Okay? Because we know that when we take care of ourselves, we are better equipped to do all the things that we have to do, right? We’ve heard it. Don’t fill up your cup. You know you got to fill up your cup in order to fill up everyone else’s. Seem like, your car, right? If you don’t have any gas in the tank, you’re not going to go anywhere. You have to do that for yourself if you don’t get your oil changed every few months. Your car is gonna have problems. If you don’t get maintenance done on your car, it’s going to have problems.

Cara Harvey 00:14:44 It might not stop, but it won’t be working as efficiently. Think about your body and yourself and your mind the same way you might be like, I can keep going. I’ve continued to keep going. I’m feeling fine, but something feels off. You’re not. You’re optimal. That’s when you need to be like, okay, let’s take care of me, okay? Small, small habits. You know everything here at purpose. Your mom is small. These will help improve your mental clarity, your emotional regulation. Right. So instead of saying things like, I don’t have the time. Reframe that for yourself, okay? Taking care of myself helps me show up better in other areas of my life. Because it’s okay. All right. And I want to give you permission in case you needed to hear it. Not that you needed to have it right. And I always say that I’m giving you the permission, even though I’m sure your heart knows it. Your brain is struggling with it. You don’t have to be available to people 24 over seven.

Cara Harvey 00:15:34 Your family can survive if you take a 20 minute break, they’ll figure it out. And if you’re struggling with that, maybe you’ve enabled them, right? To always rely on you. You know, my kids will get that every once in a while. I realize the problem we were having, we were at dinner and my kids would keep asking for things. I need a fork. I need the ketchup, whatever. And at one point in the past, like year or two, I just snapped. I was like, go get it. And they’re like, but you always get it. And I was like, oh, I do always get it. My kid asks for a fork. I go get the fork. Why? They have legs. They are capable of getting up and getting the fork, but it feels easier. And also, I like to serve my family. But they are capable. They can handle life without you for even 15 20 minutes. And if you’re someone like me with a business, your business will not fall apart if you take a day off.

Cara Harvey 00:16:22 So as you’re thinking about summer planning and getting everything together, we’re going on vacation again. I mentioned I’m leaving in a couple of days. We’re going to Florida for the week. I will be gone. I’m taking the entire week. I’m not going to feel bad about it. I’ll check in with my team. We’ve created systems to, which is a strategy we’ll talk about in a little bit. You’re permitted to take a day off. I’m permitted to sit outside and get sunshine for 90 minutes if I want to. It’s okay. Now, would it be responsible of me to sit outside the entire day and do no work, and then complain that I don’t have time to work? No. Right. But there’s a balance there. And just just a quick little reminder for you today saying no, it doesn’t make you a bad mom, doesn’t make you a bad business owner. Boundaries are important. And that’s that’s one of the strategies we’re going to talk about. So let’s start with some practical ones to create space and time for you.

Cara Harvey 00:17:06 Because I know again, as we’re getting into May summer, as the summer is hitting, your kids might be home like we do five my kids have a ten week summer. My kids do five weeks at camps, five weeks home. Okay, so that’s the way we split it this way. The five weeks that they’re at camps, I’m working more. I’m batching out. I might record a ton of episodes, like things like that. The five weeks they’re home will either go on vacation, we’ll have mommy camp, we go hiking, we go to the beach, and I work light. Okay, I know that summer is coming and what is challenging is during those five weeks, their home is I don’t have my same routine and I don’t have a lot of quiet. And for my moms who homeschool and things like that, I’m sure you’ve created some space where you can have that. And if you’ve not, make sure you do right. You have to create some time in your schedule that’s quiet, or you’re not answering questions or you’re not the one in charge.

Cara Harvey 00:17:54 Okay, so first things first. I love a good time block. I love some boundaries. I want you to schedule time in your schedule every single day for you. Small. Okay. Now we teach a weekly planning system. You schedule 15 minutes for a goal, 15 minutes for a habit, 15 minutes for learning. Right? That’s 45 minutes. I ask for my moms to put into their day. Start with 15 minutes. What is the thing you want to do for you? Like I’m going to read my book for 15 minutes. I’m going to take a bath, I’m gonna journal, I’m gonna go for a walk. I’m going to call a friend, put it on your calendar. Don’t just say, this is going to happen. Now, I do recommend just a best practice. I try to get my self-care. I do my time blocking where I see my blocks. Right where we say your theme time blocks are not saying it’s the only thing you’re doing, it’s saying where those goals are.

Cara Harvey 00:18:37 So my 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. time block is called self-care. During that self-care block, I’m getting my kids ready for school. We’re getting at the house, but it’s where I do all of my self-care habits. Not all. Most most of my self-care first thing in the morning, because I know that as soon as the day starts going, I’m more likely to put it off or not do it. So what do I do during that time? I get up in the morning and I do my photo calling. It’s like I go through my Facebook photos and my phone photos. I love that I do my Duolingo, which I’m thinking of switching to a new app, so we’ll see how that goes. So that’s part of my self-care, because it’s a hobby that I wanted to learn a new language. I go work out and I do reading, and I read 10 to 15 minutes of a personal care book. Okay, so all in all, that’s about an hour of time. You don’t have to do all four.

Cara Harvey 00:19:19 Start with one thing and I do it first thing in the morning. I still get my kids to breakfast, we still get out of the house, but it’s when I get it done, schedule it first, put it physically on the calendar, make an appointment with you. I recommend first thing in the morning, because we know that life’s just going to throw you off and kind of start pushing stuff, you know, where you’re like, oh, I got to do this and that. If you can’t and you have to push things off. Use our good, better, best model. So best is like the morning for me. I like to do my self-care block in the morning first thing. I take care of me first. It feels good. I feel recharged. If I can’t do those things, my better option is after I drop my kids off at school before I start work. I don’t like to do that because that’s when I get ready for work, but instead I’m going to spend time there.

Cara Harvey 00:20:01 And if I can’t do it, I use my good enough option, which is after the kids go to bed. Again, not ideal, but I have a backup plan, so schedule it in for you and then communicate your boundaries. Let your family. If you have a team, let them know you’re unavailable. One of the things I’ve started to do is I take Thursdays off or light. I do not schedule calls, so I do calls for my program. The purpose of Mom Club Mondays I have all my team calls and then once a month I’ll do a club call. Tuesdays I have a club call. called Wednesdays. I have a club call and Fridays I have a club call. So Thursdays I do not schedule any calls. I do not leave my schedule open to do podcasts, interviews, summit interviews, etc. why? Because I want a free full day to do whatever I want. So what do I do on Thursdays? I actually volunteer at the kid’s school. We have a program that sorts produce bags and we give them out in the community.

Cara Harvey 00:20:48 So I go to that every other Thursday morning. Sometimes I have coffee with friends. A lot of times I work. I don’t take the day completely off, but I don’t schedule it in. And I let my team know that Thursdays, to me are a light workday. I will probably check in once, but that’s about it. So if there’s something you need for me so that you can do your job on Thursday, hit me up on Wednesday so I can make sure I answer that by communicating your boundaries. You’re very intentionally creating this space. Okay, make office hours for work as well. Again, my work from home moms, oh it’s challenging. And listen, I’ve done it. I grew my business when my kids were infants, toddlers at school one day at preschool two days a week, one at preschool, full day school, half day during the pandemic. I’ve been there, done that. Okay, I have needed to set hours. So my I want to say a hard line, but I break it sometimes, like the summit, for example, right when I have extra work to do.

Cara Harvey 00:21:37 I work when my kids are at school now, my kids go to school 9 to 3. Those are my work hours. I try not to work outside of those. Sometimes you might say like, okay, during nap time, if you homeschool, you might say okay in the morning while the kids are doing their independent work. This is also my work time. By setting office hours, it also will not only give you time to work, but it will eliminate that need to respond right away. Okay, we put an auto responder up in our emails. People know we’ll get back to you within 24 hours. We have norms on our team, like get back to someone within 24 hours. But I don’t expect anyone to get to me right away. And this is a norm I’ve created in my friend groups as well. I was in the booster club for cheer, and we were messaging back and forth about stuff we had to do, and I noticed that the two of the ladies kept apologizing like, sorry, I’ll get to it.

Cara Harvey 00:22:18 Sorry. I was at work all day. Sorry I had a sick kid home and I do it too. But I was like, you know what? I said? Can we stop apologizing for not getting the messages right away? I trust that you have the best intention to answer when you have a time. I don’t expect you to be available. And they were like, thank you. Like, sometimes we just need that. So I know that in my friend groups, if someone does not text me back right away, I don’t feel any type of way about it because I know that they’ll get back to me when they can. They have a busy life. I do not expect that from anyone. And set those hours and then take that expectation off yourself. To feel on demand all the time is like the power of saying no, but like not having guilt. What if you could finally create routines in your life you’d actually stick to? Here’s the thing. Many moms are trying to create routines in their homes, but they struggle to keep momentum.

Cara Harvey 00:23:01 The problem isn’t in your motivation. The problem’s in your plan. So what if, instead of spending time trying to figure out the next system and the next steps, I gave you a plug and play system to get you there? Because it can be tough to figure out what routines to work on and how to make them stick. Maybe you get super excited about trying to fix up your routines. You spend all this time finding the perfect chart and you gear up for Monday. You jump in with both feet. You feel on top of the world, but by Tuesday, you’re burnt out and you’re overwhelmed and you just want to throw in the towel. It’s not because you’re unmotivated or because you don’t want it bad enough. It’s just because the plan you created is too overwhelming and it doesn’t make sense for you. As a busy mom, I’ve got the solution for you and that is my routine expansion roadmap. Imagine if you could create long lasting routines in your homes that gave you freedom and flexibility, without trying to figure out each step.

Cara Harvey 00:23:45 What would it be like if, instead of ending the day feeling overwhelmed, you were proud of what you accomplished and you didn’t have to continue to fill your planner with tasks that weren’t aligned with your priorities, or you could jump into any routine easily without having to figure out the path. What if you stopped quitting on creating routines in your home, and you actually felt empowered and excited to work on them, and you had an easy system to follow when it comes to routines, and you could stop searching Pinterest for the right chart to change things. I am so excited to introduce to you the routine expansion roadmap. This is a brand new roadmap that I have created, and it is going to help you stick to your routines and plug and play these Trello board templates. There are seven of them all together, are going to help you figure out how to make routines, and I’m going to give you my routines. When I asked moms one thing they wish I could give them, it’s like, can you just make my routines for me? And I’ve done that for you.

Cara Harvey 00:24:33 But I’ve also created a system. Within each Trello board is a video to teach you how to customize it and make your own. So not only do you get literally plug and play 2 to 3 month plans that you can just get started with for your evening routine, or your self-care routine, or your budgeting routine and more. You get a video teaching you how to do it. If you’ve never used Trello, I’ve got a couple bonuses. One is a Trello one on one class to show you the basics. If you don’t want to do it all in Trello, there’s also a printable habit tracker charts that I’ve created. I’ve also created printable routine charts for your kids to get them on board, and I’m throwing in a bonus creating a family routines workshop. This routine expansion roadmap is incredible. It’s so simple to use and very affordable. For only $27, you’ll get all those Trello boards, the videos, the printables, and all the bonuses. You can find out more at. a purpose driven expansion roadmap.

Cara Harvey 00:25:26 Go and snag yours today. I also want to encourage you to create micro moments of self-care. You know, I am going with my book club in a couple of weeks. We’re doing a spa day. It’s one of my friends is pregnant. It’s gonna be great. I’m so excited I cannot wait for a facial. I would love to take a day like that all the time. I do not have that time to do okay, but I do have 15 minutes every once in a while to reset myself. Okay? I have ten minutes to read my book in the morning, I can walk, I have a pool. So I always say like whenever I transition, I walk outside, I get some fresh air. One of the things I teach in my time blogging method is the concept of transition time. So it’s like when you were at high school, the bell would ring right and you had four minutes to go from English to history. In that four minutes you could go to the bathroom, which was wild.

Cara Harvey 00:26:12 And now that my high school was so big, I had four minutes to take care of myself. Like, again, homeschooling just looks better and better every day. I’m like, what on earth? but you form it, it’s right. Your brain goes from English to history. You transition yourself physically. Do the same for you. So in between each of my time blocks, I will go. I tend to do like a lap around my pool or around my block if I have a little bit more time. My kids don’t actually get picked up till 330, but I stop my workday at three, so between 3 and 330 I can do a little meditation. I can catch up on personal things. I can just scroll my phone if that’s what I want to do, so that I’m not needed at work in quotes and not needed with my kids. I can just exist as Kara. How often are you giving yourself time to exist as the person you are? Okay. You can also use like habit triggers.

Cara Harvey 00:26:57 We call them where it’s like I have one habit and I attach another habit. So sometimes for me, self-care a lot of times like listening to a good book. So I walk a lot for my exercise. I listen to a good podcast while I’m doing chores, while I’m doing my laundry, I try to multitask. Isn’t like our brains don’t want to multitask, but to the best of my ability while I’m doing things, I will put on a good playlist. This morning I was doing a little mini meal prep. I do like a 20 minute meal prep every day where I get some freezer stuff in, so I was like making my son’s pancakes so I can freeze them, getting bagels in the oven and cooking some cookies that I had from the freezer. Right? That whole thing took me about 30 minutes. I put on music. I’ve been listening to Alex Warren. I don’t know if you’ve found Alex Warren, find him on Spotify. His voice is just. I just love it. Puts me in such a good mood.

Cara Harvey 00:27:38 So I put on some music and I just danced around my kitchen. Right. Those moments of self-care, while they’re not hours and hours that I’d like, there were enough to let me feel recharged. I also recommend other people I mentioned my friend this morning because I feel so rejuvenated after a day with her. Now I want you to check your energy though. I have some people I hang out with, I don’t feel the same. I don’t feel great, I feel anxious, I feel on edge. I feel like this just stressed me out more because of the person’s personality, because of the dynamic of the relationship, my time is so limited. I’m telling you, between reading let them therapy this year, church, all the things coming to me like turning 41. Like my time is so limited that I do not have time to give to people or situations or groups that don’t make me feel good, right? Not always obviously, but like if I leave feeling more drained, that’s not it for me.

Cara Harvey 00:28:27 Like that’s not it. So check your energy. But take make a five minute phone call, talk to someone, recharge. One of the things I use is Marco Polo. I use Voxer for work, but my friend and I, we use Marco Polo for free. It’s a video app. It’s kind of like FaceTime, but not in real time. And I check in with her every day. Talking to her makes me feel so much better and it helps recharge me. I want to also recommend if you can do some breathing. We do not take deep breaths. Let’s do it already. Everybody in that feels good, right? We don’t do it. Just ten minutes of deep breathing can help lower your cortisol, which is your stress hormone. Now, I had my hormones tested a few years ago. I should go back, and I have. My DHA sulfate is high and my cortisol through the roof. Now, cortisol is that hormone that holds the belly fat. That’s the stress hormone, all those types of things.

Cara Harvey 00:29:13 So I’ve been working to decrease my stress by taking care of myself and giving myself space. Another thing that I’m going to recommend is outsource and delegate. Let go of tasks and the belief that you have to do absolutely everything. Okay, your kids can help. I share that example of how I was getting the forks. I don’t need to be doing that. Even small toddlers can put their clothes in the hamper. Okay, I don’t have to do all the cleaning. My kids might not do it the way I would want it done or the way I would have done it. My husband might not, but I don’t have to. Okay. Take some of the things off your plate. If people ask you, how can I help? Give them a task. They ask because they want to help. Don’t feel like you have to do it all, because what that will do is it will then create space that you can reclaim for yourself. Same in your business. Not just I have to hire because I know some of you are like, I’m brand new.

Cara Harvey 00:30:03 I can’t hire a virtual system, use automation tools using you know, I speak the praises of the ChatGPT all the time. Use the AI to help make things Delegated or outsourced. I’m not gonna lie. I knew this topic. I know, like, the back of my hand, but I was like, oh, I could use some talking points to keep myself focused. I asked ChatGPT to write me an outline. Sitting right here, I’m talking from it, but not really. You can tell it’s conversational, like I’m speaking to you, but at least I’ve outsourced that brain space of having to even type up the outline. Everything it said I would have said. I added some of my own things in right. Also automation tools. Zapier is a great one for a business if you want to connect things. I remember the beginning of my business is so embarrassing. I think about it now, but we all make beginner mistakes. Like, I didn’t understand what an email management software was, so I was literally people would sign up for my freebie and then I would manually go in and add them to it.

Cara Harvey 00:30:52 I had a Google spreadsheet. I mean, it was taking so much time. So what automation tools can you use? We use Google Streak in our email, so we save these things called snippets that are kind of like canned responses. That way I don’t have to retype the same thing over and over and over again. Use scheduling tools, scheduling social media. Batch out your content. Make things easier. Like I mentioned before. While my kids are at camp that I’m going to be recording and recording and recording so that I don’t have to always be thinking and worrying about it, I just want to remind you, like, I know your brain wants to say I should be doing more, but you are already doing enough. And I know your brain will say, my kids need me 24 over seven. I need to be needed and it feels good a lot of times to be needed. It makes us feel good inside. But kids also will thrive when they see their mom taking care of themselves. Kids copy what we do.

Cara Harvey 00:31:40 We are teaching our daughters how to be a mom. We are teaching our sons how to treat their wives right in the most gendered terms that I’m using right now. Okay, we need to model for them that it’s important that mommy has time. Okay, so your kids might complain, right? Speak to them in their language, right? Mommy needs a break right now. Just like after school. We we don’t do homework right away, right? I give my kids time to decompress. You need break. Just like you have recess at school, right? Just you get to move around, you get to take a lunch break. Mommy needs a break, too. Whenever I need a timeout, just because I’m like, feisty. I say to my kids, mommy needs a timeout right now, and I physically take it to show them. I need to learn how to emotionally regulate and I need to break as well. Okay. And remember, you’re modeling healthy balance for your kids. So just kind of in closing, you deserve time for yourself.

Cara Harvey 00:32:32 Small changes. You don’t have to take a half day. Take one thing for yourself will make a big difference, and boundaries will help create that intentional space. Okay, so what I want you to do today is pick one thing, five minute task just for you in your home life. And if you have a business in your business and I want you to think, how can I take five minutes just for me today, then tomorrow, maybe take ten, then 15, and increase it a little bit until you’re doing the things that fill you up, that give you joy. Like we need to normalize having hobbies as grown ups, doing things. I’m in a book club, I love to read. I love to hang out with my book club friends. I don’t feel any type of way about the fact that I go hang out with my friends. I don’t, because I know that that fills me up and you deserve it too. Show notes over at a purpose driven romcom podcast for 57. Head on over and listen.

Cara Harvey 00:33:20 Find me on social media. Add a purpose to remind my free Facebook group. Let me know what you did for you today. I’m excited to hear. 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. 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.