Cara Harvey (00:04.11)

Welcome to the Purpose Driven Mom Show. Here at 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 fill the laundry, and let’s do this.

Cara Harvey (00:48.642)

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and start using the Chat GPT tools for good and helping your day feel lighter and better. That’s at PurposeTrippinMom.com slash AIProps.

Welcome to the Purpose of a Mom Show, episode 495, which is just insane that we’re this close to 500. Happy New Year. I know it’s like hitting February, but I might say it for a while. Today I’m gonna talk about why focus feels impossible some days and how you can protect it with some quick tips. I know coming out of the holiday season, coming out of everyone being home, you’re gung ho, you’re excited about your goals, you’re ready. And then all of sudden everything feels a little bit harder than you’d like it to be, right? All of a sudden it’s like, wait.

What am I doing? Why am I doing this? Where am I at? Right? And you sit down to work, you finally have the time and you can’t get focused. But I just want to remind you, like, it’s not a you problem. It’s actually like a brain and environment, a season problem. And I’m going to give you a couple of shifts today, a couple of things that you can start to put in play now that can help make it a little bit easier. Because there are a few root causes in particular why focus feels really hard and impossible for us.

moms in particular. One is the mental load. My husband and I, just went out to a breakfast date the other day and we talked about this a little bit and I was like, do you understand like the amount of things that are on my brain at all time? And he’s like, no. And I was like, okay, let’s talk about it. The mental load is so heavy for us moms. We carry the background noise, the tabs, the things we have to remember. I actually was just walking around, again, I’m recording this in December.

Cara Harvey (02:57.24)

So I walking around my house yesterday just talking to myself, because that is what I do, about all the things that I need to remember. And I was like, all right, well tomorrow’s Spirit Day and then we have this and this. I’m talking out loud and my daughter just looks at me and she’s like, that’s a lot to remember. I’m like, I know. Our brains are filled with what’s for dinner, to did I sign that permission slip, to what are we doing this weekend, and more. The constant scanning and ping ponging through all the aspects of our life makes focus feel really hard and almost impossible.

It’s not a lack of discipline. It’s not because you’re unmotivated. It’s not because you can’t do it. It’s because you have less cognitive bandwidth. The other reality that’s a little different for us moms, and this is one of the reasons I wrote my book, The 15 Minute Formula, specifically for moms, was because our environment is different, right? All the bros out there can write all the books they want about what we should be doing, but unless they’re sitting there in our mom’s shoes, they don’t know what it’s like. Environmental interruption is real, right? You finally get a second to sit down to get some work done.

Someone needs a snack. They need their shoe tied. They need their go-gurt opened. And you’re like, your father’s sitting right there. Like, I don’t know, maybe just my house, right? Noise, clutter, kids being home from school, somebody’s sick, pets, the notifications. Your environment is calling all the time. It’s just demanding your attention. And even when you do get a second to sit down, you’re like, I got it. Like, I’m ready, I’m focused. And then the mental is like, oh wait, I need to remember this thing or I’m going to forget it right now. Or I need to go do this thing or I’m going to forget to do it right now.

and it pulls your attention. The third reason I think us moms struggle the most with this focus thing, maybe differently than our partners might, is we have unrealistic expectations of what focus should look like. Because societally, we’ve been conditioned to believe focus time is this like, I can only think of one thing. I only get 90 minutes of interrupted work, right? Where in real life, like we get nine minutes. My life right now in reality, is it’s a couple days, about a week before Christmas when I’m recording this.

And tomorrow we’re going to my sister’s to do Christmas at her house. I get to make my cookies. I love it. It’s like my favorite, favorite thing that I get to do. all it’s my favorite holiday tradition, but I need to get all the cookies made. So right now I have sweet potatoes in the oven so that I can roast them to make sweet potato casserole. have cookies ready and queued up to go. And then I just made some rice krispies treats and I was like, look, I have 25 minutes, 30 minutes right now. Let me come sit down. I know I have two podcast episodes to record today. Let me go sit down and get these recorded. And then as soon as that timer goes off, I can move to the next thing.

Cara Harvey (05:25.218)

I don’t like working like this. This does not work for me. And I’m going to give you some tips on how to get out of this. But I feel like many of our days are like this, right? December is just one of those months where you feel like you don’t have it all together. But now that we’re in the new year, I really think that you’re capable of pulling your focus back in and know that it happens to all of us, right? And we judge ourselves as women so harshly on what we quote, should be doing. Like I don’t get a minute to just sit and exist. I should always be doing something.

And if I am doing something and it’s not completely focused, I’m doing it wrong, right? Even if we get five minutes, it doesn’t feel good enough. That’s the other reason I wrote the 15 minute formula, because it’s like, yeah, we are constantly doing things, but if I can even do 15 minutes, I need to let it count. This is the perfectionism. Like it’s so tight and I see it with all my students, is that I don’t have two, three hours today to do a full baking day in a row, it’s done wrong. And I have to retrain my brain to be like, you know what?

Last year we did a huge baking day with my mother-in-law and it was really fun, but my back was killing me by the end of the day. It was just so much to do. So what I did this year was I shifted it. And instead of that, each week I made three dozen frozen cookies, right? Like I made, right now I just put my peanut butter blossoms in. I made chocolate crinkle cookies, chocolate chip, and I just rolled them in balls. I flash froze them and they’re in my freezer. So now today I don’t have to make them and cook them. I just have to cook them. And then there’s a couple of things I do have to make fresh, but it’s like released my load.

And at first I felt guilty about that. I was like, well, if I’m gonna be focused on cookies, it is faster to batch. True, it is faster to batch, but sometimes our schedule doesn’t lead us to batch. I’m gonna have an episode, I think next week, as on the schedule for like batching versus the 15 minute formula and when each one makes sense. But I want you to know that it can look like whatever you want it to look like. There’s no right or wrong when it comes to you getting work done, whether it’s I get 15 minutes to empty some emails or I run to the library for an hour and a half when I get my work done. All right.

You don’t have to feel shamed if you’re not making your productivity look like what you think it’s supposed to look like. But let’s talk a little bit about the brain science behind lost focus, all right? The brain loves novelty, okay? It wants to scroll. It wants to switch tasks. It wants the little synapses to fire and light up. Context switching itself, even tiny ones that we do where we’re like, now I’m here, now I’m here, now I’m trying to multitask, right? It actually will increase your task time by up to 40%.

Cara Harvey (07:49.836)

So it isn’t efficient to always multitask. We know this, but our mom life doesn’t always let us feel that way. The other thing that I think is hard for us moms is the stress hormone, that cortisol that we spiked when it’s causing all these gray hairs I tried to cover last night. But the reason that these grays are coming right now, besides age, is cortisol. It’s the stress hormone. It makes our brain stand for danger, which allows our brain to,

Well, this is a distraction, so that means it’s a priority. So I should focus on it first. And that allows our brains to feel so overwhelmed because decision fatigue makes simple choices overwhelming. Okay. I just want you to know that if you’re struggling with focus, like you’re not broken, like your brain is doing what it’s designed to do to keep you safe. But I know that there’s probably ways you could be more efficient because you’re listening to this episode, right? Which show notes, by the way, apurpose-servermom.com, such podcast 495. You’re listening to this because you’re like, I want to be more focused.

And in, you know, I have a lot of friends with ADHD. I actually attract a lot of people in the Purpose of a Mom Club who struggle with ADHD, other executive function. So I don’t know if all these tips will help. These are like more neurotypical solutions, but I want you to try them. I want you to go through and I want to say, hey, could I take these things to amplify my productivity in any way, or form? You won’t know unless you try them. And they could be more tools to add to your toolbox when you’re like, I need to focus and I’m not sure where to go from here. I have a few tools that I’m going to share with you. And these are mom tested, doable.

practical things that you can start today as soon as you’re done with this episode. My first and favorite is the 15 minute focus pocket. I love a good long stretch to do stuff, but it’s not always my life. Again, wrote a book called the 15 minute formula. Why? Because 15 minutes is enough time to get some things done. And it’s also enough time to trick your brain that it’s safe to sprint through things. If you can get rid of the perfectionism that 15 minutes is enough. While I won’t be able to declutter my entire living room in 15 minutes, I can do a quick scan through and put some things away.

Cara Harvey (09:49.934)

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but I will give you a Trello board if you wanna 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 wanna go and snag this checklist, you can go to apurposedrivenmom.com slash podcast checklist and it’ll be there absolutely free for you. Again, go to apurposedrivenmom.com slash podcast checklist and get your copy.

Cara Harvey (10:45.43)

Instead of chasing the long stretches, I want you to pick out some tiny pockets and gamify it a little bit. Just sit an episode on gamification, right? This will help you use the chaos with you, not fighting against it. So I do this with my kids, 15 minutes, let’s put on a timer. It’s about three to four songs. And let’s see what I can get done in 15 minutes. Now in the Purpose to Vermont club, we do coworking calls where this is exactly what we do. And it works. We get on once a week and.

I’ll put on a 15 minute timer. Everybody tells me in the chat what they’re going to get done. And then they try to beat the clock. And it’s like, all right, I’m just going to focus on this one tiny task. There’s the key here. This one tiny task for 15 minutes. And we’re going to see, you know, what we get going on. And that’s what’s super important. Tying into this is kind of the one tab rule. This is whether it’s digital or mental, you’re going to choose one task to focus on. All right. So before you sit down to work on your one task that you’d like to be focused on, and again, you could do it for 15 minutes or longer.

Maybe do a quick brain dump of all the other things that are occupying your brain space. And then pull out the things that are just for this one tab, quote unquote, right? Digitally or physically or mentally. My mental tab of Girl Scouts, my mental tab of phone calls, my mental tab of errands. Or my physical tab, because let’s be real, we all got a bunch of tabs on our computer right now, of this inbox or this thing I needed to do or those Amazon purchases.

Put on your timer and say, I’m only focusing on this one tab and I’m going to get all of it done. This is how I go through my emails. Once a week I sit down, I’d get a 15 minute to 30 minute timer, depending on how much time I have that day. And I’m like, let me bang out as much as I can. I’m not get rid of all the other tabs. I close them all, which is so hard because I want to, I write them down like what tabs I had. I close them all. And I just say, I’m just getting whatever I can get done in my inbox done. And it helps me focus instead of being scattered. The other recommendation is those environmental edits, speaking of.

being scattered. When I do something like this, my phone, I don’t keep it in my room with me. We are conditioned to pick up our phone. In October, I took social media off my phone. November, it was like 50 % December, I put it back on my phone. Big mistake, I’m about to take it back off. I’m so unfocused. I’m all over the place. I just want to pick it up. I was retraining my brain to not need the instant dopamine hits and now I’m back, right? This is where you’re going to do some things to kind of like protect your space. One, don’t have your phone in your room if you’re trying to do something focused. Two,

Cara Harvey (13:06.022)

Using headphones. I was so resistant on audiobooks. I was like, I don’t want to listen to a fiction audiobook. I could only do self help because it sounds like a podcast. Like that’s what I sounded like. And then I put on a fiction audiobook and I was like, this is productive. I like this. So I put my headphones on, I get so much done, so much cleaning, so much focused pickup when I my headphones on. Closing your door. I always talk about how I have a closed door, open door policy when I’m working. Having my door closed reminds me I only have this time I’m focused on this one task.

or even changing your space. If I go work up a library or something like that. This is about giving yourself an environment that leads you to be less distracted. And if you know that it’s your phone, if you know it’s your tablet, if you know if it’s this specific thing, change that piece about your environment. And I really do recommend if you’re trying to have things that are like cleaning related or house related around your home, use headphones. They help so much. The other piece I hear from moms a lot is they are like, well, all these tasks keep popping in my head.

I have all these things I have to do, they’re occupying space. So have a place for them. This is a distraction dump. I love Trello, so I have a Trello list of some day. So it’s like things I think of that I wanna work on. We also use the system of the thought catcher here, where you’re taking your tasks and just getting them somewhere. You could use a sticky note, you can use paper, so that every time your brain is saying like, wait, I have to remember this, wait, I have to do this, you don’t act on it right away, you write it down. You made your schedule for the week. You decided where you were gonna be doing at that time.

Don’t get distracted because something feels urgent. This will also help you retrain your brain on what urgent feels like, right? It frees up the mental space, gets it physically out on paper, and then allows you to be like, I’m distracted for a moment, I’ve written it down, I’m back to my focus. The other thing I wanna recommend is creating some boundary scripts for yourself around that environmental space. You’re like, I wanna close my door, I wanna get some stuff done. So things like, hey.

I’m gonna go work for 10 minutes and when this timer goes off, I’m all yours to play another round of Candy Land, okay? Mom is in focus time right now, all right? Maybe give them a list. Have you taught your kids how to prod themselves on their own? Right, have you taught them how to figure something out without you? I need to get better at this and I think it’s a really good place to encourage and push myself.

Cara Harvey (15:18.19)

Because I could say to them, have you checked that list of how can you solve the problem without me? And again, I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m like, unless you’re bleeding, like listen to the timer. Like we are okay right now. Like we don’t need to jump for them automatically, but we have to teach them how to do that. Short, simple, repeatable scripts that you teach them, right? So you’re like, I’m working on XYZ. We will play later. Sometimes with my son too, he’s very much a quality time type of dude. So if I know that I need a half hour to go work on a task for work or whatever it is,

I will try to play with him first. Hey, let’s take 15 minutes to go play around at Uno. Okay, now that we spent this time together, I’m gonna go get some work done so that he kind of gets his cup filled. The other recommendation that I give is to help yourself just get started is those micro starts, right? Open your doc, put on a quick timer. If 15 minutes even feels too much, be like, all right, for five minutes, what can I get done? Just get started. Because when you start something, it allows your focus to kind of bring it in. The other piece that I think is like really, really important,

is using the time blocking method with batching. know I’m giving you suggestions today that fit more into the 15 minute formula type of work, but the one thing that does help my focus the most is batching my time blocks, saying that today I’m gonna do podcast episodes. Now, again, reality is that I still need to get these cookies made. So I’m gonna do some cookies, come back and do an episode. Do some cookies, come back and do an episode. That’s kind of where I’m at.

But by batching out all these podcast topics, I’m going to be able to get them done while I’m in my good flow and I’m talking. And it works a lot better for me when it does come to focus. Now it wouldn’t be an episode about focus if I didn’t talk about my favorite tool, which is the timer. Beating the clock, using the timer helps because it removes this like pressure of I need to get it done at some point to saying, hey, this is my container of focus. I don’t have to think about this all day if I can get this done.

I only have to do this for five, 10, 15 minutes. Your brain feels safe and you’re ready to go. So if you’re struggling with focus, I always recommend like get that timer for urgency, get that timer because instead of tasks feeling like I have to do them forever, it’s finite. You know that there’s an end coming and you’ll get to see progress. I also want you to think about when you’re doing your focus plan is giving yourself focus for like the natural energy you have. I know that the morning is my best time for doing stuff like this.

Cara Harvey (17:34.648)

So I don’t wanna leave recording a podcast episode 2 p.m. because I don’t wanna do it at 2 p.m. Do it early in the morning where I feel better off. So when you’re planning out your focus blocks, look at your bio rhythms, look at when you have the most energy, look at when you feel the best, and then that’s gonna be your best time to do it. And then finally, I want you to make a little focus start ritual for yourself. When I do the podcast, right, I make sure my water’s filled, I plug all my stuff in, I check a couple of things, I listen to a couple songs. I obviously do this when I do like live and teaching workshops. I have a playlist I listen to.

That gets your brain tricked into like, we’re focusing now. All the headphones are in, this is what we’re doing. Donuts for this episode are at apurpose-drivenmom.com slash podcast 495. I want you to head over there, check out some more focus tips and connect with me over in our Facebook group, just search Purpose Driven Mom. Let me know what you’re doing to get focused. And if you want some support, head over to our purpose-drivenmom.com slash club. Join the wait list for the next time that we are open and you can get on in and join us for a coworking session.

Thank you so much for tuning in today. I hope that you were able to get some tips to just parent with more intentionality. Make sure you head over to Facebook and join our private Facebook community group. Just search for Purpose Driven Mom and it’ll come up. You can also go to a purposedrivenmom.com slash podcast and you will have access to every single podcast, all the show notes, all the links, all the freebies and all the goodies that I have for you. Thank you again for being a part of the community and I would love and appreciate it if you head over and gave a five star rating and review.

It allows us to find other purpose-driven moms, have an impact on them, and I would love to feature you as the reviewer of the week. Thanks again, and have an amazing day.