Cara Harvey (00:18.702)

Welcome to the Purpose to Be Mom Show, episode 498. Today I wanna talk about reset days. How you can start to regain control when life is feeling like an absolute four car pile up. And if you’ve ever looked around and thought like everything is falling apart at the same time, I think you’re gonna enjoy this episode. Oops, I probably should have put the mic in front of me.

Cara Harvey (00:43.15)

Oftentimes we need resets when it’s not that we’re failing at stuff. We are just over accumulating the tasks and a reset day is a good one to add in so that you can have a gentle realignment of the things that you need to get done. A reset day isn’t just a rest day. It’s a kind of a catch up day so that you can feel back together. And I’m gonna talk to you today not only on how to

have this reset day, but what do you do when you have tasks on the reset day? How do we get it all together? I’m gonna put show notes at a purpose-drivenmom.com, such podcast 498. And by the end of this episode, I’m gonna have taught you how do you get this reset day to regain control when you need to overhaul? Because it happens to all of us. The to-do list piles up, the tasks pile up, right? We have all started the year with great intentions. Now it’s mid February and you know, everything feels like it’s kind of going to crap maybe. Well, how do we pull it back in?

So what is a reset day and what is it not? A reset day is a pause to kind of clear out some of the mental, the emotional, the logistical clutter. It’s not just a sprint through everything you have to get done. It’s not just, me catch up on everything right now so I can just keep going a million miles an hour. And it’s not a punishment for falling behind. Reset days are actually maintenance, not emergencies.

And I recommend that you schedule reset days into your month, at least one a month before the month starts so that you know it’s coming. I teach this concept of white space buffer, keeping some parts of your schedule blank. Why? Because you’re gonna need them. The tasks are gonna pile up. You’re gonna think you have this great plan. Then Monday hits, you’re in the shower. You think of a hundred tasks, then you feel behind. So I like to set myself a reset day once a month. I pre-plan what the day is gonna be.

Because I’m real, I know that I’m gonna get behind on stuff. So why not plan for it instead of jamming everything in? I also give myself at least one, if not more, whitespace buffer block a week. This is for the catch up of the things I need to get done and to give myself a little bit of time. And if you can schedule yourself a little buffer block every day, I also recommend. So small tasks pile up so fast when we don’t have systems, when you don’t know where to go, right? We miss a routine, we get up late.

Cara Harvey (03:08.046)

things throw you off. You also will either under or overestimate how long a task takes. So I might have a task I wanna get done, it’s unfinished, cause I gave myself an hour and I could have used two. Often we also deal with the emotional stress of being a human being and then things start to pile up because like I talked about in last episode, we’re stuck in that decision fatigue. Decision fatigue makes us procrastinate and then we get less and less done. And again, we feel this so deeply as moms.

because oftentimes we put everyone else’s needs before us and we don’t build in a place to reset. Things aren’t always just falling apart. We just need to shift the alignment. We just need to pre-plan for it to happen. And again, I’m not being negative pessimistic, a Debbie Downer, like you’re going to fail, right? I mean, realistic. I realistically know that I’m probably going to over plan my week.

I also know that stuff’s gonna pop up that I forgot to do because I’m a human being and I need space for it. So if you can intentionally plan out reset days, again, I recommend one a month, if you can have one full reset day a month, and if you can have one reset block a week, you’re gonna be set up for success. So if every day is feeling heavier and heavier and louder, you really could use this. And if you’re feeling a little bit more reactive than intentional, I’m telling you, reset day is gonna get you there. I want you to be like,

I’m in charge of my time, even though it falls apart often. So I can be intentional about what I need. If you’re always feeling behind and you’re like, I wish I could have one day, 24 hours to do what I got to do to catch up, to reset, to get ready. Perfect. Right. You’re going to want one of these days. Now, what I can’t give you is a day where the world pauses. I can’t give you a day where nothing else happens or nothing piles up. But if you can proactively plan yourself a reset day, it’s going to help you.

know that even though things feel out of control right now, I can get them back on track.

Cara Harvey (05:20.056)

I want to talk to you before we talk about how do you fit this in your schedule. The mistakes I see moms make when they’re like, great, a reset day. All right. I’m going to get everything done. I’m to get everything done that I haven’t gotten done all month. I’m going to do it all in one day. Why is this a mistake? Because it’s not giving you space to also do the emotional reset. It’s just doing the physical stuff reset, which is great. It’s important, but it’s not the only reset you need. So when you’re trying to do everything, you’re just back on the hustle burnout cycle.

Oftentimes, I notice moms will try to use these reset days to overwork, right? I’m piling everything in to fix their life. If I could just have 24 hours, I could just get it all done and it’ll all be fixed or to shame themselves for all the things I do. Well, I could relax, but I can’t because I got behind on all these things. It backfires, right? You’re adding more pressure instead of the relief that a reset day is supposed to give you. They are about regaining clarity, not just about

completing all your tasks. Yes, are we gonna get some tasks done? 100%, but we’re also going to get some other resets done. Now, I like to schedule a task reset day, but I also like to give myself a mental and emotional reset day too each month. So that’s two reset days I’m suggesting. One is more about a reset for your body and the other is a reset for your task.

So let’s talk about the practical one because I know that’s the one you want and then we’re gonna talk about the one that I know that you need that you’re more resistant to scheduling. First up is scheduling in once a month a task reset day. This reset day is where you’re going to spend more time planning. You’re going to get a big brain dump done, get all your tasks out, decide, hey, what has to happen to get done? I recommend this one be maybe like the mid-month point.

This way you can relook at your task list. You can relook at your goals. You can relook at your to do list audit and realign things. This is going to help you reduce your decision load and take some things off your plate. Go through the quadrant system that I teach. Decide what to delegate drop. What do you need to sprint on? You’re going to spend the good chunk of the morning in mental reset mode that way, right? Where you’re mentally resetting your task list, your goals, your to do list.

Cara Harvey (07:46.102)

And then you’re gonna spend the rest of the time you’ve assigned for the day because we don’t always get a full day, right? But maybe you get a couple hours that you’re gonna do. I would think if my kids were at school, I might have during the school day to reset type of a thing. That’s when we’re gonna go through and catch up on some of the things that are still important to us. If you’ve just done your mental reset, you’ve just gone through your priority dump, you know what you still wanna work on, you’re gonna spend the day doing that. Now,

How do you find this time? Right? Like where do you get it in when you’re planning your month out? If you can’t give yourself like that full day like for me and when I’m saying full day I’m like thinking the school day I’m not thinking like I’m not gonna ignore my kids for a full day but when they’re at school from 9 to 3 I Will pre plan out like that 9 to 3 to do this mental reset? Your task will expand to the time you give it. So if you Preplan that you make it an appointment. You said half or through the month. I’m gonna spend a couple

hours or so, just a little bit slower, we’re doing my brain dump, things like that. And I’ll spend the rest of the time getting things done. Your other tasks will fall into place on the other days. If I continue to give myself six days of the month to work on this one project, it will take six days. If I give myself five days to work on it, it will take five days. So just by quote unquote, giving up one day to do this reset, you might feel like, but I need that time.

you will beat the clock. You will race against the time to get it done in the time you’ve given yourself. Urgency works, okay? So I pre-plan this out so that I can have those hours. The other one that I plan out, and this is different each month, it’s either towards the end of the month or it’s when I know I might need it. Like I just had a really busy two weeks, I wanna put it here. This is the physical and the emotional reset day. Again, I’m not saying we’re taking the whole day off, but I’m saying a good chunk of my day.

is where I’m gonna spend time physically and emotionally getting myself relaxed. I will start with actually doing a quick tidy, not a clean, of my high impact spaces, the spaces that stress me out. Take 15 minutes and clear off those surfaces, right? I may do a little bit of restoration with my laundry or my meals or my routines, and I will physically reset my space to give my anxiety a place to go, right? When we have outdoor clutter, our brain,

Cara Harvey (10:06.324)

feels cluttered as well. So I will give myself some time for physical and then I will also give myself some time for the emotional reset. This is where I relax, I rest, I release some stress, some guilt. You don’t need to do all three all the time, but pre-planning these allows me to feel better. So Thursdays, I haven’t done my…

2026 schedule and recording this in December. But typically for 2024 and 2025, I gave myself Thursdays off of work. If I wanted to work, I and it was choice. But if I didn’t wanna work, I could go do these reset days. It worked really well. Going into 2026, I’ve added kind of some extra jobs. So I won’t be able to do the full Thursday, cause I need that time. But I’m choosing to give myself one time block, either nine to 12 or 12 to three off. And I’m calling those my reset blocks.

So each Thursday, so instead of, hey, I can’t give myself a full day, but I’m gonna split it up throughout the month. Each Thursday, I’m giving myself a three hour block to reset, whether it’s the mental, the physical, the emotional, or the task reset. So I know that it’s coming, it’s pre-planned, it’s scheduled in, and it allows me to actually be more productive and get more things done. So what I want you to do is I want you to look at the next two weeks, three weeks, next month if you want. And I want you to ask yourself, which…

of these blocks can I fit in and where? Where can I give myself a little bit of time? And you might be like, Kara, I can’t give myself a three hour block once a week. I can’t give myself a whole day once a month. Cool. Can you give yourself one hour? Can you carve one hour out of the next two weeks of hours to do a little bit of a reset? This is going to allow you to slowly see that it’s possible to get done and your other tasks will still happen. Give yourself some realistic time limits though.

Energy limits be like I’m this is new to me. I’m struggling to give myself the time. Where do I go? And ask yourself, which do I need most right now? Sometimes I need the mental reset where I just need to get everything out on paper and Organize myself. Sometimes I need a physical reset. I am tired. I feel myself getting burnt out I just need to stop moving my body, right? Sometimes I need that emotional reset as well or sometimes I just need a task reset right where I’m just getting things done

Cara Harvey (12:25.73)

I want you to look at the next week or so and build in for yourself even just an hour where you’re like, I’m gonna do one of these four resets and get them done. Again, mental, brain dumps, deciding priorities, redoing that to-do list, physical, tidying your high impact spaces, getting things picked up, emotional, the actual relaxation part, right? Where you’re like, maybe I’m taking a nap, maybe I’m gonna do a hobby, I’m just gonna do something. Or the task reset where I’m gonna bang through a bunch of.

tasks that have kind of built up, okay?

Reset doesn’t have to mean we’re just not doing anything, but sometimes it’s allowed and it’s permitted. Now, if you don’t have this full day, again, use the micro resets. How can I do this throughout my week? How can I do this throughout my day?

Cara Harvey (13:20.664)

Can I give myself 15 minutes at the end of the day to do one of these resets? Again, if you even wanna take it further, I gave you four resets. You can do 15 minutes for each one. That’s an hour you could do for your first time or every single day, right? I do all four of these a little bit micro throughout my day. Go through and space out any time you can give yourself.

you can reset in small pockets. It doesn’t have to be, I’m taking a whole weekend to get a hotel by myself so I can just sleep. I mean, that sounds wonderful, but that’s not realistic. But if you start to do these consistent small resets, then you’re going to see that it’s possible. You’re gonna prevent bigger pileups of your tasks, listen to your burnout, and you’re going to have proactive time you’ve scheduled to take care of you so you don’t hit resentment and burnout land. What I want you to do right now,

is think about what’s feeling the heaviest, which of those four, right? The emotional, the mental, the physical, or the tasks. And I want you to decide which reset you want, put it in your schedule for next week, even if it’s just 15 minutes, okay? Treat it like an appointment. You don’t need to get it all together all the time, because you’re not gonna have it all together all the time. But I want you to start to add reset days in as a rhythm and something you proactively plan, not a reaction to, I’m feeling scrambled and an emergency.

Okay, you’re allowed to pause to recalibrate to beginning and especially now February where you’re like, does this goal still matter? I’m halfway through the quarter. What do I want to do? All right. You’re doing your best. And I think this is a good proactive tool that you can add in for yourself. That’s going to help you stay on top of the things that pop up and the things that are actual priority based emergencies. Show notes at a purpose driven mom.com. So practice 498 enjoy and please. I encourage you to share this with another mom friend who probably could use the reset.