Cara Harvey (00:04.238)

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 (00:46.466)

Welcome to the Proprietary Momshow, episode 507. Today we are diving into all the spring things, sports schedules, end of year events, and how you can stay grounded when there is eight million things on your plate. If your calendar looks like mine, a little bit of a color coded mess, you feel like you’re living out of your car, eating dinner at either 4 p.m. or 9 p.m. This episode is for you. Between practices, games, concerts, school events, theme days, everything else, this season,

of the year, often feels like survival mode. You’re eating dinner in the car. You don’t know what day it is. You show up to the wrong field. The kid’s not dressed for theme day, right? Whew. So I’ll take a breath. We don’t need to do more right now. We need to stay grounded. And I’m going to give you some practical tips of a mom of three who’s managing the exact same things you are and how I keep my sanity just a little bit. Show notes are over at a purpose-drivenmom.com slash podcast, five zero seven. Now here’s the thing. It is.

challenging right now. We have a lot on our plate. And I always say to my husband, like, I did this, right? Like, I say yes to the things and I choose them. And a lot of times it’s because, like, I didn’t do a lot of things as a kid. So I know there’s some therapy in there, right? That compensation. But I also want my kids to try things and I want them to figure out what they like and what they don’t like. So I know, like, what is the Taylor Swift phrase? Hi, I’m the problem. It’s me. Like, I know I’m the problem. But also it is hard.

It is real hard. son is doing travel baseball right now. It’s our first year. It’s like local travel. So it’s not very, very intense, but it’s more than we were doing before. It’s more than in-house, right? It’s definitely challenging to have play on multiple teams. My daughter is, well, when I’m recording this, are about a week out from our last cheer competition of the year.

And then we rotate right into off season with, anyone else’s kids do competitive cheer, you know, right? So then it’s clinics and tumbling and stunting and privates and evals. just never ends. She also plays field hockey and we’ve girls cats on top of that. have all the school stuff, because she’s a multi instrument students. Spring concerts, even today, I’m not even gonna lie this morning. She had a band concert and an orchestra concert. And I just wrote concert like in my calendar.

Cara Harvey (03:08.502)

And I was like, all right, what instrument is this today? Just bring them both. Like, I don’t know what you’re playing today. Like it is a lot. It’s also very challenging because in this season, a lot of times evenings feel like they’re taken away. So even if your kids don’t do a lot of extra activities and things, there’s school things that happen. You know, the days are switching around. There’s field trips, permissions slips, the yearbooks do all of it. And then.

Again, I’m specifically talking to my sports parents today with some tips, but we’re at home, then we’re at the field, then we’re at this field, then we’re at the store. And I’m really thankful because we have crafted a village of friends. And you know, my kids will joke and laugh about it, but they’re like, mom talks to everybody. But the thing is, you know, there’s that saying, if you want to be like, if you want a village, you have to be a village. When we moved here 10 years ago into my town, we didn’t know a single person in this town.

When my daughter went to kindergarten, we still had a couple of her friends from preschool, but not one person from her preschool went to her elementary school because she went to a private preschool. So we were starting over. were making friends. were making our village. And I’ve spent the past five years really honing that village and being that for other people. And it really has helped because we’ve got, you know, text change. Hey, can you drive, drove someone to baseball last night? Someone is going to drive my kid home from field hockey the next night.

And it really is helpful, but you are just all over the place. And the other thing is, I don’t know about anyone, I’m checking the schedule constantly. What are the sports? What field are we at? It feels like, like that decision, fatigue, overwhelm of logistics and little recovery. A friend of mine actually just texted me this morning. had posted on Instagram. I’m posting my like work with me Wednesdays where I give you a snapshot. So come find me at a PurposeDriverMom.

on Instagram and I’m just, you know, taking snippets of my day and putting a video together. And there’s a reason I only do this Wednesdays is cause it’s a lot. And it, listen, not every day is like that. I just took a nice hour, watched some TV, ate my lunch, you know, like I’m not always going, but she messes with me and she’s like, you’re the busiest person I know. And I was like, there’s a lot on my plate. I’m not going to lie. Right. But the thing is the overwhelm happens right now, not just because we’re busy. It’s because in the spring season, as we start to close out and get ready for the end of the school year,

Cara Harvey (05:26.862)

There’s very minimal margins. There’s just a lot happening. And that’s the reality. You’re not doing anything wrong if you have a lot on your schedule. I actually posted something and someone was like, so my friend, when she was like, you’re the busiest person I know, like it wasn’t a judgmental way. Like she was just saying it. Whereas I had someone else come in on one of my posts and said the same thing, but in a judgmental way of like judging the choices I made for my family. And here’s the thing.

I’m not judging the choices you make for your family. Don’t judge the ones I make for mine. And if you like to keep your kids busy, if you like to be in multiple activities, if it works for you, go for it. We’re in a season of life where my husband has a lot of work flexibility. I have a lot of work flexibility. We’re able to do these things. It might not always be this way. So we’re embracing that. We say no to our kids. don’t do every, please.

If they did everything they asked to do, I don’t know how we would have to have like a Harry Potter time turner rate. So they don’t do everything, but they do a lot of things. I’m not going to lie about it. And just acknowledging that this is a busy season. Sometimes I feel the guilt. Sometimes I feel like, I did this to myself. And then other times I’m like, all right, let me put on my practical pants and figure out what can we do about this? Because oftentimes we’ll think like, all right, well, if I’m just more organized, I, if I get the calendar together a little differently, things like that.

What I realized the actual issue is that is I don’t have a lot of, if I don’t create anchors for myself in high demand seasons, then what I’m going to be doing is organizing chaos and not moving forward. So I’m going to talk about three anchors that I put into my day, my week, my month, that keep me grounded during these busy seasons, especially when you’re just shuffling and managing a lot.

My first one, non surprisingly, is going to be time anchors. These are my non-negotiables. This week in particular that I’m recording this, I have gotten my time anchors back because I felt the busy and the panic of the season and I feel so much better already. I want you to create some things in your day that are stable and that give you that grounded stability feeling, even when everything else moves. These are things that stay. So my morning routine. Do you have a morning routine?

Cara Harvey (07:48.59)

that starts your day off. Even if it’s just 10 minutes, 15 minutes. I do the same thing in the morning. I get up around six. I try not to snooze, but it is what it is. And my goal is by 6.30 I’m in the gym office craft room that I’m sitting in right now doing my home workout. I get up, I check my pictures on my phone. I do like a little culling of photos every day. I work out, I read a chapter of my book. I do my duelingo. It’s a nice little morning routine. It’s like the first hour and a half, two hours of my day.

In between all of this, I’m getting my kids ready for school, showering, et cetera. So I squeeze it all in. That morning routine keeps me grounded. It keeps me anchored. It keeps me feeling like even though the rest of the day is about to be absolute chaos, I have that. So I recommend you create something like that. Another one can be perhaps a dinner plan, which I know you’re like, yeah, right. I can’t have a dinner plan because we’re so busy. Even make a simple one. So we are early bird dinners. We eat by five o’clock.

I’m starting to shift sometimes even eating earlier. We get home. I let my kids play at the playground. We’re at Walker’s. So I’ll go pick up my kids and then I let them sometimes play the playground for a little bit. We get home by like four, four thirty. Sometimes I’m like, let’s just have dinner right now.

Cara Harvey (09:04.236)

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Cara Harvey (10:00.366)

But one of the time anchors that has helped me is knowing that by five o’clock we’re having dinner. Like we’re sitting at the table and having dinner. Now the reason we started that was a couple of years ago, my son was playing football and it was like four nights a week. was not, football was not, four nights a week and we had to be at the field geared up by like 5.30. We had to eat early. And so then we just all got kind of into it. And what I found was because they come home hungry from school, instead of eating 12 snacks, if we just eat dinner earlier,

Then at least I know they got their dinner in. They’re more likely to eat more of the stuff that I find healthier for them with their dinner and then whatever. We have a second snack or second dinner later. So make a dinner plan. Even if it’s simple, this is the time we need. Or I talked about this in last week’s episode, but like that taco Tuesday, slow cooker Sunday, repeat the same meals over and over again. My daughter actually, she said, she was like, I feel like we eat the same thing. I’m like, cause we are in a busy season and this is what we’re doing. When we get to the summer, I’ll be more adventurous. We’ll cook more stuff.

Right now, this is what works, okay? And another time anchor I recommend is having that evening reset at the end of the night. I talk about your bookends, your morning and your evening routine. These are the two things that you’re in control of. The first things that happen to the morning and the last things before bed. These things allow me to take a breath. So in my evening reset could look different than yours. So feel free, you know, to make it look however you want to make it look for you. But I load my dishes. That always just makes the visible clutter feel a little bit better. I load my dishes.

I pack lunches, you know, I do the counters, wipe them off, take out any trash, things like that. And then we do a quick pickup wherever, if it is yours and it is not supposed to be in this room, go put it where it belongs type of thing. Okay. Do we still have shoes all over the place? Sometimes yes. Like, is it still a mess? Sometimes yes, but at least that’s done. And then the one thing that really, really helps with my time anchor is as part of my reset is looking at tomorrow’s calendar with the fam. My kids will laugh at me. Mom’s always talking about the calendar. A hundred percent I am.

because I will pull up the calendar, I’ll check it with my husband, I’ll check it with myself, just so that we can make sure that we know who’s gotta be where. This has saved us so many times when it’s like, I have this practice, I need these clothes, these aren’t washed, I have cheer tomorrow, I don’t have my shorts, like all of these things, I need this for lunch tomorrow, do you have your folder? Like, it allows us to not scramble in the mornings because we just do it at night, all right? I want you to create some time anchors for yourself to allow yourself to feel a little bit more grounded.

Cara Harvey (12:25.612)

The other thing I want to give you is some task anchors. This is your must do minimums. Instead of these long task lists, I recommend every day you pick three things during this season. teach a bunch of different methods, but during this season, picking a home priority, a personal priority, and a work priority can help you feel focused when you have a thousand things pulling you all over the place. And again, for me in particular, like it is activity season every night, there’s something. So it just, it’s nonstop.

And if I didn’t pick, everything would feel so important and then nothing would get done. So what’s one thing you want to do for your home today? I needed some mop. My kids love playing in dirt. So my daughter, she is a nature girlie. She had a friend every day and they were digging in the dirt. They found some worms or caterpillars or some sort of bug. My kid is a bug kid. And this morning before school, which we had to talk about, because I said before school is not a time to go dig in the dirt. Like that is an afterschool task. Anyway, dirt, mud.

all over my floor and I was like, all right, normally like I’m not like I’m not clean, but like, like a little bit of dirt on the floor doesn’t bother me. But I was like, my God. Okay. So I had to, I was like, I have to get this door mopped. So my home priority day was, I get that done? Okay. My work priority today was I needed to catch up on these podcasts. And so I have two to record and then I’m batched for the rest of the month. So that’s my priority was get these podcasts recorded.

And then I have a personal priority for myself today and this is to just sit and do some thinking. one of the, actually I’ll walk and do some thinking. One of the goals I made for myself for this month was two times a week to go on a relaxing walk, but like with nothing. I like to go for walks. That’s not the hard part, but I’m talking to my daughter when we go, we walk a lot together. I’m listening to music or I’m listening to a book.

I really just wanted to have quiet reflection time with myself where it was just me and nature and God and we took a little bit of a walk. So I did that today and that was my personal goal. And it was actually really challenging because I was like, where’s my stimulation? But I think this is going to be really good for me. Maybe it’s like, hey, today, laundry gets folded. I’m doing a 15 minute work block if that’s all I can get in. I’m going to prep snacks so they’re ready to go. I’m going to get dinner in the crock pot, whatever it is for you. Yes, other things have to get done and you will get some of those things done.

Cara Harvey (14:45.208)

But if you craft out task anchors, you’re going to avoid that, like, I didn’t do anything today because you at least got those three priorities done. The last anchor I want to give you to help you feel grounded during this really busy season is a mental anchor. That’s how you talk to yourself, right? This season is going to test you. It is going to test the way you speak to yourself. It is going to test the way you guilt and shame yourself. We want to replace that, I’m so behind with this is a full season.

naming it. We want to replace the, can never keep up with, I’m doing what matters most today. When you can speak to yourself a little bit differently, then you can feel more grounded when things feel all over the place. Now those are three anchors that I really recommend you add to keep yourself grounded, but I just wanted to give you some practical systems that also help me out during this busy season and some, again, tips from one sports and activities mom to another. All right. First up is what do you got in your car?

Your car might be your second home. So set it up that way. So I always keep my folding chair inside my car and then inside the back of my trunk, I have like a little carrier with a couple of things in it that help. We have extra blankets and sweatshirts. I don’t know about anybody else, but I was freezing at the field and then I’m sweating. I also always have my, these little bags. I have like a fake bath bag that I got from like Tmoo. I these plastic bags.

Like separator bags that I keep inside with a couple of things in them. So inside what I have in there is bug spray, hot hands, like the hot warmers, sunscreen, chapstick, band-aids, wipes, hand sanitizer, right? So those are all in there and an extra pair of sunglasses. So those things keep in there. and I also have a portable phone charger in case I need it. I also always have snacks with me because I know that we’re going to need them. And then this is helping me like.

reduce the number of problems that I have to solve on the go. I also have a extra set of clothes for my kiddos inside the car just in case we need them. And it’s so helpful to have it in there. So I want you to look through your car and ask yourself, is this setting me up for success? Does it have the things I need? And pay attention. You don’t have have everything at once. But when you’re at the field this week, ask yourself, what’s something I wish I had? Literally last week when we’re at the field, I noticed the bugs and I was like.

Cara Harvey (17:11.374)

I wish I had bug spray with me. So when we went to the field this week, I made sure to bug spray in there. The other day I was like, oh, I wish I had sunscreen. So I put sunscreen as soon as I got home. know, of the kids needed to hurt themselves at baseball. I got hit and I was like, oh, I normally have ice packs with me. Like when I have my Girl Scout bag, I keep my first aid kit with me, but I didn’t have it. And I was like, I gotta remember to have ice pack, like those shaky, you know, ice packs, first aid kit. You know, as you notice you need things, don’t think, oh, I’ll do it later.

Go home and put it right into your bag, your kit, whatever it is, the wagon, et cetera. The also, the other practical system is you gotta look ahead. 10 minutes max, go into your schedule. Now, my husband and I do this a lot when we’re in the car together and we’ll do like family meeting, dinner time stuff. We scan the schedule, right? And we go through our problem days. So I’m gonna give you some great examples. Let me pull up my, let me pull up my schedule for the week.

So I’m looking at my schedule for the week, right? This week alone, Tuesday, my daughter had band practice. She gets done at six and then has to be at field hockey at six. Okay. My son also has to be at baseball at six. That’s a problem day. So I was able to scan ahead, look at it with my husband, text a friend. Hey, can you bring my kid here? Hey, can you drop my kid here? Cause I have to be in too many places. If you can identify these problem days, you can then really say to yourself, let me get ahead of this.

Ask yourself, where are my stressful moments? Okay. What are the stressful places? And then you can pre-decide what’s dinner for this night. So for example, this one with my daughter, like she, they bus them over to a different school for band practice. Then I pick her up a little early from band so she can get to the field by six. And then, so she’s not getting dinner till like seven 30 or whatever. Right? So I’m like, all right, what’s our dinner plan? This is a good crock pot day so that I can come home and we can eat right away.

Or sometimes she doesn’t really like to eat before practice, but I could bring her thermos and puts like from ramen or something in there. So she has it. This also can help you pre-decide like, what do need to prep? Again, the clothes, the cleats, et cetera, make sure everything’s clean, especially like I said, my son playing two teams, different uniforms, different hats, different, you know, I have to make sure all of it’s there. And is there anything that you can drop? Right? My husband had an optional meeting for like one of the organizations he’s in. He’s very involved in different organizations.

Cara Harvey (19:32.94)

It’s fraternity and other community service activities. And it was one of those where I was like, can we, do we have to drop this? Right. And he was able to drop it so we can get the kids where we needed them to be. The other one, simplify your food. just said this, but like, I don’t care if it’s boring right now. Make your theme nights, your taco Tuesdays. Use that crackpot. I’ve been watching people online and they have a plug and I didn’t notice this, but I also have an outlet in my car. Like I never like an actual plug and they just bring their crackpot with them. We’ve never had to do that. but we haven’t.

The type of travel baseball my son is doing is not like a tournament style yet. It’s not like that intense. So we’re not spending days, you know, like the whole day places, but this helps me for cheer when we’re, you know, playing. I will pack my lunches. I will pack my meals. I have them with me. If you have to have a car dinner, plan it ahead and don’t have guilt over repeating meals. It is what it is. The kids are fine on spaghetti and meatballs for a few days in a row. This is not your season for creativity friend, right? This is simplicity to make it easy.

And again, my daughter was like, I’m bored with this. So I said, okay, you can plan dinner. I don’t want to do that. Okay. Then don’t complain. Right. And that kind of has to be how it is. The other system I’m going to recommend is a 15 minute reset. mentioned this already in my PM pickup, but especially before or after practice, we’re working on this. It’s not fine tuned yet for lack of a better word in my home, but don’t, don’t just come in and drop your bag. Don’t drop your bag. Take your like, clean your plates off. We don’t have a garage.

The people who lived here before they converted it into a room, we don’t really have an entry room or like a mud room or like anything. So like they just walk in my house. So I had to sit with my son and be like, all right, here’s how you clean off your cleats. Here’s where you put them. Don’t just throw my daughter as a sock thrower. I swear I find her socks everywhere. You know, it’s where do you put your stuff? It goes up in your room. Like how do we do that? Do a nice little tidy of those things and then reset stuff. So I go through my bag and if we use the certain snack, I.

Just make another bag of the snack and I reset it. If, you know, my daughter has something in here, this happens a lot after like cheer comps and we’ll like reset some of her stuff in there. And then it might be helpful to just do a quick pickup. Use your small pockets of time to help yourself from feeling like you’re all over the place. Another system I’m going to encourage is prep it once, use it twice. Anytime you’re doing something, think ahead. Can I do it twice? So.

Cara Harvey (22:00.17)

Again, snacks for the week. I know that my son needs snack in his lunch every single day. So when I’m making snack in a Ziploc bag for Monday, I’m just going to pack snack Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, put those inside the cabinet so I can just pull them out. Packing clothes the night before on Sundays, going through and laying out all the clothes for the week, going ahead and doing any of these things that will save you time in the long run. Prep.

things for tomorrow while you’re prepping for them today, meals, et cetera, always helps. In this season, it is time to let go, right? Let go of perfect meals, the house being perfect, cleanly all the time, comparing what you’re doing. If it’s best for your family, it’s best for your family. Remember that you can do anything, but not everything in this season. So you have to make some decisions, maximize the time that you have, enjoy the time that you have. And I say this too with this caveat, like when I go to the field,

We’re there for a lot of times, right? So I always ask myself, like, what can I do while we’re at practice? Now I do watch my kid. Like I want to enjoy what my kid is doing. So I sit there, but there are times depending on what field we’re at. Well, there’s a track. I’m going to go to take my daily walk. Look, I always, I often will bring something to sew, which is tends to be Girl Scout patches because I’ll like iron them on and then only sew them when I have a couple of minutes. So I will bring some patches and I’ll sit and sew while I’m watching practice.

I always have a book with me, right? I’m still talking to other people and I’m still watching my kid, but I’m maximizing that time. That allows me to sneak in some of the little things that I gotta get done. I gotta answer emails. I could do that on the field, right? It’s not ideal, but it at least lets me get some of the tiny things off my plate. And the other thing that, you know, I just wanna encourage you to do though is, yeah, get the multitasking in, but sometimes just enjoy the moment. Sit and watch. Like I think about practice.

And then games like I’m, I’m going to watch it. I remember my son playing football, running up and down the field, like enjoy the moment because they are only this age one time. Right. So enjoy what they’re doing when you’re in the car. Yes. Oh, we’re in the car all the time, but like, what a great opportunity. have to talk to each other and remember like, this is a phase, right? Like you are going to miss it. You don’t have to enjoy every second of it because it’s not all enjoyable, embrace that just.

Cara Harvey (24:24.588)

Be as much in the moment as you can. This week, I want you to just pick one of these anchors, really ground yourself in it and ask yourself, what would make this week just 10 % easier and pick a strategy. Enjoy this time, albeit crazy, albeit in nuts time that makes us feel like we want to our hair out. But also remember, like you did pick the schedule, right? And so, no, it’s not saying you can’t complain about it.

Like again, I’m the one who signs my kids up for things. So yes, I can complain about it, but I try really hard to sit in the gratitude and especially because I get the opportunity to watch my kids do something they love. And when I’m feeling like, my God, I cannot drive to another practice. I just remember that, right? I remember I’m getting the opportunity to let them do something that they are so happy doing and they love and they enjoy. Last night we came home from practice.

My son’s like only played baseball one year and it was like easy rec. He didn’t learn much. And so he’s learning a lot while he’s on this travel team of like how to play baseball. And he, it’s like the first year of kid pitch, if anyone knows this, it’s like, my gosh. Anyway, he was one of the only kids who actually hit the ball and he was so proud of himself. He was like, mom, I had a lot of fun. He was like, I learned a lot about baseball tonight and it was really good. And I just sat and thought like, I’m so happy for you. Right?

Enjoy those moments. Show notes are at A Purpose Driven Mom.com, such as podcast 507. listen, solidarity moms, we’re going to make it through the spring. We’re going to make it through. Why don’t we try to enjoy it a little bit too? Have a wonderful day and we’ll chat soon.

Cara Harvey (26:07.864)

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 podcasts, 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 aha, make sure you come over and tag me, add 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.