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… and I hate that I wonder if she is right.
Today was a big day for me and my parents. 19 years ago on May 21st we got on a plane from Russia to Austria — it was the day we left our country and began the process of immigration to the US. Every year we celebrate this day in some way and this year was super cool (don’t I sound like I am 12?) because we actually live close by and could celebrate together.
We went out to lunch and as soon as I walked in my mom asked me if I got any sleep last night. I actually thought I looked pretty good (thank you, MAC concealer!), but mom knows best. I havent’ gotten that much sleep all week and I made the mistake of telling her about it. Which led to a conversation we’ve been having a lot lately, in which my mom tells me that I am nuts for disregarding the fact that I am a woman and trying to live my life as a man and a woman at the same time. Read the rest of this entry »
I know envy is bad, I do. But it’s kind of like butter — I know it’s not healthy, but I can’t help but indulge at times.
So here are some things I envy in other moms:
Easy-goingness. I know it’s not a word, but you know what I mean. Moms who have this great ability to just roll with the punches and not get completely and utterly stressed out by all the work-life juggle insanity. Like your kid spilling milk on your new pants when you’re ten minutes late for an important meeting and the sitter calls in sick. (Not like that’s happened to me or anything…) Read the rest of this entry »
Prelude: If you live in one of those enviable climates where the weather is perfect all the time, there is plenty of warmth and sunshine, and you don’t know what it feels like to break your ice scraper while trying to remove an inch of ice from your windshield, this is not a blog post for you.
It’s snowing.
Yep, the first year that we have a driveway to shovel, a car to clean off from snow (no garage here), and our daughter in daycare (which has snow days as opposed to our nanny, who didn’t), the first snow has come earlier than in many previous years. Most likely it will just be an inch or so, and might turn to rain by morning, so it’s not technically anything to worry about. (Funny enough, my daughter and I had completely different reactions to this not really being a storm. Me: “Oh, good, just a little snow.” Her: “Oh, no, mommy! There isn’t enough snow for a snowman and you promised that when I wore my warm winter coat there would be!” I miss being a kid.)
The potential–extremely unlikely in this case–of having a snow day on Monday got me thinking:
Why can’t we schedule snow days? Read the rest of this entry »
This weekend I was talking with a friend of mine, a fellow entrepreneur mom. When I asked her what her family was doing for Thanksgiving she gave me an extremely enthusiastic response: “Our plans got cancelled at the last minute and so it’s just going to be the four of us, having a quiet dinner at home. Which means I’ll have all this extra time to get work done and since everyone else is off, the phone and email will be quiet, so I’ll be super productive.” There was a pause and then we both laughed–she knew I understood her.
We’re planning to go away for Thanksgiving and I feel guilty about not being excited about it. I know, I know, spending an extended period of time with family may not be what many of us are looking forward to doing, but there is another reason: I am stressed out about losing out on two days of work and really would appreciate having some quiet time to catch up on things while everyone else is enjoying some turkey and gravy.
Have I become a complete workaholic? The fact that I do work a lot and like to work–most of the time–is no secret. But I think my stress has a lot to do with the fact that any change to the finely-tuned weekly work-life juggle is stressful. Having a short week doesn’t mean that I have less to do–it just means that I have to do the same amount in a shorter period of time.
So instead of getting over-stressed, I’ve come up with a few tips to help the shortened work-week go a bit smoother. I’d love if you would add yours to the list by posting in the comments–I know that I am not the only one thinking about this!
- Control the to-do list. I keep a very organized but very long to-do list that I review and rewrite often (yes, I have a thing for lists, we’ve established that.) For this week, I am putting a limit on it: I can’t have more than 10 things to do each day related to work. I know my tendency would be to try to squeeze in extra tasks for the three days when I will be working and then just get frustrated when I can’t get them done. To avoid this, I am setting a number limit for my tasks.
- Identify 3 things that absolutely must get done. We all have a lot to do, at work and at home. But this week I am going to try and focus on the three things I absolutely positively have to get done. My goal is to do two on Monday and one on Tuesday, which leaves Wednesday as a safety day to make sure I really did do my three things.
- Schedule time to work over the weekend. If you can avoid this, I envy you. For me, there is no getting around the fact that there is work to get done so I am going to schedule in a few hours of work over the coming weekend and either ask my husband or my parents to take our daughter for an outing.
- Learn to chill. Yes, I am actually putting this on the list. Work is work. However important, it’s OK if it doesn’t all get done this week or get done as well as it should be. Nothing is more important than family and having a few extra days to spend together is really a gift. (I’ll stop sounding like a Hallmark card now.)
Are you stressed out because of the short work-week? What are your tips for dealing with it? Please share in the comments!
I just came back from seeing a new doctor. We moved recently, so I am making the doctor rounds (fun, I know.) This time it was a new OBGYN and I really liked her, which is a HUGE relief, since I loved my OB back in NYC and have been dreading switching to someone new. But something happened at the appointment that has compelled me to intrude on our Guest Blogger Tuesday here at the Work It, Mom! Blog:
In the pile of the paperwork that the doctor’s office gave me to fill out there was a basic “tell us about yourself” questionnaire. I was on autopilot while filling it out until I got to this question:
Do you work outside the home?
First I just tried to figure out what to write as an answer. Since I work from a home office, the obvious choice was, of course, to write “No”. But what I think the question was asking is whether I have a job and the answer to that is “Yes”. What I really wanted to write in that field is a long and somewhat annoyed essay about the millions of moms who work from home, make a living for their families, and don’t see themselves as not working simply because they don’t go to an office every day. But I got a hold of myself just in time to just write “Run a company from home” and move on to the next set of questions. Read the rest of this entry »
Today’s guest blog post is by Florinda, one of our most active members here at Work It, Mom! (To say we’re thrilled to have you, Florinda, is a huge understatement!) If you’d like to have your guest blog post featured on Work It, Mom!, send it in an email to nataly@workitmom.com. Please make sure it’s relevant to working moms and is under 300 words or so.
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Many of us want to be involved in our kids’ education. It may frustrate us sometimes when schools schedule events that cause us to juggle our workday if we want to be there - and can make us feel that they just don’t consider working parents, especially in schools that seem to have a lot of students with an at-home parent - but then again, it is their workday too. School classrooms, offices, and administration buildings are staffed by working parents, but they don’t tend to work the same hours that many of the rest of us do. (I have to admit it took me a long time - and the input of some teacher friends - to see that perspective on it.)
That schedule difference usually means having to make arrangements for our kids before school, after school, or both. If some form of flextime can’t take care of everything - and it’s unusual if it can, on both ends of the day, when you’re working outside the home - then you’ll need to decide among child-care programs, sitters, and, for older kids, the “home after school on their own” option. Read the rest of this entry »
About a year ago, as I was going around promoting my book, I gave a talk to a group of immigrant women entrepreneurs. The event was sponsored by Citibank and a woman by the name of Sallie Krawcheck gave the opening keynote. Sallie is the CEO Citigroup’s Global Wealth Management - and one of the highest ranked women on Wall Street. I don’t remember the specifics of her talk so much as I remember that she essentially ran into the room, got notes from her assistant, gave her 10-minute talk, and then ran off to her next meeting. I was in a high-strung too-many-hours finance job at the time, but nowhere near what hers was - and I remember wondering if she has kids and how she does it.
Sallie does have kids and I just read a short interview with her on Penelope Trunk’s blog. Here’s her answer to a question about work/life balance:
When women get up there and talk to you about work life balance, they are lying to you. I work all the time. I sent 220 emails last weekend. The last time I went out for drinks on a weekday like Sex in the City was when I was twenty-two. This is not a bitter comment. It’s a choice.
Reading this gave me the chills and I don’t know exactly why. I am a very ambitious woman and I’ve always worked a lot. I like to work and I think that just because you’re a mom does not mean that you can’t love your job and work hard at it. But something about Sallie’s response shook me. When does she see her kids? Is she ask OK with the choice she says she is making as she says she is?
When my daughter was three months old she cried all the time, didn’t sleep for more than 29 minutes (yes, we timed it), and was overall a tough infant. A mom who lived nearby and had a 6 year-old and a 12 year-old told me to try to enjoy this time with my daughter anyway because it would all just get harder. Of course, I didn’t believe her. But I think she was right.
Our daughter is now three and this fall she is starting preschool for the first time. (She was in summer camp there for a few months and did OK.) She will be going there from 9-3pm at while point either I, my mom, or our part-time sitter will pick her up. This part we’ve worked out. But now come the activities: We’ve decided to sign her up for a dance class and a music class, both of which she enjoys. I was surprised to find out that most places had classes for this age group in the mornings or on weekends. Don’t kids go to preschool or daycare at this age? I am new to all of this, but that’s what I thought.
We did find one place where she could take gymnastics at 3:15pm (this would be instead of dance because I am no Alpha Mom whose kids do ten different things.) We’re now trying to figure out if I can juggle my schedule around to pick her up early from school and take her there or whether we can get my mom (pretty please!) to do it. If not, then we’re resigned to a music class on Saturday morning and a dance class on Sunday morning. Not ideal, but those are the only other options.
I know this is all small beans when it comes to a working mom’s juggle, but how are all of you juggling your kids school and activities with your schedules? If you work full-time, do you have a sitter picking up the kids from school and taking them to their activities?
And for a fun read, check out Mir’s recent experience with taking her son to his piano lessons.