I spent Sunday working on a gallery wall for our living room. That meant plotting the size, shape, location and color of 21 frames, painting said 21 frames, and then taking a trip down memory lane in order to choose 21 perfect photos. It was a cross-country trip, because I decided to focus on pictures from our family’s year-long road trip around America . As I flipped through hundreds of digital images and asked for my husband and kid’s input on their favorites, I got a nice refresher course in what matters most to our family.
Read the rest of this entry

I had finally hit my stride as a parent. When I heard friends with younger children talk about how worried they were about messing things up or getting things wrong, I realized just how far I’d come since those early days of constant self doubt. Although I had no illusions about getting it all right, I was finally confident enough to say I was a good mother. And then my oldest became a teenager.

Pride cometh before a fall, and confidence cometh before a teenager.

I’m only officially a few months into this new stage - although the teen attitude started several months before the 13th birthday - and I’m already completely exhausted from the experience. One of the worst parts, and perhaps the most unexpected struggle, is how alone I feel in it.
Read the rest of this entry

The blogs are buzzing with news about an internal memo announcing changes to the work-from-home policies at Yahoo!, a tech company that has seen more ink dedicated to its CEO than its products in the last year. The gist of the memo is this: all telecommuters must report to Yahoo! offices by June, or quit. The gist of the response in my news and social media feeds: CEO Marissa Mayer is setting back women. Personally, I have more problems with the criticism of the policy than I do with the mandate itself.
Read the rest of this entry

I think we all know – or at least have been told once or twice – that unplugging now and then is a good thing . Step away from the screens, the email, the Wi-Fi signal, and the 4G network and just… be. Be in the moment , be with your loved ones, be on your own without the constant net of technology. It sounds blissful, but being able to actually do it has proven virtually impossible in my real life. I think I’ve found the solution, however: I need to buy a watch.
Read the rest of this entry

I’m not sure if this is a phenomenon that is unique to women, or just me, but my mood definitely affects my work . If I’m sad or angry, I have a really hard time concentrating and creating at a top level. Of course, most of us don’t have the luxury of blowing deadlines or skipping work just because we’re in a bad mood. How can we suck it up – or improve our mood – long enough to get stuff done?
Read the rest of this entry

I believe that mindfulness can help us be happier people, better parents, and more productive in our careers. And yet, this post was partially written in my head while I scarfed down a bowl of cereal and scanned my to-do list. I’ve switched to another tab on my computer twice while writing this paragraph. Multi-tasking is the opposite of mindfulness, but it’s a habit I struggle to avoid when life gets extra busy.

It’s an easy trap to fall into. The busier I get - or more specifically, the more things that have to be done in the foreseeable future - the more likely I am to buy into the myth that moving quickly and doing many things at once equals efficiency. Efficiency, obviously, is the key to not falling behind, to getting it all done in the appropriate time frame. I forget that multi-tasking often means every task takes longer.
Read the rest of this entry

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how learning about my Myers-Briggs personality type helped me get more done by pointing out my natural weaknesses. We’ve also talked a lot about how working parents can’t be expected to do it all. In order to get it all done without doing it all, we’re often told to delegate, but what does that look like in a real household?

It’s easy to say that we need to delegate, to hand out tasks for others to complete, but many working parents find that easier to discuss than to actually implement. In reality, poor delegating leaves kids with dry cereal for lunch and laundry piled up for weeks. Any control freak will tell you that the reason they maintain a tight hold on everything is because past attempts to recruit help have ended in disaster, with reports needing to be redone and apology phone calls needing to be made.

I’ve been experimenting with delegation for a few years now, and I’ve learned a few things about how this and other tricks can make up for my natural weaknesses - without sacrificing the end result of a happy, functional home and work life.
Read the rest of this entry

"Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

I want to have a soul generated by love. I want to give thanks for my beautiful life by serving others. I do. But there’s a reason you only see elderly people staffing the volunteer desk at the hospital; working parents are hard pressed to find the time for such generous acts of service. And yet, parents who find a way to volunteer have the potential to make the greatest impact with their contributions.

The very thing that makes it so dang difficult to volunteer is what makes it so crucial that we find a way: our children. Our children, who require our time and energy and money, are always watching. They are learning what kind of adults to be. They are learning from us what matters; this is our chance to teach them the value of reaching out and helping others. Sure, we can read them stories and tell them how important it is to give back, but we all know that they mimic what we do more than they listen to what we say.

But how? How do we find the space in our schedule and the juice at the end of a busy day to do more than keep our own families moving in the right direction? It’s not easy.
Read the rest of this entry

As a working mother, I often feel like I spend the bulk of my life answering questions and making decisions.

"Where’s my Spanish book?"

"Has anyone seen my song sheet?"

"Can I join ski club?"

"When can I have a play date with Amy?"

"When would you like to schedule your son’s doctor appointment?"

"Who’s picking up the kids today?"

"When can you get those pages back to me?"

It’s a reality for anyone who juggles multiple roles and responsibilities, and it can leave even the most patient person mentally exhausted at the end of the day. That fatigue can cause us to snap at our loved ones, make poor decisions in haste, and feel too wiped out to handle the commitments that mean the most to us. What’s a busy parent to do?

Take a cue from President Barack Obama and make fewer decisions.
Read the rest of this entry

I love Penelope Trunk. I don’t always agree with her, but I’m hopelessly addicted to her blog. Ms. Trunk is hopelessly addicted to the science of personality types. Every post she writes is riddled with Myers-Briggs acronyms, which she seems to see as infallible keys for predicting one’s life. I’m not sure anyone’s personality or future can be quite so easily decoded, but I did finally decide to decipher my own type - and the answer has helped me quickly become more productive.
Read the rest of this entry