I’m trying to help people spend less time and energy on “life sustaining” so they have more time and energy for “life building.”
Seven years ago I stepped away from the corporate world where I worked as a CPA. Working in corporate finance really leveraged many of my strengths and I enjoyed my job. I loved creating and streamlining processes to help me complete my responsibilities faster and more effectively. I enjoyed being proactive rather than reactive at work.
With the birth of my first son I decided to take a career break. The transition from working full-time in an office to caring for an infant at home was rough. I no longer had the structure of a full-time job AND I had a lot more work on my hands caring for another human. In addition to learning a bunch of new stuff about how to care for this infant* we had more laundry, more appointments to manage, more cleaning, etc.
The truth is, I loved caring for and spending time with my son but I wasn’t a fan of all of the rest of the stuff. What I really wanted was to hang out with him while he was awake and relax and have time to pursue personal interests when he was asleep. I wanted to figure out how to do all of the other “household stuff” with the least amount of effort.
So, I took my talent for finding efficient ways to accomplish tasks and applied it to my home life. It became a game of sorts to me; figure out what actually needed to be done and how it could be accomplished with the least amount of time and effort. I ran a lot of experiments and came up with solutions that worked for us. We made it through our first few years of parenthood and I had a new perspective on the role that I wanted household labor to play in my life.
I wanted to spend less time on life sustaining (laundry, meals, cleaning, administrative tasks) so that I had enough time and energy to build a life I enjoy. For me, that looks like having enough time to breath and rest. Having time and energy for relationships and being available for the people in my life. Having time to pursue things I enjoy like playing my violin and starting a business! Enjoying time in nature. Getting to know and love myself on a deeper level while also trying to become a better version of me.
Do I believe there is value in life sustaining activities? Absolutely! Do I also believe these activities are a means to an end and that it’s worthwhile to see if we can minimize the time and effort we spend on them? Yes
Now my son is older, we added another amazing son to our family and my husband is no longer working residency hours. There is still laundry and grocery shopping and meal planning and meal preparation and cleaning and decluttering and organizing and calendar management that goes on in our household. With the simple systems I was able to put in place we could keep things going despite multiple moves, the birth of another child, home renovations and other life challenges along the way.
Our lives are full but not harried. We spend time together. We hang out with our friends. We keep doing things that are fun for us and things that feel important to us. We make time to relax and recharge. Do we have it all figured out? No. Are our lives perfect? No. But I believe our lives are better when we have time and space for things that matter.
I think humans are amazing. I think we have a lot of value to contribute to society with our ideas, our hearts and our hands. I love helping people run their households effectively with less time and energy so they can share their incredible ideas and talents with the world.
*full disclosure: I’m a Learner, Questioner and an Enneagram Type 5, so that plus hormones made me a sponge for information on how to navigate parenthood through the first year and beyond. I spent a lot of time reading and thinking about this new role of mine :)