2:52 AM: I am just sneaking back into bed after getting my 12 month old son back down to sleep. I have to get a good night’s sleep or I am not going to wake up in time to create my slides for the 9:00 AM meeting.
3:06 AM: Still awake. I reach for my phone conveniently placed on my bedside table and check some emails (Offshore team in Bangalore is just finishing up some data collection activities and I should check in with them anyway).
3:28 AM: Crap. I just realized I never ordered the floral arrangements and modern farmhouse wood sign’s for my cousin’s engagement party! I PROMISED I would do this. No problem…I will just peruse Pinterest for some inspo.
3:30 AM: Pinterest has some really great ideas for mudroom organization! Ugh…not in the budget.
3:32 AM: DIY mudrooms!!! This is great. I am sure we could do this ourselves! Look…this Pin says it will only cost $12.53 for all materials to build “The Mudroom of a Busy Working Mom’s Dreams.”
3:33 AM: Speaking of “Busy Working Moms”, I loved that “How to Be a #BossMom” video my girlfriend shared. Such an inspiration! I am totally a #SuperMom who #hasitall with two #beautifulkids and climbing the #corportateladder with #effortlessease. I can meal plan. Project plan. Monthly plan. Timeblock. Build blocks. Task manage. Task List. Shopping List. Weekly routine. Plan weekly routines for scheduled tasks on the monthly plan. All. Day. Long. YEAH!!
3:35 AM: Baby is up AGAIN. Why? WHY!?!? Is there something wrong with him? He should be sleeping through the night by now.
3:36 AM: “8 Signs Your Child Is On A Path to Self Destruction At An Early Age”. OMG.
3:48 AM: “25 Things Every Child of Working Parents Needs To Feel Special”.
3:50 AM: “How Too Much Structure Is Stifling Our Kids’ Creativity”.
3:51 AM: “Why Kids Need To Spend More Time Outside In Nature”.
3:52 AM: “12 Reasons Your Kid Isn’t Sleeping and Why It’s Probably Your Fault”.
3:53 AM: I should quit my job. I need to stay home with my kids. We need to downsize. Maybe we should move? To an island. We could homeschool! We should probably become vegan too. The kids eat too much sugar.
4:08 AM: “SUGAR. The Silent Killer.”
4:10 AM: OMG.
4:12 AM: We need to detox. As a family. “10 Ways You Can Model Healthy Behavior to Set Your Child Up for Success In Life.” Ugh. We *loosely* do 4 out of 10.
4:45 AM: Ping. Offshore team is pinging me. I can hear my laptop in the other room. Ugh.
4:48 AM: This girl I follow on Insta is so fit. How did she pop out 2 kids? Look at her cute little vegan kids “Eating The Rainbow”.
5:02 AM: I need to workout. My baby is 12 months old now and I have no excuse not to be back to my pre-pregnancy weight with my pre-pregnancy abs. I should be in a routine by now, but the only time I could work out is when the kids are sleeping. By the time they go to bed, I’m too tired. “The Healthiest People Workout in the Morning”. Ugh…I could never do that. I’m too tired in the morning. If only I could get a good night’s sleep!!
5:04 AM: Ok…I need to get some sleep so I can wake up and workout.
6:06 AM: *Footsteps from down the hall*…”Mommy. Mommy. MOM, ARE YOU AWAKE??”.
—
Hi. I’m Angela. This is an excerpt from my life. Most days I like to think I have got my stuff together. At a macro-level, my kids are happy and healthy. I have a lucrative job and a forward-moving career. I am a supportive and loving wife. I have a beautiful home and a close-knit family. I must confess, however, that I live a very distracted life. I am distracted by technology, by my to-do lists, by my over-commitments, by the people who inspire me, by others who discourage me, by the many things I want to do in life and that I fear I won’t get to do because time is finite. My distraction leads to unfinished projects, wasted time, crying kids who need their mom’s focused attention, disorganized work weeks and a very unhappy, not to mention anxious ME. The worst part of all of this…is that I am addicted to my distraction. Doing one thing at a time is almost painful. My brain has been wired for such a long time to do more than one thing at a time.
This is why I have decided to begin a journey of self-improvement. I want to become a more focused individual. I want to quiet my brain to help me problem solve better and more proactively. I want to know how to create more focused time doing the things I love instead of allowing articles, pins and videos cause me unnecessary anxiety. I want to fuel my creativity with my own brain cells instead of needing inspiration from others I follow on social media. I still want to #haveitall, even if that means the number of things on my plate reduces to only the few most important. I want to find inner peace. Some days I feel like my brain is a classroom of young children all screaming at once for their teacher to call on them. I get overwhelmed easily because my brain is getting pulled in so many different directions. I want to work smarter. I want to BE smarter. I want to find time to truly rest without being tempted by the little squares on my iPhone. I want to act on my dreams instead of constantly wishing I had the time to pursue them. Most of all, I want to model a focused lifestyle for my children – one with meaning and thoughtfulness vs. a continuous task-driven frenzy.
During this journey, I have three goals. My first goal is to maximize productivity by reducing the noise of my highly distracted lifestyle. My second goal is to quiet my mind through the practice of deep thinking and meditation. My third goal is more pragmatic – to implement a lifestyle system where I create scheduled time each day for “deep work” and meditation. For those of you fellow multitaskers out there, I don’t want you to think that I plan to discourage *all* multitasking. I do believe that there are certain tasks and times of day when multitasking can boost productivity. However, I do believe that most of us get to a point of diminishing returns. This is where my most recent read “Deep Work”, by Cal Newport has come into play. I’ve picked up the book for my second graduate degree and couldn’t be more engrossed in its teachings, and I am only one chapter in.
“Deep Work”, as defined by the author, is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. Newton says his concept of “Deep Work” allows individuals to “quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time”. It is counter-intuitive to my typical day-to-day game of “cram as many tasks into a single block of time as possible”. I am completely inspired by the notion that there may be a better, more efficient way to live and work. I am also fascinated by the idea that I could actually become smarter by focusing my time and energy on one thing at a time and free from all distraction. The practicality of the book for someone like me, a thirty-something mother of two small children with a high pressure corporate job leaves me feeling skeptical that I could actually employ the teachings. I mean, as I type this post, we have just walked in the door from a beach vacation with two cranky kids who just spent 4.5 hours in the car and don’t want to go to bed. The baby is crying because he wants me to hold him and my pre-schooler is yelling for my attention, while my laundry room is bursting with chores. And then there is always Amazon Prime, Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, SnapChat, and email that call to me with their enticing “shallow work” tasks. Still, I am going to give it a shot. I hope you enjoy the ride and I am so looking forward to your comments and contributions!
– Angela
The Corporate Mom Blog 