This works great for me.  I get into The Flow on a regular basis and I’m able to stay focused on what’s right in front of me, no matter how long my to do list is.  I’m productive and efficient when I’m doing one thing at a time.

Unfortunately, doing one thing at a time doesn’t seem to be an option at the moment, and I’m struggling to figure out how to avoid getting overwhelmed from moment to moment.

What’s changed is that right now I’m working on multiple projects with various deadlines.  All of these projects are going on simultaneously and each one requires continuous progress to be made.  In other words, I can’t focus all of my attention on finishing up one project and then simply move on to the next.

This is the part of the post where I should be offering suggestions and helpful tips about how to manage multiple ongoing projects, but I have no ideas.  I’ve thought about getting a giant white board, but I’m not having a problem remembering what’s due when.  My problem, specifically, is figuring out how much time to dedicate to each project in a given day and what to do first, second and last.

I’m struggling with prioritizing and knowing when to stop and start again because I’m always picking up in the middle of something.  This is horrible for my powers of concentration.

I’m hoping a few readers can offer me some advice and insight this time around.  How do you manage multiple ongoing projects at the same time?  How do you prioritize and refocus several times in a day?

We discuss ways to get the most out of our family time.  We make decisions about things we’ll give up and things we’ll learn to live with.  We talk to each other about taking better care of ourselves so that we’ll be better equipped to handle all of life’s demands and responsibilities.

But the comments on a recent post at the Work It, Mom blog made me stop and think.

Is the answer to finding a better work/life balance simply to work less?

The original post that Nataly wrote was about whether or not parents get special treatment at work.  She defended her need to take time for her children, and talked about how she made sure to never take advantage of the fact that she had a family.  She could work just as much and as hard as anyone else, she argued.

The point that a lot of people in the comments made was unexpected:

Parents AND single people have a right to a personal life.

Of course we do.  We would all, I’m sure, nod our heads vigorously in agreement with that idea.  But are we living our lives that way?  Do the companies we work for understand the importance of a life outside of work?

The fact is, in the United States especially, work has become much more than one part of our lives.

What do you do? we ask each other.  And we respond with our job title.

What we do is work.  And we desperately try to squeeze in the rest of our lives into whatever time is left over.

My husband answers work calls on his personal cell phone at all hours of the day, 7 days a week.  The only time that phone goes on silent is during the one hour a week that we’re in marriage counseling.  Suprisingly, the world does not fall apart without him during that hour.  The problem, I think, is that the more he makes himself available, the more he’s expected to be available all the time.  He is, in effect, always working.

When I was negotiating my contract for my current job, I asked about hours.  My future boss made a comment that “I don’t expect people to just run out the door because it’s 5 o’clock.”  I explained that I had kids that needed to be picked up at a set time and so, yes, actually, when work ended I had to be done.  I got the job anyway, but I felt guilty for setting an end time to my work day.

We tell ourselves that we need to demonstrate a commitment to the companies we work for.  We talk about work ethic and a willingness to get the job done.  We want to be team players and reliable employees.

But at what cost?

American workers seem to operate under the idea that we’ll work as much as we can to make as much  money as possible until retirement age.  Then we’ll have lives.  Then we’ll travel and read and explore our hobbies.  We’ll give everything we have to the workforce until we’re 65, and then we’ll enjoy our reward.

What if you die?

What if you get sick?

What if your retirement account bottoms out in a market crash and you have to work until you’re 70 or 80?

Would you be OK with the fact that what you did your whole life was work?

I wouldn’t.  I love my job and I’m not afraid of hard work, but the imprint I want to leave on the world is not “great employee, reliable co-worker”.  I want more than that.  Now the question before me becomes, how do I work less and live  more?

Are you working too much?

Photo source

Last night, we showed up at a local hotel to mingle with influential people in his company.  Imagine our surprise when we walked into a charity event with a live auction, silent auction, and goal of raising more than ten thousand dollars for the cause. I turned to my spouse and whispered “Awkward.”

Now, I don’t know if my spouse just missed the detail about this being a charity event.  That is certainly plausible. If the devil is in the details, then my spouse is surely an angel.  Detail oriented he is not.  But it was more than a little awkward when we’re at a table where a VP started bidding with thousands of dollars for a luxury 3-night vacation.  We can’t afford that.  We can’t even come close. 

The whole experience left me wondering if mixing personal charities and business networking is a good idea.   While the cause was a worthy one, one that I’ve even given money to in the past, I wasn’t prepared to open my checkbook that night in exchange for my spouse to get some playtime in the good old boys club.  In fact, I didn’t even have my checkbook on me.

What do you think? Should company executives mix networking events and monetary giving to the charities of their choosing?  Or should charitable giving be left out of the equation? 

What, if anything, does this have to do with women who work full time?

I’m starting to learn that expectations and boundaries go hand in hand, and that boundaries are crucial for a good work/life balance.

I do a lot of my work from home.  I work a full time job from my home several days a week and juggle several part time and freelance writing jobs that are done at home on nights and weekends.  As I’ve mentioned before, almost all of my work is done on my laptop.

When I’m working, I need to concentrate.  I need to, to a certain extent, be left alone so that I can work.  During the week, when the rest of my family is at work or school, this is not a problem.  However, if I’m working at night or on a weekend morning - something my husband understands and is supportive of - the “being left alone” part gets a little tricky.

The biggest problem is, no one seems to know when I’m really working and really need to be allowed to concentrate.

I’ve tried saying “I’m going to work this morning while you guys are watching TV.”  I’ve tried saying “OK, I’ll be working for the next two hours and when I’m done we’ll do XYZ activity.”  I thought I was making my expectations of being left alone clear.  I thought I was establishing clear time boundaries that “this is work time”, in order to make life easier for everyone.

And yet, while I was working, either my husband or my children would inevitably find that it was imperative to tell me about this funny thing that they just saw on TV.  Right now.  When I got frustrated and pointed out to my husband that I was, as I’d said earlier, trying to work, he apologized.  And then 20 minutes later told me about the amazing touchdown pass he just saw on ESPN.

Rinse, repeat.

This past Saturday found my family in this same cycle.  We’d set up our weekend plans, beginning with my work time coinciding with their free for all time, and then their free for all time and desire for small talk colliding with my efforts to concentrate on work.

“I’m working,” I reminded them.

“Oh, sorry.  I didn’t know,” my husband apologized.

“But I told you I was going to be working and you said that was OK.”

My husband then explained how it is difficult to tell when I’m working and when I’m just “screwing around on the computer”.  He also explained that it’s hard to know when I’m doing casual work that can be interrupted, and when I really need to concentrate and be left alone.

We came up with an interesting solution.

I wrote the word “WORKING” on a yellow piece of paper.  We agreed that when I was doing the type of work that required quiet and concentration, I would put the sign up, and everyone in the house would make an effort to respect that boundary.  Obviously, if someone is in danger of losing a limb or bleeding out, that’s more important than anything I’m working on.

What this experience taught me is that it’s very important to make sure everyone is aware of one another’s expectations, and that sometimes we need to make boundaries more recognizable than verbal lines.  It was also a reminder that when you are working at home, it’s really easy for those lines to get blurred, and you have to make an extra effort to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Hanging a sign in your home might seem silly, but it’s also been a physical reminder to me to be aware of when I am and am not available to my family.  It’s hard to admit sometimes that we are not available to our loved ones, but trying to be semi available and concentrate on your work often leaves everyone feeling like they’re getting less than enough.

If you do work at home, how do you establish boundaries for your family?  Do you have a hard time finding the time and space to be productive if your family is around?

I had a busy weekend this past.. er… weekend.  (My writing!  It is awesome!)  I had a guest in from out of town and a big Halloween party that we attended.  As usual, that means I have had an extraordinary amount of work to get caught up on since Monday, and almost no energy or focus with which to do it.  This happens every single time I have a three day weekend.  It also happens every single time I have guests in from out of town, or a holiday falls over the weekend, or I take a weekend trip.

If my weekend is busy, my Monday workload starts to bleed into Tuesday.  And then Wednesday.  And by about Thursday I’m just barely starting to feel like I’ve caught up.

It occurred to me on Monday that perhaps what I should have done was anticipated that I was going to be particularly run down and planned ahead a little better.  Or a lot better.

What I have done in the past (and what I did last week) was focus all of my energy on getting caught up on work and prepared for my guests.  I assume that’s what most people do.  (For example, how many of you plan your vacation right up until the day or night before you have to go back to work?)

What I wish I would have done is gotten caught up on work, prepared for my guests, and gotten a head start on the next week’s list of things to do.  I should have made sure I had groceries to last me a few days past when my guests would leave.  I should have completed a few assignments that were due the first part of this week.

I should have given myself a buffer, rather than just tying up loose ends.

With the holidays coming up, I’ll have ample opportunities to test out this new planning philosophy.  My goal is to anticipate that I’ll need a little recovery time and may not be ready to hit the ground running immediately after vacations and festivities have come to an end.

Next time, my friends.  Next time.

This time… well, this time I’m stuck with playing catch up all week.

Photo credit: Sara Nel

Opt-in to Motherhood. Opt-out of Work. Opt to whatever works for your family. On-ramp! Off-ramp! On-board! Oh my!

I don’t care. I won’t judge you. We can be friends no matter which side of the aisle you are on. It’s time for bi-partisan mommy peace talks.

Tell me you’re unhappy. Sometimes, I’m unhappy too. Tell me it was the best decision. It’s worked out great for me as well. Tell me you have regrets. Doesn’t that come with the job? (no pun intended).

I watched the Dr. Phil show last week as some of my fellow mommybloggers took sides on the age old Mommy War. Dr. Phil had titled the show about Mommy Guilt but the real essence of the show was the battle between SAHMs and Working Moms. A part of me thought it would better play out on Jerry Springer. At least then there’d be some entertainment to this stale debate.

I watched it. I cringed in a few places. Personally, I thought that Jessica Gottlieb was sanctimonious but I admired the size of her “cajones” to walk into a setting knowing she’ll be played as the villain. In the end, I turned off the show and walked away from the drama. I’m pretty sure that most of us moms – working or not, paid or not, at home or not, - are just way too busy to care about this anymore.

I’m not your average working mom. I don’t work the traditional 8 to 5.  I have all the flexibility I need to have a career and a family.  And I know that I am one of the lucky ones.  I work in the corporate world, doing global work that requires early morning calls some days and late night calls on others.  The nature of job allows for flexibility.  So I can volunteer in the classroom, pick him up from school, and chaperone on the field trips.  I’m not your average working momma.

In fact, I’ve yet to meet the “average working mom” or her nemesis the “average stay at home mom.” When you find them, I’d like to meet them. All of the moms I know have their own reasons for making their choices. Some felt like they had a choice. Some didn’t. Some felt pressured into their role. Some didn’t. Some secretly wish to be on the other side. Some are very happy with the decision and would never change it.

Instead of talking about how bad the “others” are, can we please change this discourse to how we can improve the lives of mothers everywhere? Paid employment or not, we all struggle. We all need a break. We all desire balance. We all are raising the next generation.

So I’m officially over the Mommy Wars.  I don’t care if you are a SAHM, a WAHM, a WOHM, and all the combinations in between.  It’s more than a truce.  It’s a potential friendship.  Frankly, I’m a damn good friend.  Are you?

I’m goal oriented and a hell of a salesperson, so this model has always suited me well.  It has not, however, prepared me for the world of salary negotiations and discussions about raises.

In my current job, I earn a base salary combined with a commission bonus.  It’s the first time in my life I’ve had a guaranteed income.  It’s also the first time anyone has offered me a raise.

Last week, I turned down a raise.

I’m in a position where I am intimately familiar with the corporate balance sheets and other people’s salaries.  While my family could definitely use the extra money, I didn’t feel like what was being offered to me was in the best interest of the company.  I also believed there were other employees that deserved that extra salary more than I did.

It’s not the first time I’ve turned down income.

I have, in the past, voluntarily lowered my rate as a writer.  Doing so meant helping to sustain the viability of the company that I was writing for.  In my mind, I took a short term cut in order to secure the long term stability of that income source.

I’m pretty sure Suze Orman would say I was crazy.

And maybe she’s right.  I wonder if I have inadvertently devalued my work and contributions.  I worry that I’ve sent the message that I’m worth less than my peers, or that I’m not giving 100%.  That certainly wasn’t my intention, and I hate to think I’ve bought into the idea that I have to “be a nice girl”.  (My husband, by the way, would die laughing at that notion.)

My goal in both of these instances was to do what was best for the group, assuming that, in the end, that would benefit me as a member of said group.

Am I a big picture thinker?

Or hopelessly naive?

Would you ever turn down a raise for the good of the company or fellow employees?

The good news is, I can conduct a good portion of my business sitting in front of the TV, or on my back patio.  (Truth be told, I work almost exclusively on a patio because I like to be able to smoke when I write.)

The bad news (aside from the fact that I still smoke, I know) is that all of this computer time is killing my back.

I have decent posture when I’m standing and walking.  I probably couldn’t balance a book on my head, but I have never been much of a sloucher.  And yet, when I sit down in front of a laptop, I immediately hunch over the keyboard.

I don’t even notice I’m doing it, at least not until the dull ache in my lower back reminds me that my spine is rounded and my shoulders are hunched up to my ears.  To rectify this problem, I sit up tall, stretch, and then immediately crumple back over the keys.

I’ve researched ways to work more ergonomically and how to reduce back pain in an office chair.  It seems I need a higher work surface, a lower back rest on my chair, and a foot rest for my barely over 5 foot frame.

That?  Is not going to happen.

Instead, I’m going to continue to complain about my back pain.  And shove a pillow behind me in my seat.

(That pillow trick actually helps.)

Is your work space ergonomical?

Photo by emdot on Flickr.

In other words, I suffered through my first Summer Break as a working mom. Then right when I felt like I was getting it all in control, life sucker-punched me in the face with Kindergarten.

When my son finished preschool in June, we decided (and by “we” I mean, I thought I had the best idea ever) to let our son have a real summer.  We spent lots of time at the pool.  I spent countless hours shuttling between home and a morning-only summer camp.  We played outside with our neighbors.  Saw nearly every PG or G movie in the theaters. And my son finally found bravery to ride his bike without training wheels.  It was fantastic.

I also spent hours upon hours working late into the night to make up for the lost hours during the day. 

I travelled both for work and for pleasure to, unfortunately, not very exciting but unusually hot places.  I said “shh” or “mommy’s working” or “I’m on a call, be quiet” or “SHUT UP” way more times than I should.  I brought my laptop to the pool and actually worked while others  played in the cool water.

I was out of balance, out of ideas, and feeling guilty for trying to create a summer that made from a pipe dream instead of grounded for reality.  Mixed in where some personal issues that just made writing about being a working mom an impossible feat.  So I took a break.  Without telling anyone.  And for that, I apologize for letting you down.

The good news is that while I’m still out of balance, out of ideas, and feeling guilty, I also realize that so many of you are going through the same things.  So I’m back.  Wish I could say that I’m better than ever.  But I know that I have a support from my fellow working mommas.  At least misery loves company, right?

Photo is of my son swimming on a community swim team.  He always looks likes he about to drown and yet his head pops up for air and he makes it across the length of the pool.  I thought it was a fitting analogy for my Summer.  I often felt like I was in over my head, but I always found a way to still breathe.

A woman named Monya left a comment on that post that broke my heart, and took me back to a point in my life when alone time seemed absolutely impossible to find.  I had neither the child care, money nor hours in the day to find “me time” - alone or otherwise.

“You need a trip to the spa!” people would say, and I wanted to punch them in their perfectly exfoliated faces.

“Oh, honey, go take a bubble bath,” my girlfriends would advise, and I wanted to shout back “RIGHT!  SERIOUSLY!  Because 20 minutes in a tub will MAKE ALL THIS GO AWAY!”

And, I assure you, there would have been much caps lock shouting involved.

The thing is, they were right.  I did, and still do, need to find the time and space to get back to my center.  Constantly.  But it was the finding the time that constantly eluded me.  Where, in a life jam packed with needs and responsibilities, do we find an ounce of leftover time for ourselves?

For my friend, Monya, and women feeling just like her, here are a few suggestions:

Turn off the radio in the car. Two days a week, I have a 20 minute twice-a-day commute that I used to hate.  Now, I relish the chance to sit quietly with nothing but my thoughts.  The other three days of the week, I only get about 10 minutes alone in the car after I drop off my daughter at preschool.  It’s not much, but it’s something, and I’m not giving up that something to morning show DJs anymore.

Close the door when you take a shower. Monya actually joked that getting ready in the morning was her “me time”.  I used to joke that even that time wasn’t sacred because there was usually a little face smashed up against the glass asking me when I was going to be done.  Now, I shut the door to the bathroom, put some jazz music on my iPod, and enjoy the few minutes of peace.

Do yoga. OK, seriously, don’t punch me.  But being alone and quiet takes some getting used to, and I found that yoga was a really great way to ease me into it.  I was doing something while not really doing anything with my brain.  Even just a 15 minute routine in the morning or right before bed can help get you in the practice of shutting up your mind for a little bit.

Make dinner.  Alone. You have to feed them anyway, right?  Kick everyone out of the kitchen (maybe turn on cartoons in another room) and go through the motions of preparing a meal all by yourself.

Go grocery shopping.  Alone. This was one of the very first ways I got alone time.  We need groceries.  Oddly enough, my husband didn’t feel like I was getting more relaxation time than him when I announced that someone had to go buy groceries.  He happily stayed home with my children in exchange for not having to be the one to deal with a grocery list.  And do you know what is great about grocery stores?  No one talks to you.

Listen, I know these ideas sound too small to make a difference.  I know what it feels like to need an ocean and have someone offer you a tablespoon.  But hear me when I say - take the damn tablespoon! It’s a start.  It’s a first step.  And it has a funny way of opening up the flood gates.

Where do you find your alone time?

Photo found here.