35 - The Missing Piece of the Optimization Conversation for Mompreneurs

Lately it feels like we're constantly being bombarded with advice for optimizing everything in our life and business---from how we have the back-end of our business work down to how we get dinner on the table. 

There's nothing inherently wrong with optimizing, but very often, so much of this optimization "advice" has an underlying energy of trying do to more and squeeze more and more and more into our already jam-packed days as mompreneurs. 

The key piece missing from this optimization conversation isn't about optimizing so we can fit in more---it's about taking a step to look back at what we're trying to optimize for in the first place. 

So join me inside of this conversation to think through: 

• Objectively looking at how you're currently spending your time to get a sense of what you're currently optimizing for
• Exploring areas in your life and desires in your heart that often get overlooked and perpetually placed on the backburner of your priorities list---that you wish didn't!
• How to actually begin making optimization tweaks that feel aligned for your current season of life and motherhood
• Proactively planning ahead to intentionally optimize for your ideal version of summer

If you've been having those days recently where you go to bed feeling like you didn't get to do the things you wanted to do, this conversation is a gentle reminder for how you can fix that<3

Here's the 4-step process we go over inside of the episode:

• Record how you spend your time each day for a series of 3 - 4 days (ie. tracking what you did with your time for 30-minute to 60-minute increment and tracking this information somewhere)
• Reflect (without judgment) on where your time has been going versus where it's not going (that you wish it would). To help with this, you can also do a brain dump for 10 minutes writing down all the things that if added to your day would bring you joy, peace, or a feeling of aliveness!
• Explore any beliefs or autopilot scheduling habits that may be contributing to you not spending more of your time the way you actually want
• Decide on necessary habit changes or scheduling tweaks that would better optimize your time for the things that energize you and bring you joy

Get access to the Success Recalibration Ritual here! You deserve to feel good about the way you're doing life and business and motherhood no matter what season of life you're in. 

Are you an ambitious mom looking to start or grow your business in a way that feels aligned? Here's what to do next:

1. Follow me on Instagram @MomBossFreedom and subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss the newest episodes! If this content really resonates with you, be sure to leave a review and star rating as well<3
2. Come meet other mom business owners at an informal virtual Mompreneur Meetup on July 28th! Register here. Connect with other mom biz owners who just get it, who you can add to your squad, and who you can potentially collab with. 
3. Schedule a Momentum Mapping Session to break through your current business roadblock! 
4. Access the Success Recalibration Ritual so you can start feeling more successful more often as a mom and business owner!
5. Head here for helpful freebies like 5 Mindset Shifts to Re-energize Your Biz as a Mompreneur and 3 Nervous System Shifts That Unlock Sustainable Growth for Mompreneurs! 

If you're reading this, our paths were meant to cross :) I can't wait to ...

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey mama, welcome to the Mom Boss Freedom Podcast, where ambitious moms come to build and grow businesses that give them the freedom and flexibility that they deserve as both a mom and an incredibly talented human. Whether you're brand new to entrepreneurship or scaling a business you already started, you're in the right place. I'm your host, Paige Figaroa, mom of two and former English teacher turned online business owner. Around here, we talk about making space for both your big dreams and those little moments you don't want to miss as a mom. So reheat your coffee one more time and let's dive into today's episode. Welcome back to another episode of the Mom Boss Freedom Podcast. So last week we talked a lot about stories and rewiring beliefs in a way that feels more empowering for us and for how we want our life to feel. And today we're gonna kind of piggyback off of that idea and talk about something that kind of goes along with it, which is the idea of optimizing our time for the things that we really want to be doing with it and that the things that make us feel the most connected to our best selves and like our inner life force. And I feel like in the dual role of mom and business owner, we constantly have all this pressure weighing down on us to, you know, optimize for this and optimize for that. But oftentimes all that optimizing isn't actually factoring in what we truly want to be doing with our time and like what's most important to us as an individual human. And in my opinion, like, what's even the point of optimizing for anything if it's not to allow us to do the things we love, right? Like to create, to rest and recharge, to enjoy time with our littles or our friends or our families, to do a favorite hobby, to laugh and just like enjoy being. So, you know, instead we're told to optimize our workflows, you know, use AI for this, use automations for that, outsource our social media marketing to cloud or use this person's framework, take this course to learn this new skill. And it's like some of that advice is all well and good and it can be helpful to an extent. But if the way you feel in the process of optimizing like that doesn't feel good, then it's time to reflect on which parts of the creation process you want to take full ownership back of. And also if you lose sight of why you are optimizing for all of those things, it makes you feel disconnected from your purpose, right? It adds something extra to your plate that you don't even really want to be doing to achieve your ultimate purpose. And so in this episode, let's talk about how we can make sure we're not just optimizing for the sake of productivity and for having more time to be productive, but to actually optimize for a business and a life that we love. And I want us to reflect on a couple things in this episode, and we'll go into each one more in depth. But what are we currently optimizing for? Where are we feeling pressure to optimize in a way that feels unaligned? And what do we actually want to optimize for moving forward? So, first, I think it helps to kind of look at our life from the perspective of an like a detached observer. And I know that's really hard to do sometimes, but as best you can, like look objectively at an average day in your life right now, or an average week, if it's pretty different day to day, and write down on paper how you are spending your time. Maybe you already do this to an extent, like if you use a planner, but you can get even more granular with it in kind of those areas where you maybe don't have something on your calendar that's like a work thing or like an appointment, for example. And when you do this, go at it with a sense of curiosity, not like you need to like fix things or overhaul everything all at once. And if needed, um you can kind of like almost do it as like an experiment for yourself throughout the week if you're not already in the habit of like writing down how you're spending your time. And this isn't something that I would suggest you do, like moving forward as like a daily practice, but like just for like a couple days or so, like if you're having trouble being objective in this process, just write down in your day as you go in like 30-minute increments or even 60-minute increments, like what you did to spend or what you did during that time that you spend. Okay, so that's kind of like the first part here. Once you've taken stock of like objectively how you are spending your time, then give yourself some space to reflect. Where is the bulk of your time and energy actually being spent? What do you not currently have time for in your schedule that you wish you had time for? And then what times in your day or what activities in your day bring you the most joy, energy, or peace? Like what parts of your day are you like, wow, this is the good life? And if that last question is tricky to answer, when you're going about this process and like experimenting and writing down like how you're objectively spending your time, also have a sense of like conscious awareness when you're doing that, as you go about your normal schedule, almost even setting reminders for yourself if you need to, to ask yourself and check in, okay, how have I spent my time in this last hour in a way that felt really good? Or like if you don't, if you think it's too overwhelming to do this as you go throughout your day, like do it at night before you get to bed and reflect. How did I spend my time today in a way that felt really good? Like, what is something I did today that made me feel really inspired or excited or joyful or peaceful or like alive, right? And bring that sense of reflection and awareness to yourself. Okay, then once you figure out what those moments in your day are that are really giving you a lot of joy and peace and purpose, that's a cue for you, that that's something you want to be optimizing your time for, right? Because after all, this is a conversation about prioritizing, right? Because those activities that make us feel good and alive and energized, those are the moments that we want to optimize for, right? Like those are the things that we want to be doing with as much of our day as possible. And maybe it for you when you're going about this process, maybe you find that there's a moment where you were able to just sit down and play with your child without worrying about checking your email or something. Or maybe it's a moment where you had time completely to yourself and you weren't worried about feeding a child or a dog, or you weren't worried about helping someone else, like a client or someone that you work with. You weren't helping them fulfill one of their needs, but you could focus on just yourself. Or maybe it was a time where you were able to work on a project that you really enjoy and kind of lose yourself in it, or you worked with someone and you you felt that you helped them in some way. Okay, the other question that you'll want to ask yourself, and this is kind of like the next step, is what do you tell yourself day after day after day that you wish you had more time for that you never seem to get to, right? Because we also want to optimize for that. We want to keep doing the things that are making us feel joyful and peaceful and purposeful, but we also want to add more time in for doing more of the things that we wish we had time for. For me, it's those darn baby books, right? Like I actually love creating scrapbooks and like compiling photo albums and working with pictures and stuff. But if I'm being really honest with myself, I haven't been intentionally making space in my schedule to do that. I think the last baby book that I made stopped at like 12 months, and my kids are four years old right now. So I have been painfully aware that I have let three years go by without allowing myself time to do something like that that I really enjoy. Um, and because that's meaningful to me this summer, that's time that I am going to, that is something that I'm going to be making time in my schedule for. It's something that I want to optimize my time for. And so that's kind of the next step here. So if you find that in this objective observing of your day and this reflection that you're struggling to find moments in your day where you feel super connected to your own life force, or you feel like you're at a stage in your life where you don't even remember what makes you feel a sense of joy and peace and contentment. First of all, don't judge yourself, right? I think many of us have been through those moments of like, I don't even know what my hobbies are anymore. Like, all I do is work and eat and sleep and take care of children. Um, so if that sounds like you, another practice that I'd suggest, or like layering on in here, and I actually did this the other day, is do a quick brain dump of all the things you would genuinely enjoy doing with your time. I did this the other night, and after sitting and thinking of stuff for like 10 minutes, I came up with a list of 33 things that would really, really light me up and make me feel alive. Like having random time in my day to dance, to watch the sunrise, to be outside more, to bake, right? And now am I going to optimize my day to have time to squeeze in all 33 of those things that I wrote down every single day or even every single week? No. But once we're consciously aware of what our being is actually most drawn to and inspired by, then we can prioritize our time and energy in a way that allows more space for those things. And if when you go to sit down to do this brain dump, you're really struggling for ideas. Just like again, don't judge yourself and like don't try to force things, but do sit there in the silence. And I think sometimes some of the reason that a lot of us struggle to remember what we actually enjoy doing is because we have it, we've gotten so far away from the practice of sitting in silence with ourselves and only tuning into other people that like we were we're accustomed to like hearing the noise from other people, but we haven't remembered how to tune in and listen to our quiet inner self, right? And so that voice inside of us might have been silenced for so long that it takes a little bit of time to like let her back out and to give her the space to you know to let those ideas come, right? So if you sit down to brain dump and nothing comes to mind, just sit a little longer, listen a little bit more. Uh, and if it's not working out, come back to it in another day, in another week, and try again. Um, but I promise you, if you really give yourself the chance to sit down with yourself quietly, something will come through for you. Okay. And then this brings me to the last stage of this optimization process. Well, actually, there's two kind of last parts here, but from that place of intention and self-awareness of how you want to feel and how you want to be spending your time, figure out what's blocking you from doing that right now. Like, is it just something that's out of habit or out of your current schedule? Like you just kind of like have become accustomed to the way that you're spending your time right now and it feels like too much effort to make a change. Or is there maybe like a belief underlying some of this that you don't have you don't feel like you have time to add those things into your schedule? Or maybe it's that you're worried you won't have enough money if you pull back some of your time or energy away from work things or from like client work. So this is where you have a choice, a conscious choice to actively detach yourself from whatever that old belief might be and choose a new belief that makes your desire for how you want to spend your time actually possible. And that gets into the work that we talked about last week with rewiring beliefs and stories. And side note, this is also something that we're gonna be working on this summer inside of my mini mastermind, this summer of loving your life and biz, that kicks off on June 14th. So definitely check the show notes if that speaks to you and if that's something that you feel like you need to work on. Um, but let's jump into step four here. So, like after you figure out what that belief is that's holding you back from optimizing your time the way you want to, then you actually have to take aligned action from the new belief that you created, right? So, in the context of optimizing our schedule, that looks like, you know, intentionally reworking your schedule and the way that you're spending your time each day and making tweaks that will allow you to optimize in a way that gives you more time to do the things that bring you those feelings of peace and joy and purpose and aliveness. And I'm a huge believer in this fact that like we can make even the most mundane and routine moments of our life more magical, but also one thing that helps with that big time is when you are actually spending the majority of your day and blocks within your schedule in ways that you truly want to. Because when we do that, the energy and the net gain of like overall well-being that we cultivate for ourselves from those moments, it spills over into all areas of our lives, right? Like our work, our relationships, the way that we parent. And so that last piece is super, super important is taking the aligned action from the new belief. All right. So before we talk about optimizing specifically for the summer season, let's quickly recap kind of this process that we talked about here for, you know, just the way that you're prioritizing your time and making space in your schedule. So before you go out and decide to like totally overhaul your schedule for anything, one, like let's objectively look at the current schedule with a sense of curiosity and become aware of what you're currently optimizing your time for. Like, where is the bulk of your time and energy going? Then step two is to get really real with yourself. What do you actually want to optimize for that you're not currently prioritizing within your schedule? In other words, like what do you wish you had more time to do right now in this season that doesn't feel possible with the way your current schedule is? Three is figure out what beliefs might be keeping you back from optimizing your time the way you really want to and choose a new set of beliefs. And then lastly, number four, this step is to make the change to your schedule rooted in that new belief of what's actually possible for you. Okay. So the last thing I want to talk about here before we close out this shorter episode is summer schedules and seasonal adjustments. So when it comes to optimizing, I think it's super important to not assume that just because you rethink through how you want to optimize your day right now or like one time, that you're gonna find this magical solution that's gonna work for you forever and ever and ever, right? We as mothers especially have to be in tune with our season of life and honor and respect our own natural rhythms. So, with this particular summer season ahead, one thing that I've been thinking through is how I can make tweaks to my schedule so that I can have the summer that I really want to have. But before I make any true decisions about the logistics of the schedule, I'm starting this process by actually asking myself, what do I want out of this summer? How do I want to feel? How do I want to spend my time? And for me, my kiddos have one true calendar year or so left before they start kindergarten. And they'll have more of a full schedule of things during the day when that happens. And so for me, for this summer, I decided not to enroll them in a full schedule of daycare like I did last summer. Uh, as a little trio, I wanted the three of us to be able to have much more flexibility with our summer schedule so we can do little excursions to places like the farm and the orchard or to do like a spontaneous random trip that we haven't even thought about yet. And also, with the desire for that like spontaneity and that flexibility, I also know that I still really love the work that I do. And I have copywriting clients that I have, you know, obligations to, and I have other moms and women that mentor and coach. So I am also layering in and make sure making sure that I have supports in place to still have things for my kids to be involved in that I don't need to be there to, you know, to watch or facilitate or to be like the the babysitter for. So I have them in this summer camp for like this thing is like a science camp for four weeks, and I'm also gonna be finding someone that I can have come watch them for a few hours each week so that I still have the capacity to have focused work time in my schedule where I can like focus and not have children questioning me about things every five seconds. So that's for me, that's how I want to be spending my time this summer, and that's me being really real with myself because there have been times where I have, you know, let that desire go silenced, and instead I try to like add more things for work in my schedule instead of like being like, okay, no, I want to do my client work, but I also really want to do these things as a mom this summer. Another optimization angle for me is lately I've been feeling called to incorporate more silence and like alone time into my day. And I had actually been feeling like this for a while that I wanted to have more time to myself, especially in the mornings before the kids woke up. But with the way that I was staying up late to do work sometimes, I just didn't feel like that was possible. And I had to get really real with myself about why I wasn't able to make this like optimization change that I knew was going to be good for me. And it really came down to I had this old scarcity story still floating around in my subconscious, like some of the beliefs that we talked about last week. I realized I was feeling this old pattern of staying up late to complete work because I felt like if I didn't get it done then, then I wasn't doing enough, or I was somehow letting someone down. But when I really looked at it, like those stories weren't true, right? Like if I didn't finish the client work in that moment, the whole world wasn't gonna crumble around me, or like I could just go to bed and wake up and do it the next day. So these were just old stories that I was telling myself that I was really letting operate the show for me and keeping me from making a change in my schedule that I was really desiring to have be changed. So once I realized that and I settled into the new story and the new belief that when I'm well rested and I have time to myself in the morning, I have more energy to get things done more quickly and in a state of inspiration, things have really started to change for me and feel better for me, right? With that rewire, I was able to create a new pattern of behavior for myself now, which is I go to bed pretty early. I've actually been going to bed some nights around like 8, 9, 9:30, which for me is very early. I was more of like an 11 o'clock midnight girly for a long time. Um, but that has allowed me to wake up earlier and have some really magical mornings where I can just like sit quietly in my bed and do some like light stretching and meditate and watch the sunrise on my own a couple times. I even went for a walk by myself before anyone in the house woke up. And I'm not saying that this has been a perfect transition entirely for me, but it has made me feel so much more like the person that I want to be each day and feel the way that I want to feel each day. And the first time that I tried it, I literally had a full 75 minutes to myself. Um, I think I woke up at four o'clock that day, which was like absolutely bananas for me, but I had gone to bed at 8 p.m. the night before, so it wasn't really like that crazy. I had plenty of rest. But when I woke up that morning at four and had all that time to myself because my kids had been waking up at like 5:30, 5.45, I really feel like I was living in magical alternate reality. I think I even said that to my husband. And it just, it the rest of that day just truly it felt so different for me. And it felt magical because I had all of that one to one time in my schedule with just me and not like starting my day with a child waking me up and then like immediately having to make them breakfast and then feed the dogs, and then just like have my whole day feel like it was spiraling away from me and in a way that I wasn't in control of. And all of this was possible really because I just I recognized something that didn't feel optimized for in my schedule, and I was willing to do the inner work necessary to challenge the belief that was keeping me in that unhelpful pattern. And from there, then I could make the associated behavior change that allowed for me to have a new pattern to develop. Okay. And so I shared that um example of some of the changes that I've been making ahead of this summer season just to kind of show you that, like, it doesn't have to be a huge thing that you're like completely changing every single hour of your day. Like maybe it's just similar to me where you want to have an extra 15 minutes or 30 minutes to yourself where no one in your life needs you, and you can figure out how in your schedule you can optimize for that, right? I think so often when we think about optimizing and prioritizing, we're only thinking about the things like in our work life or in our business or like the things we have to do around the house. But like, let's give ourselves the space to optimize for the things that truly bring us as individual human beings outside of our work as mothers, outside of our work as business owners, what what do we want to be spending our time as as human beings and as women before any of those other things? And so, if that hasn't been part of the way that you've been thinking about optimizing your time and prioritizing your energy and like the way that your schedule has been operating or what it's been working around, definitely some food for thought for you. Um, I highly recommend going through this kind of four-step practice of figuring out, you know, how you're spending your time right now, what do you want to be doing that you're not currently doing with your time, what's the belief that's holding you back from that, and then like what action can you take, what change can you make from there? I really think that is going to bring some truly transformative change to your life that you've potentially been craving for a long time. And remember, it doesn't need to be a complete overhaul of your day or your life or your schedule or your routines. Like little tiny tweaks often have the most tremendous, powerful effects in our lives and in the way that we feel moment to moment and day to day. So I hope that something within this episode resonates with you. I'll try to add some bullet points in the notes to kind of like just re-outline that process that I was talking through. Um, but if this work really resonates with you, definitely check the show notes for some helpful freebies. And also as a reminder, this summer, starting on June 14th, I'm going to be having a mini mastermind kicked off from Montpreneurs who are really just ready to unlock a new level of happiness in their life and in their business. And it's really going to be rooted in some of the work kind of that we've been talking about in last week's episode and in this episode, around really getting intentional, intentional and digging deep into the beliefs that we have and the how they are keeping us from what we want and how we can change them in a way that feels really empowering for us so that we can live our best lives, which is what we are all here to do. It doesn't feel like that sometimes, but when it we boil it down, like that really is why we are all here. So, like, let's make that happen for ourselves. Um, and then all the goodness can just spread from there in our lives. I hope that this episode resonated with you. Check the show notes, sign up for the summer of loving your life in biz, the mastermind. And I will see you next week inside of an exciting guest episode. Have an amazing day.