I am blessed and cursed to be one of those people who catches on quickly and does not get frazzled with multiple tasks that need to be accomplished simultaneously – in other words I can multitask with the best of them. I am married to the complete opposite, however, and it took me several years to appreciate that fact. Can I maintain the “B” word in my life…Balance? How does this affect whether or not I read your latest blog post, let alone subscribe to your feed?
The number of tasks I can perform successfully each day depends on my definition of success and my innate personality. Let’s take a typical day and the number of tasks I need to accomplish to see if I can obtain this mythical state of balance, which supposedly leads to happiness.
Make all meals for all members of the household – hubby, 2 kids, 2 dogs, 1 cat and Grandpa. Oh, and me too. (I love to cook, so evening meals are a joy!)
Take kids to, and pick kids up from school – many times not even my own.
Exercise at least 30 minutes. (I’m a menopausal bitch otherwise – oops, sorry, I haven’t exercised yet today.)
Walk/run the dogs.
Work at the elementary school as Yard Supervisor twice each day.
Clean the kitchen and do the dishes (my 13yo has recently had some of this added to his chores list each day).
Clean out then run the iRobot, Roomba, “Mo” (remember that little cleaning bot from “WALL-E”?) in at least one room of the house – dog hair follows me around otherwise.
Do laundry at least 3x per week – especially with kids, dogs and a cat bringing in mud and sitting on things in the winter. (again, kids are gradually taking over this task, or at least putting their own clothes away!)
Write – blog posts, comments, tweets, facebook posts…what am I forgetting…Oh, yeah, parts of books, stories and poetry that if I don’t get out of my head will make me crazier than I already am.
Read – blog posts, comments, tweets, facebook posts…again…parts of books, stories and poetry.
Read, respond and clean out email accounts – 4 of them.
Help 8th grader with Algebra (and try to get him to realize that he will have to be responsible for his own learning in order to get through High School, because I’m not doing that again.)
Help 5th grader with fractions/decimals/percents, science and spelling (and help him wear only his clothes, and not his emotions on his sleeves.)
All the tasks that keep MommyLoves alive and successful – too many Entrepreneurial tasks to list without making you click that little “x” in the corner and leave me forever…I’d miss you!
Spend time with my kids – talking about and doing things that matter to them.
Okay, I’m back…got a little tired after making that list, and went to get a cup of coffee.
I just realized I am letting strangers (probably no more than 3) into my daily routine, but I have to prove my point. What is it? There is no balance. There is only a frantic rush to get as many tasks done in the little time we have each day – we can only make little choices where to spend that time every minute. I don’t get all of the above done successfully every day! I know some women who do. Sorry, guys, I don’t know any men who do. I define success as not getting behind, while being proactive for tomorrow. Most importantly, my success is determined by the completion of those tasks that will impact my and my family’s peace and happiness each day.
Right now, I have 4 windows open in Firefox and 4 windows open in Safari, Mo and the dishwasher are running, and four boys are playing Call Of Duty, Black Ops on the PS3. As I pause to think of the next thing to write, I open another window to finish another task. That window might just be Twitter, or Facebook, or Triberr, and I just might see a link to your latest blog post when I refresh the stream.
I hope your title grabs me, so I choose to click the link and read your words of wisdom.
Otherwise, I skip right by, and you lose me.
So, how important is a title? You decide, because I have to go put in a load of laundry, un-stick Mo from a cat toy and discipline my son’s friend for saying the F-word in my house. Balance, Schmalance!
What are you choosing to do right now (besides read this blog post – Thank You!) that leads you to feel successful in your home, business and life?
What will be your next blog post title?
~Mary Kathryn Johnson 2012
Author ~ Entrepreneur ~ Mom
