After we had our second kid, life began moving at an unmanageable pace.
Maybe you relate?
For our family of four, Monday through Friday is an inevitable blur of breakfast making, dressing the children, organizing their stuff for the day, setting the sitter up so she can take over with the baby, school drop-off, starting the work day, answering so many emails, coordinating so many logistics, managing pick-up, making lunches before walking the kids up to their naps, getting dinner on the table, play time, book reading, straightening the house, bath time, bed time, couch time. Then lights out before it all begins again, the next day.
The week feels like a never-ending list of schedules and deadlines to meet — and this isn’t only for work. The tornado of obligations to keep our house in running order, parent volunteering with my son’s school, scheduling with the grandparents to see the kids somewhat regularly, then attempting to keep a couple of friends… maybe keep a couple of hobbies… or trying to just care for myself a little in ways that don’t involve entire bottles of wine.
When the weekend arrives, my emotions teeter between a strong desire to do it all with my kids versus laying like a starfish in bed until noon. But let’s be real: with our kids, we’re up by 6:00 a.m. every Saturday and Sunday, so option two will remain a fantasy for awhile longer.
When making that decision to either pack the day with grocery shopping, cleaning the house, swim lessons, some random sport, family events, or birthday parties versus doing nothing and holding ourselves to no schedule we used to really struggle.
Until I reevaluated the day-to-day and systemized our household (becoming Thanks, Julia’s first customer) we had no way of maximizing our weekdays to free up the weekend. With outsourcing, delegation, and a lot of support we’re back to under-scheduled, wide-open family time on weekends or if we feel up to it, we pack it in but only with super fun stuff that make all four of us happy campers.
Here’s How I Got Us Back To Weekending:
- Archie attends school Monday through Friday, for half-days. To give me a little more time to work, he’s transported home by a service called GoNanny. It’s basically an Uber for kids but is so much better than that and we’re honest to god grateful for the help.
- He comes home for lunch and nap every day. When he wakes, we keep the evenings unscheduled so he can decompress. Our kid needs the downtime and seems to thrive off boredom. Recently, we added swim lessons one night a week. He’s a water kid who just feels at peace in it. He loves Goldfish Swim School. Their program is amazing and it’s fun to watch him learn something new.
- We have a pretty solid childcare plan for our youngest thanks to a babysitter agency. But it’s also great for support with our oldest, who occasionally gets sick and has days off from school and summer’s off entirely. (Our household guidebook is a lifesaver for managing our rotating door of sitters, I should add.)
- I get out with the baby midday 1-2 days a week. We use Pearachute to keep ourselves non-committal while we figure out his nap schedule but we also really love attending a very sweet baby, playgroup at Family Picnic. The drop-in classes are nice for the sitter, the playgroup is nice for mama.
- We have a cleaning lady once a week. She comes on Tuesday mornings and saves my sanity. End of story. We also have designated laundry days. See you in our laundry room every Tuesday & Friday, guys.
- We have groceries delivered every Friday afternoon via Instacart. In that order I’ve looked ahead at what we’ll need to contribute to things we attend or host that coming weekend. We restock everything that we ate through the week prior and I usually have one standby easy dinner for the weeknights.
- Every Tuesday, Meez Meals are delivered. It’s our meal subscription of choice and checks all the boxes for my husband and I which include 1.) everything is good, 2.) meal prep takes about 25-minutes on average, and 3.) packaging isn’t as awful for the earth as many of the others. (Interested in checking them out for 50% off? Use my code: “refJuliaRohan”)
- But get this: both my kids are also on subscription services for their food because they’re typical kids that like to keep it simple. Archie’s on Yumble and Lou’s on RaisedReal. Don’t knock me until you try to short order cook for all these mouths every night.
- Lastly, I have my dog’s food and treats auto shipped from Chewy. Amazon autoships the baby’s formula and his diapers. My haircolor, shampoo/conditioner, vitamins, and clothing are all subscription services. And I use on-demand apps for in-home service like massages, pedicures, handymen, gardeners, and deep cleaning projects (but never dog walking).
If you feel you may benefit from an outsourcing strategy session with Thanks, Julia’s or you’re looking for additional referrals, need research done to find the best companies to work in your home, or you’d like to set up your own household guidebook, I’m here to help.
To learn more, contact me.
Here’s where we learn from others. I’ve got a coupla questions for ya.
- Whether you’re a parent or not, we all have time-saving hacks for giving us back time. What are you favorite ways to get it all done?
- For those of you that aren’t outsourcing yet, what’s the biggest roadblock holding you back from it?
- What are you looking to delegate off your plate that you haven’t found a solution for?
Share as much detail as you can. Put your reactions and best practices directly in the comments. Thank you so much for reading, for your candidness, and for helping others by doing so!
With love,
Julia
