Confession time: I’m a procrastinator.

This blog is the cornerstone of my business.  Every week I write to keep my business growing but I'm often stymied by inertia.

I begin my days with this work because I find it the hardest to do.

Still, somedays getting words typed onto a blank page can be like watching your kid suffer. EXCRUCIATING!

Many mornings I put it off because I’m crunched for time in the morning (despite my 5:30 am alarm). Other days, I have an idea that comes up while writing that I want to investigate further and lose myself to the research. Sometimes a sound outside my window will grab my attention and I will stare at nature instead of face my keyboard.

Regardless of how it hits, the result is fewer words on the page and minutes lost.

Sound familiar? 

I bet procrastination hits you differently depending on the moment. Let’s look at a few common types and a quick fix.

Types of...

“Procrastination is my biggest fault.”

My community, clients, and friends tell me this constantly. My heart breaks each time.

In today's article, I will take a closer look at procrastination. It’s the most common thief of people pursuing their dreams. It’s a success killer.

Procrastination Defined

Our definitions of procrastination often differ. Let's explore a few for a minute:

“The act of voluntary voluntarily postponing something, despite knowing that it'll have negative consequences.”Wikipedia

“Allowing my doubt and fear to win at least momentarily.” Bethany Clemson

“A delay or postponement to press pause for a moment to process.” Tollisha Joseph

“The act of deferring action. On something when taking earlier action would arguably have been a better decision.” Damon Zahariades

“Procrastination is an emotion regulation problem, not a time...

Your goals are under attack. 

You are bombarding your vision for your life with fear, perfectionism, failures, excuses, and procrastination, to name a few.

It's time to go on defense. In today's post, I will share with you my favorite weapons (aka tools) for setting goals.

1. Life Plan

It's like a roadmap. 

When you're putting launching a business, there’s thought and strategy behind it (aka a business plan). This is a plan for your life goals. It’s a strategy that reverse engineers your life.

Stay with me, this is going to get dark. Think about the end of your life. How do you want to be remembered by your children, your partner, your coworkers, your friends, whoever is important to you? Begin living into that intentionally today and into the future. 

The life plan is a process of looking at these goals and also looking at the obligations that you have in your life, in addition to the accounts that are...

You have only 40 seconds to focus. How much will you accomplish?

I heard this alarming fact in author Chris Bailey’s Ted Talk on focus. He warns if you have your phone nearby you are only able to focus for 40-second sprints. 

As a mompreneur, you're dealing with more than just that interruption.  You’ve got a husband that needs you to run an errand, a friend who needs to unload her fight with mom, and the incessant needs of those kids.

Interruptions cost you every time. This is known as a switching cost. As soon as we take our focus off of our task and put it on something else, our mind takes some time to refocus when we return to the original task. It's also a waste of energy. The reason you're going to feel really drained by the end of that task is that you're pulling yourself back and pulling yourself back and pulling yourself back because you're constantly interrupted every 40 seconds. 

I used to struggle with silencing all of...

Have you ever thought, I set my goal…now what?

Last week I attended Back to School night for my daughter’s high school. It was all done via zoom because….COVID. It struck me how few parents showed up.

As the teacher presented to parents how the semester is going to play out, my thought was what a great illustration of how to use systems to achieve a goal. I know productivity nerd over here.

Let me explain using Biology (because the teacher was kinda cute).

He started by laying out the “course objectives” (aka goals)

• Learn biology
• Become a critical thinker and problem solver
• The list went on but you get the point 

Next, he went into the materials, tests, homework, etc that will be expected throughout the year (his system for achieving the objectives above).  

I also loved the part where he pointed out all electronic devices must be OFF or they will be confiscated. This guy knew how to get...

SQUIRREL!

Where did your mind go?

I think of Dug the sweet but easily distractable dog from the Pixar movie UP. 

I just opened another tab in my browser and found Pixar’s Instagram account.  Did you know Dug has a series of shorts out now on Disney+? That would be fun to watch with the kids.

It’s been 15 minutes but now I’m back to writing this post. This is my brain chasing squirrels.

It’s fun to follow the sparkle of a shiny object but beware.  Shiny object syndrome can pull you off course in chasing your goals. How do you stop it?

I’ve given you some tools on how to focus but today let me give you some questions to consider when there’s a shiny object is dangling between you and that goal you wrote down on January 1st.

5 Questions to Ask Yourself to Curb Shiny Object Syndrome and Keep Focused on Your Goals

1. What is my top goal for the next 3-6 months?   

   Admit...

The text read: Would you ever do Ragnar Tahoe again? 

My heart skipped a beat. One of my dearest friends was asking me to join a trail running event. Not just any trail run but the one I completed 2 years ago that was one of the greatest experiences of my life.  I reread the message and my heart sank.  It’s a 24hour team relay event that was planned on my son's 12th birthday.

I texted back, “OHHH I would do it again but that’s Chase’s birthday…let me think on that one.”

I wanted to hold onto the dream of experiencing that trail run with one of my besties for a few more moments.  In my heart, I knew my answer had to be NO. Ragnar Tahoe will be there again next year but I could only celebrate my son’s 12th birthday once. 

Ironically if you look at my goals for 2022 I’ve listed finish another trail race. But when the opportunity presented itself, I had to make a choice, and the option...

Raise your hand if you’ve ever given up on a New Year’s resolution. If you could peer through my computer monitor, you would see me waving my hand in the air.

We’ve all done it but there’s something magical about a fresh start. A chance to clean the slate. This year instead of picking another New Year’s Resolution that you’re going to beat yourself up for failing in a few weeks.  Let’s focus on goals we can work towards in a way that’s healthy and realistic.

Why Set Goals

Let’s start with why your goals should be more than just a New Year’s tradition. Goals can be more than just a yearly resolve to lose those same 10 pounds. You can set goals in any area of life - business, health, or personal. You know this already of course.

First goals help you choose the right moves at the right times. Let’s use your business as an example here.  Say you’ve just launched your social...

In another lifetime (pre-kids) I worked as a pharma rep.  I would schlep drug samples to doctor’s offices all around Sacramento, the East Bay, and Napa.  At the end of the year, I would have a performance review with my District Manager.  A process many of you know if you ever spent time working for someone else.  

Regardless of whether the review was positive or negative, you always learn something about yourself. Today I want to make a case for how you can spin this process for your mom biz.

Let’s take a look:

Your Accomplishments

You need to celebrate those wins.  Take some time to review what you accomplished in 2021. Do you have a brag file? If so, great! Spend some time flipping through it. If not, here are some tips to spark your memory.

• Review your calendar
• Scroll through photos
• Revisit social media posts
• Flip through your journal

Day to Day

How you spend your time, regardless of what’s on your...

I know what you’re thinking, “I work hard all day and I don’t have time for this.” But trust me, task batching is your new best friend! It will help you become more productive by doing things in batches so that not only do they get done faster but also with less stress. You can thank me later when you are knocking out tasks like nobody's business - just take a few minutes to read on how it works.

What is Task Batching

If you’ve spent time learning how to grow your business on social media, you’ve heard the term content batching.  For the newbies, it’s a process where you create all of your captions or visual content during a set period of time. It’s a game-changer but here’s the juicy piece...batching can be applied to more than just social media.

Task batching is where you put together similar tasks into a block of time. It can be used for any task in any area of your life: business, personal, spiritual,...