Want to be more productive? Work like a mother.
How motherhood made me MORE productive — even with a newborn.
I’ve had the privilege of working from home for nearly two years now, giving me enough time to work out the kinks of staying focused and productive outside of a traditional office. I thought I had this productivity thing figured out — until the birth of my first child last December.
Commence immediate freak out: how was I ever going to keep a newborn baby alive AND get my work done? (Not to mention cook, clean, exercise, and make my home look like Pinterest… kidding! I only do the first two… sometimes.)
I started phasing back into my job when my daughter was only four weeks old, ramping up to what now pencils out to full time communications consulting from my home office. Yes, it’s been hard, and there are many days ending in tears or. But surprisingly, I’ve found I’m more productive than I ever was when I wasn’t responsible for keeping an infant alive.
Here are the three secrets to productivity I’ve learned from working like a mother:
Block it out.
Gone are the days I could multitask my way through my to-do list. Because I have to condense the same amount of work I used to accomplish in an 8-hour workday into nap times, I have to divide my day into blocks of extremely focused time. Often, that looks like getting myself and my daughter ready for the day by 8:30, working furiously for two hours during her morning nap, fully focusing on my daughter over lunch time, working furiously for the length of her afternoon nap, and finally fixing dinner and doing chores around the house after she’s in bed (with apologies to my husband who gets the meager leftovers).
“Time blocking” has gained popularity lately, especially for entrepreneurs and the self-employed. It’s a simple concept involving reviewing deadlines and to-do lists each week, estimating the time it will take to accomplish everything, and scheduling blocks of focused time to accomplish them. To be successful, you have to be as specific as possible and commit to ONLY doing the work assigned to that block of time, not allowing yourself to get distracted by other tasks. Think of them like meetings that can’t be rescheduled, and with a little practice, you’ll find the discipline of time blocking transforms your productivity.
HUSTLE.
Speaking of time blocking, do you see a theme emerging? Notice that I didn’t just say work, I said work furiously. When your “blocks” are limited to 4–5 hours a day (on a good nap day), you have to HUSTLE. I used to relish the fact that I could get more done in less time than most of my coworkers, but the new “mom version” of me would put my old self to shame.
You may not have a baby napping in the next room, but you can apply the same sense of urgency to the time you spend getting your work done. Close the Facebook tab you always have open, mute your email notifications, and work as furiously as you can until time’s up. By working as fast as you can (being mindful of getting sloppy or putting in less than your best effort), you’re really honoring your own most valuable resource: your time.
Let it go.
Any mom will tell you: perfection is your worst enemy. The same is true at work, too. Of course there are times when we have to make sure every last detail is perfect — a pitch to a potential new client, for example. But like motherhood, it’s important to have a realistic definition of success. Usually, getting it 80% right is good enough, and the effort it will take to tackle that last 20% is valuable time you could spend on your next project or big idea.
Some days, keeping my daughter fed and happy is all I can accomplish. On those days, I give myself grace knowing that tomorrow is a new day. By having a clear sense of your priorities and knowing how good is good enough, you will set yourself up for success over the long haul and resist getting caught up in minute details that don’t matter to your business or your life.
Do you need to “block it out,” hustle, or let it go? How could working like a mother make you more productive and help you manage your most valuable resource: your time? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
