“I really want to change career but as a busy working mum I just don’t have the time. Can you give me any time saving tips or hacks? I’m a bit busy at the moment what with xmas and end of term but if you can give me some ideas I will put them into place next year …”
Silly season is in full swing and after a long year patience, motivation and energy are at an all-time low. In my house, we are all hanging out for a holiday.
This is the time of year when alongside Christmas recipe cards and gift ideas, magazines are full of time saving hints and tips. We all know that the majority of work around Christmas time falls to women and mums, in particular, bear a heavy burden. If you’re anything like me, you may also have plans for next year bubbling away in the back of your mind. If changing career is one of your plans then you are probably questioning how you are going to find time to do this.
It’s a sensible question. Especially since once of the biggest barriers for my clients, I find, in achieving their career and life goals, is time, or lack of it. If this sounds like you then read on for my thoughts on this all too common issue:
Be realistic
Depending on your starting point, changing career can be a big undertaking. For me it took almost four years from starting out with a life coach to work out what I wanted to do, to being paid to do it. And I’m nowhere near where I want to be yet. Next year I begin studying for a graduate certificate in career development, and this will possibly lead to a diploma the year after. And I also have big plans for my coaching business. Career change takes time and you will usually not know how much time it is going to take. It’s certainly worth it. But you need to be comfortable with the uncertainty and realistic about this undertaking before you begin looking at time saving hacks.
Don’t have time or won’t make time?
Believe me there is a big difference. When my clients tell me they haven’t done their homework and I ask them why they will usually say that they had a busy week, they didn’t have the time. As mums we are busy and sometimes the unexpected can crop up and derail our week but is it really the case that you didn’t have the time, or you just didn’t make the time? Go on, be honest. If you are massively unhappy with your work situation and want to change then you need to make the time. This has to be a priority in your life and you can’t just slot it in when you are less busy. Because, as you know, you are always busy. As the old Chinese proverb goes “the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now.” Do you want to look back and regret not taking the time now?
Schedule
So changing career is a big priority in your life and you are realistic about how big an undertaking this is going to be. The next thing you have to do is schedule. I’m sure you have heard this before but you really need to schedule time in your calendar for working on your career change and stick to it in the same way that you would a doctor’s appointment or work meeting i.e. you only move it if an emergency or something else more important comes up (when this happens ask yourself what is more important than being happy in your working life, the place where you, possibly, spend the majority of your waking hours?)
Focus
Your time is precious so when you block time out to work on your career change you need to be really focused with that time. Decide what you are going to do ahead of time, set the timer and stick to it. I have a process that I work through with my clients as they are undertaking a career change. Depending on your starting point you should try to follow a similar process:
- Start with yourself – where have you been and what do you want from your career and life? What are your strengths and interests? What are your values and what gives your life meaning? You can use Part One of my Working Mum Career Change Plan to help you stay on track in this self-discovery phase.
- Bring together everything you’ve learned about yourself and create a shortlist of the things that are most important to you and you must have in your career. Brainstorm possible options and research and investigate them. Conduct informational interviews with people who are already in your dream career.
- Implement – develop a plan and exit strategy, build the skills you need to get you into your dream career, market yourself, network, update your CV and polish up on your interview skills
- Live happily ever after! If only! At this stage you will be happier than you ever imagined and enjoying your new life but career happiness is a continual process. Like a happy marriage, you need to work at it.
Plan
Isn’t this the same as scheduling? Well a little bit but with this part I’m more concerned with the other things you have in your life that can impact on the time you have available for your career change work. Some of these things are important – time with kids and your significant other, your current job (you still have to pay the bills), exercise. Others are less important – Netflix, social media scrolling and clearing out your sock drawer for the hundredth time (although my husband might disagree with the last statement).
I am a planning ninja and plan on a yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily basis. You don’t have to be as extreme as this but I suggest planning out your week on a Sunday (or whenever works best for you) and then making a quick daily to-do list with your 3 most important tasks on it, as a bare minimum. When you plan out your week you need to schedule in:
- existing immovable appointments (I’m thinking work, medical appointments, certain school events)
- other appointments (and you should consider at this time if they’re really important to you and if you want to keep them)
- then goes in the things that are most important to you in your life such as your career change, activities with the kids and your partner, self-care, exercise. Of course, to be able to do this you need to know what your priorities are. If you’re not clear on this then there are some exercises you can try. One is the Wheel of Balance, a popular life coaching exercise that gets you to think about the different areas of your life and how you are scoring in them on a scale of 1-10. Click here to read more. The other is Stephen R. Covey’s Life Rock’s exercise https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV3gMTOEWt8
[Some would argue that this bullet point should go first but I am a realist about the life of most mums!] - then you need to plan for all the other shit, sorry I mean stuff. Such as grocery shopping, meal prep, laundry, cleaning, you get the drift. If you can, you should consider how you can simplify or delegate some of these less meaningful but time intensive tasks. For example, could you get a cleaner for two weeks once a fortnight, leaving you with two hours to work on your career change plans?
Once you’ve got your weekly schedule in place then writing your daily to-do list should take less than 5 minutes. You should aim to do this every evening so you can go to sleep knowing what’s ahead the next day instead of tossing and turning worrying about it.
Create systems
Once you’ve got your priorities straight and your planning in place, then you can really turbo-charge your productivity by creating systems for all the regular things you do in your life. This frees up your mind from having to think about when and how you are going to do routine tasks. You can create systems around everyday tasks such as:
- Groceries and cooking by creating meal plans for each week and designating a day that you go shopping.
- Laundry – decide what you are going to wash on what day i.e. coloureds on Monday, sheets on Tuesday, towels on Wednesday etc and then put your washing in the machine the night before (on timer if you have one). This way you’re only putting the washing on when you have a full load and not doing dribs and drabs every day – saving you time and money.
- Housework – what bits will you do and what bits will you delegate. Have a weekly or fortnightly schedule and stick to it.
- Bills and finances – set up as much as possible by direct debit so you don’t have to think about it, automate your savings and read the Barefoot Investor if you can. To stay on top of it all commit to spending an hour on your finances on a regular basis i.e. for an hour on the day you get paid.
- Life admin calls and emails – you know these, they are the random things that seem to eat into your day when you remember them. I would suggest keeping a note, maybe in your phone of the life admin calls and emails you need to make i.e. getting the builder in for a quote, sending off that form to your super fund, ordering the new school uniform. And then schedule in a block of time (or two blocks depending on how many you have) for making them. Of course, the unexpected can come up but you will find that the more you stick to this system the less unexpected and urgent things will come up because you are staying on top of your admin.
Self-care
Finally, but most importantly, make sure you stay on top of your self-care and have this scheduled into your list, in some way, each week. Some people think self-care means going for a weekly massage (and for some it can be) but I mean doing the things that help you take care of you. It could be exercise, taking a walk with a friend, having a bubble bath, meditation or journaling. Whatever it is that you need, make sure it is one of your priorities. Career change is a marathon, not a sprint and so you will need to keep filling your cup if you are going to last the distance.
If you need some more help with managing your time then contact me for a FREE working mum SOS. I can talk you through some of the tools that would be most helpful for you in less time than it takes to watch a really bad reality TV show.