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How to Help Your Home and Career Work Together

October 21, 2011 in Basics Matter, Life Lessons, She's So There with 0 Comments

 

It’s the million dollar question for most of the women I know. Home life is an inclusive space. We’re not talking motherhood, marriage or single life. It’s not even a question of whether you’re a homemaker or an out of the home career worker.  Today’s hybrid worker often works at least part time from their home location.  I’m a mompreneur, and yes I’ll say it out loud, I work from a home office as oft as I am in the studio, on the road at conferences, or meeting in 3D at corporate. Skype and Go-to-Meeting are my friends.  I own my business because I enjoy interacting professionally, I cultivate projects that empower people as a strategist and write as a wordsmith or ghost writer. My career is non traditional and so are my work environments. There are days I’m in the studio in Nashville, other days I am at a speaker client’s gig for Good Morning America, another day I may be in a horse pasture with a Natural Horseman client and his brands taping for a show.  My choice is to focus on God first, family second and then it is my pleasure to work with clients and brands who so enrich my life.

Dr. Jerry Cook wrote an article on parenting recently that discussed removing your parent’s ghosts from your parenting.  As I looked around my home and considered my own life as an adult, I  realized just how many parts of my home life were  shaped by the home life of my parents.  Both were professional people, but home came first.  We grew up in the South with heavy family traditions on our home front.  Traditions are a good thing, but only when they support the concepts they were intended to harvest.  As a blended family, I am aware that what works for our family may not be what works for the other branches of our children’s family or my work.  Expectations of what home life looks like, what my work hours should be and where, and what my non-working hours may rock many of our extended family’s world, but I’ve found it works for us. It works for my clients as well, they need extraordinary attention, it’s not an 8 to 5, so we’ve found the middle ground.

The path to finding a happy balance as a blended family and business owner over a decade ago begin with taking a hard look at some of the questions about our home life. The go-to questions that shaped our decisions then and continue to need to be re evaluated are:

  • What is the climate I need from our surroundings at home to be able to relax and replenish our lives
  • What is the purpose of my career? When am I “off the clock” mentally and physically (even when working at home or not working outside the home)
  • What are the consistent stresses we face on the bad days?
  • What makes the good days work when a surge at business or home is also on?
  • What expectations and attitudes might be a tad bit rose colored or a bit shaded for my reality in my expectations?
  • Who, what, or when do I refer to in my remembrances or comparisons and what was the same or different?
  • What are the hard and fasts that make life work (for us one item is the family dinner gathering)
  • What supports do I need personally and professionally to allow me to be the woman, bride, mother, and step mom I want to be?

If you’d like to see some examples of the things I’ve learned work for our  family, continue reading here.

Comfort is not a Luxury

October 20, 2011 in 31 Days of Pursuing Peace, Basics Matter, Growing Into Lovely with 2 Comments

Pursuing peace on day nineteen brings to mind something I have watched over and over again in the last few weeks…awareness brings change.  It is my personal belief that people do the best they can, if they knew how to do better they would.  There are arguments about “he knows to do this or that he is choosing that choice”  yes, and yet we all do things we wish we understood why we continue not to choose differently on.  Again, if were ready to be aware of what was truly behind the choice, we’d have done the work to change. Peace is about accepting who you are, changing what you cannot live with, and learning the difference between perfect and profitable.

In my perfect life, the house would be always kept, the projects I so love would keep me on location more often, and the laundry would do itself. It’s not going to happen by itself, but in a profitable life, I allow time or finances to do what needs to be done and engage where my comfort is for working and existing within boundaries my life profits.  Sometimes we get in to routines that do not support our needs for comfort and that in turn affects everything. A co worker on a project about a year ago mentioned that with my visual issues, perhaps I’d enjoy an iMac much more when working in the studio or at home. I travel with a 15″ Macbookpro, but I do a great deal of editing, reviewing copy, and writing, and he was kind to notice the wear and tear on already damaged eyes.  Comfort. Within 24 hours the iMac was in place, in fact a dear strategic partner carried from the Nashville store for me that night to the car.(who says chivalry is dead?)  That awareness of my comfort needs has increased my productivity, allowed me to enjoy working on fine detail work screen pieces, and has so improved my daily existence as did later the 55″ screen we use for meetings. It wasn’t a luxury, it was a necessity.  It turns out when it’s not in use, its a 24/7 visual representation of our success, our projects, and our brand.

What do you do day after day after day that could be fixed, changed, mended or improved to provide you comfort, your family comfort, or your perspective of peace as you face something uncomfortable?  One of my changes this summer was changing how  much natural light entered a work space. If it’s not working for you perhaps it’s time to change it.  Maybe its a color of the room you work in, maybe its a chair you work in all day, perhaps its a drop off laundry service (found mine!)  Perhaps the type of shoes you wear when you’re traveling through three airports in a two day period. It will take time to become aware, we’re so used to just getting through the deadlines at hand, but you might make a point to listen to what your body is saying.  Nothing changes over night, but with awareness you can make many changes with little or no cost, so choose what is important to get done, but make sure you choose well for your support needs as well.

There are hundreds of inexpensive ways to bring comfort to your life. Music in your spaces, colors or temperatures. Taking time to make sure our pantry and freezer is stocked when you are on a hectic schedule.  I am protective about the hours of the day I work on solo tasks. Perhaps opening the shade so you get daylight not blue bulb light. Maybe you have a favorite style you save for “business” but you really feel good when you dress that brand or way, what about narrowing down your wardrobe, are you facing too many pieces to deal with when well put together outfits would do?  What about tools that fit your hand comfortably for writing? For facilitating?  Do you plan for what you need to be okay on the road? Do you take snacks for long days when your energy is waning? What brings you personal comfort? I bet if you take time to do it, you’ll have a hard time finding 50 things if you’ve been working hard lately. When you stop to think of it so many of the things on your list are an organizational or time management issue…not a price point problem. We all own so many comforting and peace giving experiences that we simply don’t do in our pursuit of other things. YOU matter. Our basics matter, our personal and professional support systems can facilitate healthier, happier, more comfortable success? Have you taken stock lately of what works and doesn’t work for you? Pursuing peace means that comfort is not a luxury, its an ingredient for a better life. When we take care of our personal needs for comfort, we are more prepared to be at peace both physically and mentally. Profitability in every area of our life increases when we can be at peace with our work, ourselves, and our environment, our own peace increases when we know we can give without resentment, share without lack, and love others through our actions.

The Rest of the Story…continued

October 21, 2010 in Basics Matter, Life Lessons with 3 Comments

An example of a conversation I had with myself was this: “Is the important thing to me Christmas morning with our children or is it the gathering to share time and down time, food, and fellowship together?” As a blended family, we juggle two families’ schedules, four grandparents’ schedules and to be perfectly blunt, exchanging children on Christmas Day is not fun for anyone. We chose instead to give our children’s other parents the entire Christmas holiday most years, and enjoy the time with them at Easter and before school let out for the holidays. All sides agreed to that schedule (proof that miracles do exist) and we’ve had a much less stressful holiday life since that decision. We still have time together, we don’t have the hustle or bustle of trying to make it all happen in 48 hours. We could make it a longer, more relaxed family time and it just works. We still have the traditional family meal I grew up with before Christmas, just not on Christmas eve. We began a new tradition, my husband and I, of a Christmas Eve alone by candlelight. Some years my husband is deployed, others we’re together, but our family gathers in late November…with only two still at home Christmas picture coordination is easier the big kids have their own households…but it still is an annual tradition.
LIkewise, when they travel to see grandparents, I plan to travel for clients or work heavily out of town so they don’t feel the pinch of my heavy time away. Learning that the toxic zone after a project ends or visitation exchanges last 2-3 days, I now plan for those nights to be pre-planned comfort food meals in the freezer before the last few weeks of big projects hit or child transition happens. When my world looks like this in a hotel room somewhere away from home in the middle of a project push
I find comfort in the systems that support our family. Knowing that there are 3-5 nights worth of home cooked meals in our freezer than any child, teen, or any one of us can have ready in sixty minutes is just the best after a hurried finish for media projects, start ups, or a push for a project close. That preparation is worth the time to prepare because it supports our budget, my stress load, and our comfort.
My husband and children are all cooks, we all enjoy being in the kitchen, but it makes my time traveling for projects work when they know I planned for life to go smoothly whether or not I’m home in time for dinner on those days. Eating together matters to our family, so even when I travel, we try to make sure home life goes on as usual. My husband deploys to the Middle East semi regularly, and we plan to Skype him in when the war allows ( I haven’t quite tamed that monster yet…darn thing regularly disrupts our life)…even if it means he stays up to see the children at the regular check in time….our dinner table. Actually at our house its the kitchen together..for cutting, chopping, and preparing food time is our fun time together and a good way to stay in conversation with each other.
At different periods of my adult life I’ve had part time hours to eighty hour weeks due to production schedules. Most businesses have smooth, surge, and slow periods. Understanding that my career life has a continuing somewhat predictable schedule of what I call evergreen events (annual periods of push) I plan my time for down time, special outings, and extra fun times to be just before those periods hit. We also plan for a family night out the Friday night after the event. The first few days after a deadline we just need sleep!
Our family doesn’t want quality time together 24/7, but with two teens still at home, it is important we connect at dinner, that Mom and Dad are there for sports, horse competitions, etc. We choose carefully what happens inside and outside our home and one of rules is that no one works more than 1 sport or big activity, or project per season including the adults. I may have eight projects going on, but only one major production at a time such as a reality show or book script. If Dad is on deployment, I work more carefully on what projects I choose. Home life doesn’t work when we are all on the go all the time. Career life doesn’t support home life for our family if it means I am going all the time. At our home Dad can be gone 6 to 12 months at a time for the government, but about the 5th day the house suffers if I am not there, and the children simply don’t like being alone with caregivers. I have to choose what events, meetings and appointments are truly necessary or beneficial. It’s flowing with the punches when things don’t go well, like a room under construction on a night I’m dealing with a live streamed televised event from remote controls in Alabama. It may not be very modern, but in our home Mom is still Mom, and that means I choose to love that role. I know they grow up entirely too fast before you know it.
The important questions for our family are all about what is the value of what we’re engaging with, how much time together or away from each other does it cost our family. We carefully weigh the cost proposition of what we are doing to the peace for each of us. Profitability for our family is not just about how much money it makes us, it has to work to profit our family for the time taken away from it as well. Likewise, I schedule time with each of our children as well as my husband to have “at home” alone time as well as play dates to make sure we have enough down time as individuals and as a couple. We have planned for time for our children with their original parent alone consistently for a decade, sometimes we just need time with the originals 1:1. Sometimes just the boys go hunting, other times we have Girl’s Night’s Away to shop….we all have time doing the fun things we enjoy with the parent/child who enjoys that with us.

It is my personal experience that no one can have it all. There are seasons in life. At 47 I am more aware that there are only 3 years left with children at home…some things cannot be “done later.”Our daughter’s educational needs meant she needed to be home schooled, (she’s dyslexic and dysgraphic) it was obvious as a former educator, that was going to be put on my side of the to-do list. Did it affect my ability to continue to work, absolutely! It allowed/encouraged/forced me to find new perspectives in how to make my professional life work. When we choose to be aware of what is important to the individuals we love and ourselves and plan to be supportive of those experiences, life works better for me as an individual and as a bride, mom, step mom, and entrepreneur. My family is willing to forgive my schedule shortcomings and I theirs when tough times do come because we focus on not doing that. We try to keep basic systems in place to make things work for all of us. Girlfriends and professional pals have helped me personally to have real conversations, transparent friendships to keep us all focused on what matters. Your support system matters, part of making home and career work for me is having close, reliable, committed friends who help support each other in our goals.

Making home and work life function is a dance, at times it is a lovely waltz, at others a frantic jitterbug, every now and then it feels like the Robot but like all dances, it is best spent not sitting back wishing you could sway to life’s music….it’s awkward at times, but before long, with trial and error, we all learn what style works for us.

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