Ep #226: Creating More Time

Welcome to The Widowed Mom Podcast, episode 226, Creating More Time.

Welcome to The Widowed Mom Podcast, the only podcast that offers a proven process to help you work through your grief, to grow, evolve, and create a future you can truly look forward to. Here’s your host, Master Certified life coach, grief expert, widow, and mom, Krista St-Germain.

Krista St-Germain: Hey there. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. Okay, before I talk about creating more time, I want you to check out this recording by one of my Mom Goes On members. Here it is. 

Natalie: Hi, my name is Natalie. I’ve been a widow since 2021, and I am speaking to invite you to join me in Mom Goes On. As a coaching client of Coach Krista’s. The reason that I wanted to share and invite you to join me is because Mom Goes On gave me hope, gave me something to spend my time on, gave me something to distract myself and also teach me that distracting myself is exactly what I needed to be doing in that moment. 

Most importantly, Mom Goes On gave me the tools to shift my thinking, gain perspective, and find what is most useful to me about my story to send me in the direction that I want to go for myself, my future life, and for my children.

Krista St-Germain: Okay, so you have been officially invited not just from me to join Mom Goes On, but from other Mom Goes On members. We’re going to be doing a little bit more of that. Because I think sometimes, I understand. People don’t trust me as much because I’m the one that created the program. People think I’m some sort of special snowflake, and that it’s easy for me or something. But I want you to hear it from actual Mom Goes On members that you can do it too, and that we welcome you, and we encourage you to come. So more like that to come. 

All right. I told you in the last episode that I was just thinking about sharing more with you what’s bringing me joy these days. So here’s what’s bringing me joy right now. A couple of things. One is my youngest is loving school. They are a junior and since COVID have been doing school from home. They decided they wanted to go back to school in person. It’s so fun to watch them be successful and happy and engaging in social things, doing like drama and debate and just having a completely different energy. Super fun for me to watch as a mom. 

Also, they are editing my podcast videos for me. So if you’re watching this on YouTube, that is because my youngest is doing all the editing for me because I’m not good at it. They are. So definitely bringing me joy. 

Also another thing that’s bringing me joy right now. If you’re watching on YouTube, you can see this little bracelet that I’m wearing. I got this nice bracelet from someone I don’t even know in the mail. I think it’s either Kyle or Kylie. I wasn’t sure how to read it, but thank you. 

I just want to say thank you. We don’t even know each other, and you took time to write the kindest note about how the podcast and my work has helped you and send me a gift. I don’t get to talk to everybody who listens to the podcast, and I don’t get to work with everyone who listens to the podcast. So little things like that, they just actually really mean a lot to me. So that’s bringing me joy. 

Okay, before I cry, let’s talk about creating more time. I understand that creating more time technically is probably a bit of a stretch. I mean, we can’t actually change how many hours are in the day. But we can definitely create more times for ourselves, more time for what we value, and we can use our time more intentionally. So that’s what I want to talk about today. 

Because when you are a solo mom, when you are doing this by yourself, even if your kids are grown, you’re running a house by yourself, right, when you used to have a person that you did these things with then I think your time is ever more precious. I also think when you have a significant loss, as most people listening to this podcast have, you see that a little more than you did before you see that. You want to treat your time as precious, and you want to use your minutes and hours and days in ways that matter to you and add value to your life. That’s not always the easiest thing to do. 

So today in the podcast, I want to give you five different things that you can think about. Five different ways that you can create more time for yourself. Okay, so let’s jump in. So number one, saying no y’all. We need to say no more often. I want you to consider thinking about the way that you spend your time and how much of the way you spend your time is driven by shoulds. Driven by ways that you tell yourself you should spend your time, you are supposed to be spending your time. 

Maybe they aren’t things you actually want to do. They aren’t ways of spending your time that you really want for yourself. But you keep doing them because you feel obligated, because you feel trapped, because you don’t think you have a choice. You’re telling yourself you should.

So that might look like living in a house that you don’t want to live in anymore, but you live there because it was the house you had with your partner, it was the house you built with your partner, it was the house your partner really wanted. Maybe your partner loved having a couple acres of land, and you don’t. Maybe they wanted the farm, and you don’t. Maybe they wanted the city life, and that’s where you are and that’s not what you want. You want the country life, the suburb life. I don’t know. 

But are you living in a house, taking care of a house, doing all the things to upkeep a house or residence if we want to broaden it up because it was your dream together? Are you spending your time running a business that you don’t want to be running? It wasn’t your business. Maybe it was the business the two of you shared. Maybe it was their business, maybe it was their dream, and you’re telling yourself that you’re obligated to keep doing it. But you don’t really want to. You’re just doing it because you should. 

Maybe you’re working a job that you don’t need to work. You don’t want to work there. But maybe you’re worried about what other people will think if you don’t work there anymore, if you quit. Especially if you got life insurance money and you legitimately could financially have the lifestyle you want, but you’re still working because you’re worried about what other people will think if you don’t. 

There are some shoulds going on in your brain. Those shoulds have you using your time in a way that doesn’t align with what you want. I want you to consider setting yourself free from that, saying no. That could be the smaller things too. Right? 

That could be setting boundaries. That could be just taking a look at some of the smaller commitments that you’ve made. Just because you’ve said yes to those commitments, giving yourself permission to change your mind and say no. If you look at what’s ahead of you next week on your calendar and you don’t like it, you don’t like your reasons for doing those things, then you can say no. You can change your mind. 

It might not be an immediate no. Sometimes it’s a gradual process where we figure out how to remove ourselves from a long standing commitment that we’ve made, or we figure out how to remove ourselves from a job that we don’t like or a house we don’t want to be in or a business we don’t want to own. But I want you to consider what it would be like to give yourself permission without feeling guilty to say no to the ways that you’re spending your time that don’t line up with what you want for your life next. 

Because I bet if you look at your calendar, there are some things on there that you could say no to. There are some changes you could make that would set you free, but you keep doing the same things that you’ve been doing because you feel trapped or obligated. That comes from the way that we think, right?

If you feel trapped or obligated, if you feel resentful about the way that you spend your time, the best news ever is that that’s something you can change. A, you don’t have to spend your time that way. Right? B, it’s because of what’s going on in your mind. Okay. So that’s number one, saying no. We can actually change the way that we spend our time. Some of that might mean some major life changes, all right. 

Number two, delegate or ask for help or hire it done. There are so many people in this world who wants to help us, who would love to be paid for their services. Yet, we struggle to receive their help, believe we’re worth their help, ask for their help. I get it because I struggled too.

In the beginning after Hugo died, a couple of Heather’s Camp volunteers came and just mowed my lawn. A couple of my guy counselors. They just came and mowed my lawn. They did that for a while. Then my neighbor who was retired decided that he would mow my lawn. He didn’t really ask. He just sent me a message and said I’ll be mowing your lawn, and told me the day that he was going to mow it. He mowed it for that, I think, first summer. 

That wasn’t the easiest thing to accept. That wasn’t the easiest thing to receive. For some people, it’s easier than others based on, again, the stories that are in our brain, but I could tell that he really loved doing that for me. He felt terrible about what had happened. We talked about it more as time went by, probably not in the beginning, but he really liked doing things for me because it made him feel like he was helping me. He wanted to help.

When you watch someone, even though we didn’t know each other really well. We were neighbors. We didn’t spend a lot of time together, but he felt powerless when Hugo died. So mowing my lawn was something that made him feel good. He would also always, that’s the best neighbor. He was hard to leave, I tell you, and his wife as well. 

He would always take my trash can and pull it up from the end of the driveway. If it snowed, I mean, if I wanted to shovel my driveway, I would have to race him to get to my driveway because it felt good for him. There are people out there who want to help you. If you don’t let them, you’re depriving them of the opportunity to feel good. They want to help. 

So think about who those people are for you. Maybe they’ve dropped hints. Maybe you’ve shooed them away. But what if you allowed yourself to receive the help that they offer, and gave them the gift of feeling good by helping you. They don’t want to feel powerless either. They want to feel like they’re contributing and making your life better. I know that there are people in your world that do.

After that happened, the next thing that I kind of struggled with in terms of hiring help, getting help, was with my house. I could afford to have someone come in and clean. But in my mind, there was a story that I should be able to do it myself. I was working full time, two kids, but I should be able to do this. That’s how it showed up in my brain. Krista, you should be able to do this. This is not that hard. Other people have it way worse than you. You should be able to do this. You shouldn’t be paying for something that you can do yourself. 

What I just want to offer is that yes, I believe in us. We are capable. There are many things we can do. But just because we can do them doesn’t mean we have to. It doesn’t mean we should. If there’s something that you want to pay to have done then that’s a choice you get to make. You can actually use money to make your life better. Not just your kid’s life better, by the way, but your life better. 

So I want you to consider where you’ve been wanting to use money to make your life better or easier but telling yourself that you can’t or shouldn’t, even though the math says that you can. Because I’ve done this to myself. So I know a lot of you are doing it too.

Some other simple things. Instacart, right? Almost every grocery store now has some Instacart type service. Walmart even has it, right? You can literally let them shop for you and ship you your groceries. Bring them to your house. How much time does that save you? A ton.

Yes, you could go to the grocery store. You could do this. You’re fully capable, but why not? Plus, I always like to think about it like I am employing someone else. I am contributing. At a time when people want to be shoppers, I am giving them that opportunity. I’m tipping them because that feels good to me. It benefits them. I don’t have to go to the store because I don’t want to go to the store. Instacart. 

Lately, we’ve been using Hungryroot, which I don’t have any affiliation with that particular service. There are many others, Blue Apron. I couldn’t even tell you all the ones, but there’s tons of them, right? Yes, I am fully capable of menu planning, fully capable. I have years of doing it under my belt. But I love not having to do it and the time that it frees up and the brain space that it frees up. 

So three meals a week, come in the Hungryroot box on Saturdays. Boom, done. I don’t have to think about it. Any of the teenagers, and younger kids could do it too, can look at the recipe and start cooking. It is fantastic. 

Also, you have other humans that live in your house most likely if you have children, and they are still young. What some of us do in grief is we stop asking our kids to contribute because we tell ourselves they’ve already been through so much. Then we take that work on ourselves. So I just want you to be honest with yourself and notice if you’re doing that because I definitely did it. I wonder if you’re doing it. 

What would it be like to give your kids the opportunity to contribute to the house, even though they have been through so much, but because this is still a house that needs running, and they’re right there. I remember I was a little bit of a control freak about laundry for quite a while too. I didn’t want my kids doing their laundry because I just wanted to do it. What a relief it was when I finally decided they’re old enough to do their laundry. I didn’t have to worry about it anymore. 

Now did they do it the way I would want to do it? No. Did they sometimes leave their laundry in the dryer? Do they still sometimes? Yes. But I don’t have to do it. It’s not done my way, but it is done. It’s more free time for me. 

Now, I also have this other list of things not so much that I do but things that other people do that are available to you. So you can hire organizers. There are professional organizers who will come and help you organize. If my daughter lived in your area, she would be one of those people who would love to come and help you with that. Some people love organizing. If you hate it, what if you ask somebody to do it? It literally could be someone like my daughter who’s 19 and would work for peanuts and literally loves helping people declutter and organize.

There are errand runners out there. There’s a service called TaskRabbit. It’s not in my area, unfortunately, yet. I hope someday that it will be, but there are services like that where you can actually just pay to have someone go take your dry cleaning in or stand in line for you. Run errands. Things that you don’t want to do yourself, you can pay to have them done relatively inexpensively. 

You could pay to have someone come in and do your laundry on a regular basis if you wanted. My friend Katrina does this. She’s not done her own laundry in a long time. She has somebody do it. Amazing. Now, maybe you love laundry. But if you don’t love laundry, you could have someone do it for you. 

You could have a personal assistant. I don’t. It’s one of the things I keep toying with that I haven’t actually done. A house manager, right. Some people have house managers that come in and manage the house. These things are all available. But in order for us to do them, we have to be willing to receive. We have to be willing to believe that it’s our money, and that we have permission to spend money in ways that we deem make our lives better. That that is a valid choice, and that we’re capable of making it. 

But if there’s a story in our brain that if we’re capable of doing it, we should or that it’s not our money, which is probably a whole nother episode. Go and listen to the episode I did on wealth purgatory, if that sounds like you. Because a lot of us struggle, especially if we got money because of our person’s death. We struggle with that. So that episode wealth purgatory is about that. 

Or maybe you have a story in your brain that you’re not worthy of these kinds of services, or that you’re not deserving. Or that because other people have it worse than you that it’s okay for them, but it’s not okay for you. Any of those stories in your brain will block you from delegating, from getting help, receiving help, hiring help, and will keep you trying to spin all of the plates in the air instead of getting help. 

Okay, so number one, saying no. Number two, delegating, getting help, receiving help. Number three, having one trusted system for the way that you organize yourself and your time. I first learned this from David Allen who is the author of Getting Things Done, and the creator of that system. It was really helpful to me because what I learned from him was that it doesn’t so much matter the system that you use as long as you use one system, not multiple systems. 

So it’s not about having the perfect planner or the perfect digital to do list or tracker. It’s about can you have one trusted system, even if it’s post-it notes in a notebook or one long list in a notebook. But one trusted place where when you have something to do, that to do goes. You always put it in the same place. You always use the same system to manage it do that you can use your mind for what it was really created for, which is not data storage. Our brain was not created to store things. It’s created to think through things, to process. 

But when we go and take all the bandwidth up with trying to remember and we expect that from our brain, we never actually really relax. It’s so much harder because we don’t really trust ourselves to remember all those things. 

Maybe there’s some special unicorns out there that actually do trust themselves. I haven’t met them, but maybe they’re out there. Maybe that’s you. Maybe you have no problem with this. You just trust that what’s in your brain is perfect, and it’s gonna get done. You’re on top of everything. That’s amazing. I’m not talking to you. 

I’m talking to the people who are like oh, am I forgetting something? Who have post-it notes in one notebook and then a to do list on their phone and then a to do list in their planner and then a three ring binder somewhere else, and then a digital planner that they bought and then didn’t actually use but yet there’s still things over there. It’s all spread out and everywhere. There’s not one trusted system. 

So for me, and because I’m just going to tell you this now. Not because I believe my system is the best, I don’t, but because if I don’t tell you now, you’re just going to email me and ask me. So I’m just going to tell you now. I use the Full Focus planner as my daily planner. It’s the one I like. Some people hate it. It’s bulky, and it’s not dated, and you have to write your dates in it. But it’s Michael Hyatt’s Full Focus planner. I like it. Works for me. I’ve used it for years. I have tons of them. That’s my written planner. 

Then I also use, and I know this sounds like two systems but really, it’s one system for me. I also use on my phone an app called Things. It’s an app that is David Allen GTD, Getting Things Done, friendly. What I mean by that is the same system that he teaches without going into it in detail because his system is a lot more detailed, this app is set up to work with the way that he teaches. 

It’s very easy to sort things by context. So it’s very easy to sort things by where you are, to tag things as errands, to tag things with people in them. It’s kind of complicated to set up. But for me, it works great. I kind of store everything in Things. 

Then I like to go through my digital system, which is where everything goes. I dump all my to-dos in there. It has an inbox. I dumped them in there. Then I make decisions about what I’m going to do for the week first and then for the day. Then I use my written planner so that I’m writing out what appointments I have that day, and what my top three priorities are that day and any to-dos for that day. Then I kind of reconcile them at the end of the day with my digital system. 

There’s something about it for me, and not everyone is this way, I like actually taking something off of a digital calendar and writing it down. There’s something about writing it down that helps me kind of process how it’s going to go and prepare myself. I get that not everybody likes the analog digital hybrid. I do. So that is one system for me. 

When I have something that I need to remember, a to do, something that I want to do, it immediately goes in my Things app. Done. Then I pull from there into my daily app, right. If it’s an appointment, of course, it just goes into my iCal. I look at that as well. 

So that’s what I use, but it’s one system. I don’t use post it notes ever. That is just one system. Then I know that I have peace of mind that I can trust that system. It’s just going to be there. So one trusted system. Pick whatever system works for you and stick with that one instead of spreading yourself out. 

Okay, number four. I want to offer to you the peace of mind that can come from rituals and routines. Great peace of mind for me. I like repetition. I don’t offer this to you as a should. Please don’t hear any of what I’m saying in this podcast episode as a should. This is not something you should do. This is something that works for me, and I’m offering it to you in case it helps you. 

So what I mean by routines and rituals is that I have a morning routine and an evening routine, like personal ones. Then I have for my work, a work day startup and a workday shutdown. Full Focus planner has that built in. That’s how I got started. But it really, really works for me. It’s also in my Things app, by the way, but I like having it written out sometimes too. 

So by that I mean, I tend, not always in the exact same order and definitely not at the same time, but I tend to do very similar things in the morning and in the evening. That brings me peace of mind because I know those things are going to get done. I know that I’m going to do those things because I’ve gradually, one habit at a time, conditioned myself to do the same things in the morning and the same things in the evening that I chose for myself. They have changed many, many times over time, right? Because life evolves.

You probably already have this too. You just may not have thought about the idea that you do. There might be some things that you do inconsistently that you would benefit from making more consistent. So I thought I would read to you what I do so maybe it’ll help you. 

So, for instance, my morning ritual. Basically, these are the things I do. I don’t do everything on it every day, but these are the things I aspire to do. For the most part, I do most of them. So typically, the first thing I do when I get up is I check my Oura ring. I wear a digital, the little ring tracker, and I look at my sleep, and I check my patterns. That’s kind of a nerdy thing, but I think it’s interesting and fun. I’m curious to know how I slept, and I’m interested in my heart rate variability. So I check that.

I get up and then I put on exercise clothes. This is a big deal for me, y’all because it used to be that I’ve just stay in my pajamas. Now I actually get up, and I put on, and by exercise clothes I mean I put on shorts and tank tops basically and a sports bra and my tennis shoes. 

I take medication that I have to take every morning. I’m reading from my list right now. I make coffee. That’s what I do next. I go downstairs, and I make coffee. As I am drinking my coffee, I look through and read the goals that are in my Full Focus planner. I refresh my memory about what my goals are. If something has changed, I will note it. Some of the goals that I have for myself are daily habits. So I will update those as I’m doing it.

I write down one victory that I’m celebrating. I’m very intent on training my brain to focus on the gain. This takes me like a minute. Something that I’m celebrating. I remind myself to celebrate something from the day before. I do one daily model. If you hear me teach on the podcast, you know what I’m talking about. But the thought model is a self-coaching model. I will do a model, usually a set of models. So an unintentional model that something that I am not loving and then an intentional model.

My goal is to tap for ten minutes every day. I don’t always do this. This is one of the things that I’m working on more, but tapping for ten minutes. My minimum baseline for exercise is 15 minutes of movement. Usually, I end up walking quite a bit more, but 15 minutes is like I really want to invest 15 minutes of movement in myself. This is not a should for me. This is a genuine thing I’m doing for myself. All these things are things I’m doing for myself.

Then I take a shower, if I’m going to. Sometimes I shower at night. Do my hair and makeup, get dressed. That’s my morning routine, right? I’m kind of not a breakfast person until like mid-morning. So that’s why you don’t see breakfast in there, but I am a coffee person.

Then in the evening, it’s much more simple. I start the dishwasher. I make sure that there’s soap in the dishwasher and that the timer is on. I take a product called Calm, which is a magnesium supplement. I go upstairs and I wash my face and brush my teeth and floss my teeth and take my contacts out, put on my pajamas. Put on my pajamas is not written on my list, but that’s the idea, right. There are basic things that I’m going to do in the morning and in the evening. They are written down. I do them. 

Then in the morning for work and in the evening for work I do very similar things. So in the morning for work, I check the big three that I wrote down the day before. So what are my top three priorities, make sure I’m still on board with those. I check Slack, which is how I communicate with my team and the online system that we use in Mom Goes On. I check my email and see if I need to deal with anything there. Then I make sure that my digital calendar matches my written one. That’s my startup routine. 

Oh, and I also will read my, I have a separate kind of goal thing for business stuff that I will if I haven’t read it in the morning with my coffee, sometimes I do it in my office. I will do that. Then in the evening, I check my Slack again. I check my email. If there are any to-dos from my list that didn’t get done, I will move them to the next day. I will write down any of my appointments for the next day. I choose my top three priorities for the next day. Then I text them to my friend, Pam. We text each other back and forth our top three priorities. So I either do that in the morning or the evening. 

But those are the things I know I can count on to do. They’re written down. They are recurring events in my to do list every day. There are different ones on the weekends by the way. I have a whole weekend routine, which it sounds stifling. If you’re listening, and you’re like oh, that sounds awful and terrible. 

For me, and what I want to invite you to encourage, is that it’s really freeing. It’s really freeing to know when I read through my weekend routine things like go through paperwork for five minutes in the office, go through my purse real quick, do what FlyLady used to call a car boogie, which is like go through my car and make sure like things are where they need to be. Right? Water my plants, cut up vegetables for the next week.

Things that when I do them on a weekly basis make my week go better. When I don’t do them, things fall through the cracks. That’s when all of a sudden my purse looks like a trash bin. I can’t find anything. That’s when I miss a bill because I didn’t spend five minutes to go through my bills and make sure they all got paid, right? 

Those sorts of rituals, weekly recurring ways that you choose to spend your time that when you do it that way give you peace and make you less reactive in the way that you spend your time. You don’t have fires to fight because you’re preventing them from happening in the first place by following routines or rituals. So that’s what I do. 

Consider what would you want to do, not as a should. But what would help you be more proactive in your life, make you less reactive, eliminate fires so that you don’t have to fight them because you have a system that you trust. You’re taking care of the things that you need to take care of on a regular basis. 

You can imagine how this has evolved over time. Like when my kids were little, part of my routine in the morning had to do with making their lunch. I don’t do that anymore because they don’t need me to. They can do it themselves. Right? So that’s not a thing anymore. Part of my routine before was making myself lunch when I would go to a job that I had to drive to. I don’t have to do that anymore. 

Part of my weekly routine was making sure I put gas in the car on the weekends. I don’t have to do that anymore because I don’t leave my house that much like I work from home. I maybe need gas like once every three weeks. So it evolves over time. I keep changing it to match my life so that I feel good about it, but not as a should. 

Okay, the last thing that I want to offer, and this might be the underlying problem that you’re experiencing with time, and you just don’t really know about it. But is the way that we think about time. If the way that we think about time is not helping us, then we want to change it. If it’s not useful, then we don’t want to think that way anymore. So if the way that you think about time tends to look like there’s never enough time. I’ll never get it all done. I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. It’s too much. I can’t handle it. I need a clone, right?

If you are thinking about time in a way that feels scarce to you, feels stressful, feels full of pressure, right? Because stress and pressure and overwhelm, dread, those are all emotions. As you know, emotions come from our thinking. If you are thinking about time or thinking about your to-do list in a way that makes you feel stressed, overwhelmed, pressured, that is worth changing and can be changed. We can either think there’s not enough time, or we can think we have enough time to do what’s important to us. There’s plenty of time.

Think about how differently you would feel if you actually did believe there was enough time. How would you show up differently if you believed there was enough time. Or at least if you believed there’s enough time to do the things that matter to you. 

Because here’s what happens to me, and this is what happens to the women that I coach. When we believe there’s not enough time and we feel overwhelmed, we don’t take productive action from that emotion. No human that I know who feels overwhelmed or pressured or stressed is as capable of problem solving, of taking productive action, of moving toward goals of getting things done. No human is as capable of doing those things when they’re feeling overwhelmed, stressed, pressured, frazzled, panicked, 

That actually makes us spin around a little bit, second guess ourselves, start one thing move on to the next before we even finished the first thing. Walk into a room and do five things. Not start at all. Hide. Go back to bed. 

So I want you to consider how do you think about time? Do you think about it in a way that moves you toward the experience you want? Or are you thinking about time in a way that makes you feel awful and makes you spend time less like you would like to then more? Because that can be changed. 

Also, we’ll link to it in the show notes but episode 26, The Truth About Overwhelm, would be a good one for you to listen to if this is resonating with you. Okay. Because we can change our thoughts about anything. When we change our thoughts, we change our feelings. When we change our feelings, we show up differently. We literally change our relationship with time, our experience of time, simply by changing the way that we think about time. 

So in summary, go back, look at your life. Where do you need to say no? Where have major life decisions that you made in the past and could remake at this point in your life, where are those decisions holding you back from how you want to spend your time? 

Maybe that is literally you have kept on to your partner’s car or hobby stuff that they had. Now you have to spend time maintaining that stuff. You don’t even want that stuff, but you haven’t given yourself permission to make a new decision. You haven’t given yourself permission to say no. Right? When you say yes to things, you’re saying no to other things that you want. When you say no to things, you’re saying yes to things that you want. So I want to give you permission to do that. 

Also delegate, ask for help, pay for help. You’re worthy of it. Your money is yours. Spending your money on ways that improve the quality of your life is your choice to make. I don’t care if anybody else in your life approves. The only opinion that matters is yours because it’s your money, and it’s your life. 

One trusted system, whatever it is for you, even if it’s just a notebook. I don’t care, but one trusted system so that you can have what David Allen calls mind like water. You know that all that stuff is in a place. You don’t have to try to store it in your brain because that’s not what your brain is for. Consider rituals and routines, if they would help you. Not as additional shoulds, but just because they can bring you peace of mind. Then notice the way you think about time. If it’s not useful, let’s change it. All right. 

In Mom Goes On, we actually spend a whole month talking about time, and our relationship with time. It’s way more than what we talked about in this podcast. A lot of it too is our relationship with the past, not just how we spend our time currently, but it’s what do we think about the past? How is that dragging us down? What do we think about the future? How is that holding us back? Right? All of these things are malleable and changeable. 

Yes, you could do it on your own. We’d love to have you come and do it with us in Mom Goes On. Way more fun, way more supported, and selfishly. It’s my favorite place to be. So okay, that’s what I have for you this week. I hope it really helps you. Yes, we can’t exactly create more time, but in a way we can because in deciding how to spend our time, we make it ours, right? We use that time in a way that supports what we value in life, and that’s precious. All right. I love you. You’ve got this. Take care. I’ll see you next week.

If you like what you’ve been hearing on this podcast and want to create a future you can truly get excited about after the loss of your spouse, I invite you to join my Mom Goes On coaching program. It’s small group coaching just for widowed moms like you where I’ll help you figure out what’s holding you back and give you the tools and support you need so you can move forward with confidence.

Please don’t settle for a new normal that’s less than you deserve. Go to coachingwithkrista.com and click work with me for details and the next steps. I can’t wait to meet you.