How to Wear All the Hats: An idiot's guide to balancing work, mom, house, EVERYTHING

This post is sponsored by Reynolds™ but the content and opinions expressed here are my own. 

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I think most of us feel like we are the wearers of many hats.  And not just cute sun hats, either!  Mommy hats!  Work hats!  Entrepreneur hats!  Clean up the four cups of dish soap my toddler spilled onto the hard wood floor hats!

My main hats are the following:

1.  Mom and wife hat.  My favorite one!
2.  English teacher hat.  I like this hat a lot too.  It keeps me young.
3.  Jewelry business hat.  This one is fun and exciting, but causes me the most stress.
4.  Blog hat.  I really love this hat, but when the others ones are too demanding, I don't get to wear this one as much.
5.  Keeping a home hat.  (Cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc.)  This hat is my least favorite.  But if I don't wear it enough, I pay serious consequences.

That's a lot of hats!  Sometimes I'm even wearing two at the same time, but that ain't no good for anyone.  I'm definitely trying to balance the hats better and designate time to be more present, go to the park with June, enjoy a show with Greg, etc.  Basically trying to make sure that I am giving the #1 hat the wear it needs and deserves.  Our lives, though, are busy and I have this sinking feeling that as the years progress (and the babies arrive!) they are only going to get busier.  There is so much I don't know, but I feel like over the past 6- 12 months I have figured out a thing or two that has enabled me to wear many hats without (completely) losing my mind.  Here's my tricks!

How to Wear All the Hats:  

An idiot's guide to balancing work, mom, house, EVERYTHING

1.  I do one load of laundry the night before laundry day.  This one is so silly, but it makes a huge difference.  The days that I know I have to do laundry, I actually do one load the night before.  This means that after a long day of teaching I force myself to throw a load in, and then 45 minutes later, switch it to the dryer.  The work is really very minimal- the real work, of course, is folding the laundry.  That I don't make myself do until the next day.  But I have found that I am able to stay up on the laundry SO much better if when I start laundry in the morning I already have a clean load that is ready to be folded and put away.

2.  I use a planner, and NOT a planner on a phone.  I hate always looking at my phone- it starts to cause me anxiety and when I open up my phone to look at my to do list I end up seeing a text I need to respond to and then an instagram notification and before I know what has happened to me I'm 45 minutes into a serious facebook political debate.  I have such ADD when it comes to my phone, so I've learned that my productive things I must have on a place other than the phone.  (This counts for my scriptures too.  I've gone back to all hard copies of scriptures, manuals, Ensigns, etc. because the phone is too distracting to me.  I LOVE Gospel Library, but I guess I don't have enough self control for it?)  Every night use my planner to write out
1) the things I have to get done the next day in my planner,
2) the things I would like to get done, and
3) one fun thing I am going to do.

I have found if I don't write out the fun things, I don't do them because the rest of my to do list takes over.  A lot of times it is something like, "library with June" or "walk up the canyon" or "make sugar cookies with June and Greg".  I keep it simple, but when I write it down I do way more of both the things I have to get done and the things I want to get done. (And way less of the time wasting things.)

3.  No work after 9:00 pm.  This one is something I have implemented just the past month and I LOVE it  I listened to a podcast by Gretchen Rubin recently (author of The Happiness Project) and she said something about how all of us are naturally inclined toward leisure or naturally inclined to work. Once we learn this about ourselves, we learn how to push ourselves more toward the other.  This was strangely life changing for me because I realized that I am prone to work.  If I have three hours at night I will usually spend that time working- I try to be productive.  I clean up, I fold the laundry, I grade papers, I work on a jewelry listing.  I realized that all my life I have been making work goals for myself when I actually don't need work goals as much because that is naturally what I am going to tend to do.  Rather, I need to make leisure goals for myself.  I am telling you, realizing this about myself has made me see everything differently!  My new leisure goal is to stop all "work" at 9:00 at the latest.  Every day.  No more gathering up June's toys, no more writing blog posts, no more answering work emails.  At 9:00, I shut it all down and I take a bath, read a book, watch mindless reality television, eat cookies, cuddle with Greg, ANYTHING OTHER THAN WORK.  I have found that I am finding the time for things I never thought I had time for (read books!) because I am actively carving out time for "leisure".  It is amazing!

4.  No phone after 10:00 pm.  This one is huge and is a constant struggle for me.  I have found myself wasting SO MUCH TIME at night on my phone.  And I'm never even doing anything.  Just farting around looking at nonsense.  It drives me crazy.  I have set a rule that I am not allowed to use my phone after 10 and on the nights that I actually follow my rule, I am so much happier.  I relax more, I sleep more, I don't get all riled up right before bed over a total stranger's political thoughts...

5.  Prepare for lunch the night before school.  My contract time at the high school starts at the ghastly hour of 7 am.  That means on the mornings I work I need to be out the door no later than 6:45.  It is such a struggle for me to be out this early- it has been my whole life.  BUT I have found that having my bag almost totally ready and my lunch prepared the night before is huge for getting to work on time.   For years I have taken my lunch to school in a tupperware, but I just recently switched over to Reynolds™ Disposable Heat & Eat containers.   These bad boys are AWESOME.  They are inexpensive, made of renewable paper materials, safe to microwave, and can be tossed after you're done eating lunch.  I love this for two huge reasons.  1) No more spending precious morning time frantically searching for a tupperware to put my lunch in.  I know exactly where the Reynolds™ Disposable Heat & Eat containers are, all the lids match all the containers, and I quickly transfer my food into the Reynolds™ Disposable Heat & Eat containers and 2) No more having to drag dirty tupperware home from school to clean later.  I always end up leaving tupperware at the school for a week or two until we're completely out at home and then by that point the tupperware is so gross that I just want to chuck it anyway.  The Reynolds™ Disposable Heat & Eat containers are so much easier, cleaner, and less stressful.  It kind of all ties into my KonMari method of cleaning and organizing too- using what I have and having what I use.  I have thrown out almost all my tupperware except for a few, basic ones.  I have those few tupperware, the Reynolds™ Disposable Heat & Eat containers in my cupboard and that is it!  Not only is it so much more convenient, but it really does cause me so much less stress when I open the cupboard and don't see a thousand mismatched tupperware staring back at me.  I know exactly what I need and can easily find it and then, after lunch, I never have to think about it again!  Reynolds™ Disposable Heat & Eat containers FTW!

If you want to give these a try, Pick up these Reynolds™ Disposable Heat & Eat Containers at your local Walmart today. You can find them in the food storage aisle by the Reynolds Wrap.  I found mine right next to plastic baggies.

Oh, and here's a COUPON for your journey.  I really do love these and I think you will too.

Alright, it's 9:00 so I gotta be done with this post.  Thank you all for reading and your support of this blog and your support of my sponsored posts.  I really do enjoy writing these and love sharing products that I find and love.  If you have any tips for managing it all send them my way!  I've got a few up my sleeve, but heavens knows I could use a lot more!