“Freedom isn't being able to do what I want whenever I want to. Freedom is not feeling pressure about it, and by planning it out, I don't feel the pressure.”
–Lori Ovebroeckling
Can you be supermom AND feel super balanced? Lori Overbroeckling, author of Secrets of Supermom: How Extraordinary Moms Succeed at Work and Home & How You Can Too!, says yes! As the mom of four with a corporate job and a business, she’s learned how to make time for all the things that fill her cup.
First, let’s clarify. Does it work perfectly every day? No. Are there stressful moments? 100%, but overall, she feels balanced and good about how she spends her time. It wasn’t always that way. Weekly planning helped turn things around.
It allowed her to see things that weren’t going to work and choose to move them or delegate them or cancel them. In other words, she got to be intentional instead of putting out fires all the time. Her plan, and this idea is not new if you have been around for a while, includes not just work, but all her family stuff, a meal plan, workouts … all the stuff in one plan.
We talk about:
- Planning from calm instead of panic
- How essential white space is in your plan
- Buffer time, adjusting the schedule as you go (without just throwing it out), and the mindset of letting go and moving on when your plan doesn’t go as planned
- How to ease the pain of back to school schedule changes (or any big schedule change)
- Cutting out extras to be able to provide more emotional support during transitions
- Carrying a piece of summer into fall to ease transitions in our family and our work
ABOUT LORI
Lori Whitney Oberbroeckling is a mom of four, corporate leader, podcaster, productivity expert, and author of the book Secrets of Supermom: How Extraordinary Moms Succeed at Work and Home & How You Can Too! She is passionate about helping parents who want fulfilling careers–or side hustles or passion projects–while also wanting to feel present and connected to their families.
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DOABLE CHANGES
At the end of every episode, we share three doable changes, so you can take what you've heard and put it into action. Action is where change happens.
Even though we want big change, it’s really little things done over and over that make the difference. So pick a doable thing. Put it in your calendar. Weave it through your days for a week and then move on to the next one. It will have a snowball effect.
Here are three Doable Changes from this conversation:
- PLAN YOUR WEEK. Plan from calm, not chaos. That means planning before you are behind or putting out fires. I plan with FLOW365ers on Friday afternoon; Lori does it Sunday morning. Pick a time before your week starts to plan your week. Include all the pieces—work deadlines and meetings, kid activities, meal plan, work out, date night, whatever else you have going on—in your plan. Making a plan means assigning times when you will do things, not just making a long list of things you need/want/should do. Assess whether you can do something or if you need to delegate (somebody else picks up kids on Wednesday) or moved (reschedule and appointment) or broken down (first step happens this week, next step happens later).
- ADD IN WHITE SPACE. Pick a block of time for white space, where nothing is scheduled in your calendar. If, like me, you’re likely to fill in that white space, make it a color. I use yellow and call it gold space. Don’t schedule anything in that space. When you get to it, see what you really want to do with that time.
- PREPARE FOR A TRANSITION. Whether you’re talking back to school or another transition, start before you get there. If it involves an earlier wake up, start dialing back bedtime now. Clear some extra space in your calendar to deal with the emotions — yours or your family’s or your team’s. Choose one thing to carry over—like afternoon swims or after dinner walks—from the current season to make the transition less abrupt.
