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One of the most valuable lessons I ever learned about success and womanhood came to me at a breakfast I attended for the Women’s Initiative when I was just a young whipper snapper toiling away for Big Law. The keynote speaker was a woman, of course, and as the global head of a department of one of the most powerful banks on the planet, her success on paper was quite impressive. Plus she was a wife and mother of two, which gave her some street cred.
After discussing the hair and makeup syndrome, which alone was a nugget worth my undivided attention, she took a question from the audience. The inquirer, who appeared to be a teacher accompanied by female students from a local high school, asked her, “How do you achieve balance?”
The speaker literally snorted, and I immediately perked up.
“Balance?” she repeated, almost choking on her laughter. “I don’t have balance! I mean, I love my husband and my kids but I don’t have time to cook them dinner every night.” She practically smirked. “Ladies, you do not get to this level in business by having balance. You have to be all in. I focus on what’s most important and pay someone else to take care of the rest.”
I was so impressed, I had almost whistled, and not because I want to be the head of some global conglomerate (yet—ha). In fact, the business acumen of this woman is the least relevant part of the story. What struck me was her unapologetic honesty in conceding what it actually takes for her to be great at what she does.
And what I learned from her that day applies to all of us who are raising humans:
There are literally hundreds of things that must be done in your life each day, but they need not all be done by you.
When you’re a mom, it’s easy to forget that truth. On a daily basis, we tend to put our own needs last, reacting first to what’s “urgent” (though not necessarily important), and getting mired down in everything that needs to be done without regard to whether we need to be the one doing it.
Let’s not forget: you, mama, were made for greatness.
How, though, do you actually step into your greatness and use the precious moments God has given you to harness your gifts without getting distracted by those pesky, urgent tasks that keep you from tending to the truly important ones?
The answer, of course, is outsourcing. Outsourcing is your friend. It’s ok to ask for help.
To do great things, you must allow someone else to do the tasks on your list that you don’t absolutely love doing or aren’t contributing to your life’s purpose.
And let’s be clear: your life’s purpose includes making romantic, alone time for you and your spouse and for playing with your kids. It also most definitely includes time for yourself, to care for the one and only body God gave you, to meditate, journal, pray, indulge in a mani/pedi, and whatever else makes you feel warm and happy—even if it’s one of the items on my Outsourcing List. Doing things we love is a form of self-care, and self-care is always time well spent. (Side note: if your plate feels so full that even making time for self-care seems overwhelming, check out these 7 awesome tips from the iNLP Center).
As a married mother of two and a woman on a mission to change the world one heart at a time, I never have an empty plate. That choice forces me to remember I need not personally perform every task on my list. I need only do what will support me in creating and living out my God-given purpose in life. And living this way helps to maintain sanity, which is generally a good thing.
These are the ways I outsource to create and live my ideal mom life (and you can too):
1. Stop Doing Your Own Grocery Shopping and Target Runs.
Unless you absolutely love performing these tasks (which would put them in the “self-care” category), you must outsource them. Although they must be done and sometimes urgently, you and I both know they aren’t contributing to your life’s purpose.
The solution? Instacart and Shipt. (Cue the angels singing!) Shipt is pure genius, and you can use it to shop at your favorite stores, like Target. You can’t buy alcohol at Target using this service, but you can buy almost everything else, from perishable goods to toothpaste and shampoo to granola bars and boxed mac ‘n cheese. If you have a Target Red Card, the pot is even sweeter. You’ll get your standard 5% off the entire purchase plus free shipping. Holla!
But here’s the best part: it keeps you out of Target. Don’t get me wrong—I flipping love Target, but every time I set foot in there I end up spending $50 more than I intended to. Every. Time. By using Shipt instead, I remove all temptation. It’s glorious.
When I need to do traditional grocery shopping, Instacart and Shipt are my besties—especially because of the pandemic, which doesn’t have me excited about going to the grocery store in person anyway. Both services are available in my area so I use them interchangeably but you may only have access to one or the other.
For a nominal fee, your personal grocery shopper will buy your groceries for you. All you need to do is sign up for Instacart or Shipt and select which groceries you want to purchase. You can even include special instructions with your grocery list for those times when you want your chicken breast cubed or your shrimp peeled. If you’re using Shipt, your shopper will call or text you if he or she has questions. Mine have even texted me photos of comparable replacement items when the product I wanted wasn’t in stock. On Instacart, if what you want isn’t available, they’ll simply refund you.
And now, be still my heart! Whole Foods delivers through the Prime Now app. I happen to love shopping at Whole Foods because they have so many fantastic options for eating organic. The closest one to my house, however, isn’t close at all. When I tell you I squealed like a piglet when I discovered that I could select my groceries through this app, I am only slightly exaggerating. (Actually, I’m not. I did squeal. Just like a piglet).
No matter which app you’re using, once you’ve got everything in your cart, just select when you want your groceries to be delivered and, like magic, they will show up at your door at that time. And if you meet the free-delivery minimum, they’ll show up sans the delivery fee (but of course, I always tip my shopper). Similar services like Walmart Curbside Pickup, which still requires you to drive to the store but allows you to skip the up-and-down aisle roaming, are also awesome, and since the world was turned upside down by COVID-19, more and more stores are offering this option.
There certainly is a premium for shopping this way, but let’s think about what you get in return: your time! Sure, I would spend less if I was clipping coupons and shopping myself—and believe me, I spent years doing that—but the money I saved was negligible compared to the return I’m getting now on using that time to crush my goals. Same goes for you and your audacious dreams. Remember, to have it all, you cannot possibly do it all. There are people out there—like your neighborhood Instacart and Shipt shoppers—who are eager to help you. Let them.
2. Immediately Cease and Desist from Cleaning Your House, Doing Your Laundry and Washing Your Dishes.
Unless, of course, you absolutely love doing that stuff (and if you do, I want to meet you). If you don’t, stop. These tasks are so easily outsourced. Plus, if your family is anything like mine, they won’t give a hoot who folded their socks and hung up their shirts. They’ll just be happy to have clean clothes at the ready. Same goes for the spotless toilet and crumb-free floor.
My dishwashing, laundry-doing ninja comes every Monday. I strategically asked her to come on that day so I can start my week off in peace. My house is cleaned every other week, which leaves me with only some touching up to do here and there between cleanings. Does everything get done perfectly? Nope. But done is better than perfect. I write those checks each week with pleasure.
It’s just as honorable to employ as it is to be employed. Hiring someone to help you around the house gives that person the opportunity to earn a living and fund their life’s purpose while freeing you up to live yours. See how that works so beautifully?
3. Don’t You Dare Wash Your Own Car!
I never ever wash my own car because I don’t love doing it. I don’t even love driving to a car-washing place to get it done. But as a mother of two littles, you better believe that my car gets filthy. My solution? Washé, “the app that cleans your car.” It’s like Uber for mobile car detailers. It’s not available in every state yet, but if it’s in your area, you must check it out.
Here’s how it works. I open the app and select the type of wash I want. They range from $25 to $160, and they even have a “sanitize” option now to address COVID-19 concerns. Then voila! A Washér in the area will take the job and head to my location. And while my Washér is in my driveway washing, waxing and vacuuming cheddar bunnies from my car, I sit in my house being productive in the air conditioning. When my car has been restored to her shiny, litter-free self, I get a ping and pay the Washér through the app (no contact!). Best. Thing. Ever.
If you don’t have Washé in your area, ask around for a trusted mobile car detailer. I’m telling you, it’s life changing. It’s like doing two things at once, only you’re doing the thing you want to do and the car detailer is washing your car. Magic! Oh wait, no, that’s just outsourcing.
4. A Virtual Assistant Could Change Your Life.
If you have a home-based business, this one is a game changer. I recently hired my first V.A. (that’s short for “virtual assistant”) and I. Am. In. Love. My friend Julie Cabezas over at Copy Crimes recently wrote about hiring a V.A. and girlfriend, she is on to something. As she says, and I wholeheartedly agree, “If you want to make a lot of money–and make a big impact in the world–you can’t be stuck in the details.”
Julie highly recommends Maria Carras, who has dedicated her life’s work to the virtual assistant industry. For free (that’s right, I said free), Maria will help you find the perfect virtual assistant. [Side note: Julie and I are not affiliates for this program]. Obviously you still have to pay an hourly wage for the services your assistant provides, but you get to name your price.
I’m not gonna lie. I hesitated when I read Julie’s message about hiring a V.A. I thought, I’m not sure I have enough on my plate to justify the cost of hiring an assistant. But, as if she could read my mind, Julie advised in the next sentence that “[t]his is exactly the wrong type of belief to have.” If you find yourself doing penny jobs at the expense of earning dollars, your plate isn’t just full, it’s maxed out. Being open to the abundance that can come from hiring a personal assistant requires a paradigm shift, but Julie swears it’s worth it.
She inspired me to examine my plate more closely. Here’s what it looks like:
- Believer
- Mother of two young, adorable, rascally, infuriating, amazing, beautiful kids
- Happy wife to an incredible man who loves and wants to spend time with me
- Student of the self-discovery life mastery process
- Blogger extraordinaire (you like that one?)
- Podcaster
- Author
- Lawyer
- Adjunct professor of law (Woot! That’s a new one. More on that in a later post)
- Tennis player on a “competitive” moms league
- Executive Committee Member of the Board of Directors for JDRF’s Greater Palm Beach Chapter
- Executive Board Member of the PTA and member of the School Advisory Council at my kiddos’ elementary school
I’ll leave you to imagine all of the tasks that accompany those items, not the least of which are eating, bathing and sleeping. My V.A. relieves me of the tasks I’m not good at, like creating the beautiful visuals for my digital products and my Pinterest boards, which frees me up for countless other things at which I’m much more effective, like writing and creating content. I’m psyched about Maria’s service and highly recommend you check it out.
My takeaway? Heed Julie’s advice: “Promote yourself to LEADER—and stop doing everything alone.”
5. Let Someone Else Cook Dinner for You.
On the two days each week that I leave the house to lawyer, I am way too beat when we walk back through the door to cook anything, let alone a meal that resembles something wholesome and healthy. So naturally, I outsource this task instead. Allowing someone else to cook dinner for me and the three other humans I love most in the world is one of the most powerful ways I take back my time.
My solution is a local South Florida chef, known simply as Chef B, who prepares meals you select from a weekly menu he creates. He even has a kids’ menu! I peruse, click and order what we need for the week from his website and he delivers it all to my doorstep on Sunday, each meal packaged in its own container, cooked and ready to be re-heated when we’re ready to eat. It’s absolutely divine. There have been evenings when I’ve whispered out loud as I’m setting the table, “This totally saved me tonight.”
But if a private chef just isn’t in your budget, consider using tools you may already have stuffed in a cupboard somewhere, like a pressure or slow cooker. My slow cooker is an absolute lifesaver. It has Wemo technology, which means that I can set it remotely using an app on my phone. My go-to is this crockpot taco recipe. Google and Pinterest got your back, girlfriend. There is no shortage of recipes you can lean on that don’t require you to chop, dice or saute.
Hark! You can enjoy a wholesome meal with your family and you don’t have to cook it!
Oh Yes, You Can Too Afford It!
Listen, I understand that all of these outsourcing methods cost money. And no, I don’t have piles of it laying around. So trust me, I understand if your You-Can’t Monster is getting all snarky with you right now, glaring at you over her glasses and spewing some nonsense about you not being able to afford to pay someone else to do your chores and run your errands.
But let’s get real. Time invested in one area is time away from another. And yeah, maybe it means less runs through the Starbucks drive-thru, but freeing yourself up to do the dollar jobs and fund your ideal life simply makes sense. For me, that means using the time I get back by outsourcing to work on my dream (writing the book that will soon be published) or to fund my dream by performing legal work, which I bill for by the hour. For you, it might mean taking on more classes as a substitute teacher. Maybe it means you can accommodate more orders for your incredible, custom cookies and cakes. Whatever the pay off, remember that every time you choose to use your gifts instead of wasting time doing things others can do for you, you’re creating your ideal mom life.
Now, I’ll openly admit that despite my intellectual command of this topic, by no means do I have it all together. I still get mired down in tasks that are urgent but not important. I still find myself wasting precious moments doing things that don’t support my ideal life, like running to the grocery store and refolding towels. The reason I write posts like this is because I need to be reminded too.
But when I get sucked into the details, I remember this quote from Jamie Gilbert, which I’ve written on my bathroom mirror:
“Greatness isn’t for the chosen few.
Greatness is for the few who choose.”
Choose greatness, girlfriend. And start outsourcing.
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