You need more structure

I have goals. And I'm in a place where I have to work quickly, because time goes by so fast when you're a mom. You wake up and it's Friday and what do you have to show for your week? I try not to be too hard on myself. In one twenty minute segment of time I changed a diaper, soothed a cranky little girl with a Tivo'd episode of Mr. Rogers, roasted sausage, chopped vegetables, sold diaper covers on Craig's List ($60), picked up clutter and started diaper laundry. And then,when that was done, went out for cocktails with girlfriends!

Yay me!

But what's not getting done is: the bookkeeping, following up on new freelancers, pestering my clients until they get back to me with direction, following up with the client who deserves my attention, research for a project I really want to close.

And all of this isn't happening because I don't have enough child-free time. I'm very lucky that I have wonderful options. The holdup is I don't want to put my older daughter in more care. After two years and a half years of barely ever seeing her I still need as much catch-up time as I can get. I just miss her so much when we're not together.

I consulted my business coach, R. Her advice: get your structure down. Get your vendors lined up, get more childcare. It was a revelation to focus on this new structure for a smaller way of doing business. But a few hours later I laughed at myself because I already knew all this. When I started this company, structure and systems were the things I focused on first. Though this was in the middle of the dot-bomb downturn I had lots of time to implement structure--there was very little actual work! Now structure is mandatory because I'm busy and getting busier.

Now my daughter will be in preschool three extra hours one day a week. For a month. As a trial (of my guilt). The baby will stay with me (no taking of the bottle for her, she says!) for now. The next step is getting someone to come in to play with her when she gets old enough. This is costing us money so I better quickly decide if this new way of working, and these brand new projects I'm starting to build, are really what I want to do.

(In my heart, I know it is. But this heart sometimes doesn't know who its beating is for: my girls or me.)

In other getting-your-shit-together-news, I hired an organizing consultant to help me figure out how to best make my dining room function as my office and still be my dining room. See, we want to live European, a.k.a. making due with small space. She's also helping me with the finishing touches on our kitchen. This amazing woman came in and told me what I needed and will now go and buy me organizing things and come back and set them up for me!

I LOVE her! I especially love her because she says I'm mostly organized and just need some purging, some editing, some consolidation and some organizing stuff. Made me feel like I actually have a handle on all of this!