How To Get It ALL Done

Have you ever thrown your hands up in frustration, looked at your kids and husband and said (shouted?) “I quit! I can’t do it all anymore!”

I had that moment last night. After a busy work day, I walked into the living room to see a bucket full of toys, dumped on the floor and abandoned, along with wads of popped bubble wrap, and on top of it all somebody had spilled their drink.

At that moment, I also realized that I had left a load of laundry in the washer all day.

This is not how I envisioned motherhood.

I wanted to be the kind of mom who keeps the house clean, and makes superfood snacks for the kids everyday, while everybody smiles and talks in volumes that aren’t earsplitting – kindly, mind you. No name calling between children.

But I can’t do it all.

I can’t be the best mom, with the best cookies, with the best dinner waiting on the table every night when my husband gets home to the cleanest house on the block. (I’m seeing a picture from a 1950s magazine in my mind right now).

Let’s get something clear: that’s somebody else definition of getting it all done.

But it doesn’t have to be mine.

How to Get It All Done

Your definition of “all” doesn’t have to include a clean living room floor if you don’t want it to (mine currently has Megablocks all over it).

• It doesn’t have to include homemade cookies, or cookies at all!
• It doesn’t have to mean you dust your furniture every Friday.
• It doesn’t have to mean your kids play every sport your school or community offers.

Not that there’s anything wrong with any of those things, but moms, if you find yourself perpetually behind, and stressfully trying to get it all done, something needs to change.

The only way to solve the problem of not being able to eat everything on your plate, is to put less food on your plate.

During this season where we’re renovating a small house, one of the ways I’ve redefined “doing it all”, is by taking homemade snacks out of the equation.

It got to the point where mid-afternoon would roll around, the kids would get hungry while I was in the middle of a project, and there would be nothing to eat.

My plate was overflowing, and something had to go, so we outsourced the snacks (and by “outsource”, I mean Amazon Prime).

And voila! Here I am, getting it all done again.

I’m not bragging – you have no idea how many things I’ve taken off my list of “all”.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have a life full of things that matter to me, than perfectly polished furniture (guess who didn’t dust last Friday), just so I can say I “did it all”.