For me, and most of the working moms I talk to, a normal week would be one where you work your regular schedule with few surprises, your kids go to daycare or school or are with the nanny for those same hours, and in general your plan for the week matches reality. The outcome is what you expected. A "normal week" is predictable. There are no surprises and that makes us feel in control. But what most parents learn pretty quickly (or not so quickly for some) is that those weeks, the normal ones, are few and far between.

Planning for the unexpected. It's a topic that comes up repeatedly because as a parent, you know that things are constantly changing. Something almost always comes up. It's why one podcast listener asked, "what's the point of even planning when you have kids? If it's all going to change, isn't that just time that you wasted creating a plan?"

What if I told you that the plan you're making wasn't going to work out? That some of it might go according to plan, but much of it will get tossed out the window when something else more urgent shows up. What would you do?