Episode 72: Finding Downtime: 10 Intentional Things To Do While You Wait

downtime as a working mom

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As working moms, downtime often feels non-existent—but what if you had more of it than you think? In this episode, Katelyn reveals how to spot those hidden pockets of waiting time in your day and use them intentionally. From simple ways to recharge to small steps toward your bigger goals, you’ll walk away with practical ideas that really add up.

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  • You are listening to the Life Coach for Working Moms podcast, the show where we are talking about what it actually takes to make life work as a working mom. I'm your host, Katelyn Denning, a full time working mom of three and a certified life and executive coach. I'm so glad you're here and I hope you enjoy this week's episode.

      Hello and welcome back to the podcast. I have another fun episode today for you. One that's. Full of ideas and tips. So you may wanna be jotting down some notes if you're able to, or just remember them for the next time you are near somewhere where you can jot some notes down.

    Before I get into today's topic though, I just wanna let you know that at the end of this episode, I'm going to be sharing about some fun changes that I am going to be making here on the podcast. So I wanna give you a sneak peek, a little behind the scenes. Story about how these changes have come to be and what you can expect in coming episodes here in the next few weeks.

    And so if you're curious about that, be sure to stick around all the way to the end so you can get that little glimpse of what is coming.

    So I'm going to say a word. Right now, and I'm curious what your reaction is to this word and the word is downtime.

    Is that a word that you feel like is rarely in your vocabulary or describes something that you don't have or can't remember the last time you had?

    If you're nodding your head in agreement, you are so not alone. This is at the top of the list. You know, aside from the women I work with wanting to. Make progress on things and feel like they're more organized or thinking ahead, or being more intentional with their time, but so many are looking for some downtime sometime that doesn't feel so scheduled, so productive, so full that they can use for all sorts of things.

    Downtime to just sit and not be productive to rest, to do something fun, to do something for themselves or to just hang with their kids or their family. But for so many of us, we say we are just so busy. Right? How are you? I'm busy. How are things? Oh, we're so busy right now. We're so busy that maybe for some of you, you don't even recognize.

    The downtime that you have, you don't see the downtime because you're thinking about what's next. But what I wanna offer today is that

    those little pockets of downtime are probably there and we're just not utilizing them in an intentional way.

    Now, I'm not here to say that you probably have large chunks of downtime. I am realistic. I don't have large chunks of downtime. On an average week, I have to really. Plan for and create that kind of time for myself. But I do have pockets. I have five minutes here or 15 minutes there, or maybe even 30 minutes on a weekend.

    That could be my downtime if I choose to see it and use it that way. And so the type of downtime that I wanna think through today with you are those little tiny pockets. The downtime that is there while you are waiting in the lobby of your doctor's office while you are, if you still go into the grocery store or into Target or wherever you shop and you're waiting in line, you maybe like me, have the skill of choosing the slowest lane.

    You have downtime there or you have downtime if you're in the office while you're sitting in the conference room and your colleagues slowly trickle into a meeting. It exists in the car as you wait in the school pickup line maybe, or in the bathroom while your kids are splashing in the tub for those few minutes and you're just there to supervise.

    Or maybe it's even there while you are waiting on the water to boil for pasta or I don't know, any other little example like that because sometimes it is so short that just having those few extra seconds to close your eyes or to take a deep breath is, is all it allows, but those seconds are glorious.

    And they are there, but we so often discount them or we just let them pass us by.

    Then there are other times where those breaks or the times where you're waiting between activities, you're passing a few minutes before it's your turn or before you actually start the thing. Those can add up to a pretty decent chunk of time, and it's just time that we so often waste.

    And I'm sure you can guess what, one of the top ways that we waste that time is I hear it so frequently from my clients. In fact, just this week on our group coaching call, we were talking about mindlessly scrolling on our phones. We want to completely check out of whatever we're doing.

    Maybe we intentionally choose to check out which that has its time and place for sure. Or we unintentionally check out. And I'm not here to tell you to quit social media, though it is interesting, I have coached a high percentage. I would say, if you look at the percentage of women that I have coached, so many of them do not do social media at all.

    Fascinating. Right? I'm not here to tell you that you can't do that, that you, can't be on those apps or you can't be on your phone at all. I am just here to tell you that if you have time to scroll Instagram or send TikTok videos or look through Pinterest or even just constantly check the news, you have time to maybe make some progress on a goal, or to finish a project or to get ahead on whatever the next season is for you.

    And our phones are just such a big time waster. And I know personally what a tough habit it is to break. You've probably tried all sorts of tricks and hacks to break the habit, but I find for me that I need a compelling reason or I need the tools at the ready. I am going to reach for something other than my phone and those certain apps on my phone.

    So what about this, if you think about the last week or the last few days or the weekend even, how many times do you think you were waiting in between activities? I think when I have reviewed my , time tracking data.

    If you're curious. Out time tracking. You can check out episode 28 of the podcast. Did a whole episode on the value of time tracking, but when I reviewed that data, I think on average I wait somewhere around 15 minutes a day total. Some days, like on the days where I do have an appointment, earlier this week, for example, I got my hair cut and my hairstylist was running about eight minutes behind.

    I was just sitting in the lobby waiting, and some days maybe it's less right when activities and transitions happen just back to back with very little downtime in between. But if 15 minutes is an average, and if I spread that across. Let's say just the five work days, that's 75 minutes each week of time that I spend doing some sort of waiting.

    Let's say on a more conservative end, it's closer to just 60 minutes a week, an hour. Well, what could you do with an hour each week? I could think of several things. Now, I recognize that it's not altogether in one lump, and that would be ideal of course, but it is still time, time that you could slowly in increments chip away at a project or a goal time that you could spend learning something new or just doing something for you.

    Now if you are thinking, well, what could I possibly do in three minutes or six minutes or eight minutes? Well, I just happen to have some ideas. I happen to have some ideas for you. Things that you could do if you're maybe not at home, but you have your phone. Things that you could do

    if you do have your phone, but maybe you don't trust yourself with your phone. So let's run through these. I'm just gonna list them off and, and give you some examples and ideas and I know some will resonate and some maybe won't. That's okay. This is where you might wanna take a few notes or be sure to visit the show notes afterward at themothernurture.com/podcast.

    So here's my first idea. If you have your phone and you're able to use it and not get sucked into the apps that we just sort of tend to lose track of all time with, you could spend a few minutes listening to a podcast like this one. I know many of you do that in the nooks and crannies of your days.

    Congratulations. That's already an amazing use of your time where you are doing something for you. You could also listen to an audiobook. So whether it's to learn something new, just to laugh, to be in suspense, or to listen to a really interesting conversation, escape for those few minutes

    by tuning out the world and tuning into something that you enjoy. Now I do have to say or call attention to this pro tip, which is do not also scroll social media. While you are listening, you know who you are. If you're doing that, just listen. Try to single task for those few minutes really sink into what it is you're listening.

    Now, another thing you could do if you have your phone is to read a digital book. I know that not everyone is a fan of this, but it is, let's be honest, the most convenient way when you're on the go to make progress If reading is something you want to do. I almost always have a downloaded book on my phone via my local library app, which then I can transfer to the Kindle app.

    Those random moments here and there where I'm waiting are some of the best opportunities for me to hit my reading goal each year. Plus, I feel so much better when I read than I do after I scroll social media. I almost always nowadays carry my Kindle with me because it's still small enough and easy to throw in a bag, but my phone works just as well if I forget it.

    You could clean up your inbox. How many of you complain about the state of your inbox? Want that elusive inbox? Zero. Well, you could delete emails, especially the promotional ones, or just better yet, spend time unsubscribing. Few people in reality get to inbox zero in a day, but you could chip away at that goal of a beautifully organized inbox.

    Five minutes at a time while you're waiting. Another one that I think is such a great use of time, because I hear so many women complain about this or ask, how do you organize these things, is to clean out and organize your photos, why not spend a few minutes deleting blurry images or selecting just the best photo out of the 10 that you took?

    Then sort them into folders or make sure that they're backed up in whatever, cloud storage you use and then delete, so you have space. I love this activity because it's fun. It feels very satisfying to delete a bunch of photos and organize them and. It is something that is hard to prioritize in other times when there are so many other tasks you could be doing.

    But again, three or four minutes at a time. Just review last month's photos, do a quick purge. You could draft your grocery list or your meal plan, or create your cart for pickup or delivery. I think there's no better way to feel like you're really maximizing your time than to do your meal planning or online grocery shopping in small increments throughout the week so that if you shop on say, Saturday morning, it's already done, talk about feeling like you have it together.

    I always, as I'm building my list throughout the week, if I'm not at home, I will put two question marks next to anything that I wanna check to see. Do we already have that in the pantry or the fridge so I'm not buying duplicates. Then when I am at home, all I have to do is quickly skim the list for anything that has two question marks next to it, run over to the fridge or pantry to see if we have it. Another fun thing you could do if you have your phone is to research or plan or schedule your next date night

    or activity with your friends so you could research maybe what's going on in your area or coming up in the next few weeks or months, maybe new restaurants, anything to get you excited and motivated about scheduling some time for you and. Someone else in your life, don't just dream about it. Don't just say, yo, I'd love to do a date night next month, or, I'd love to hang out with my girlfriends.

    You can put it on the calendar and start making it happen. You know that just scheduling things, especially if you're looking to get together with friends or even just to do a date night or a day date, it takes time to coordinate, to find a sitter if that's what you need to do. And so you can start to chip away at that goal.

    A few minutes here and there. I love to look at local concert venues or performing arts organizations or sporting event calendars, just to see what's happening. This season usually only takes me a couple of minutes, and if I can't fully finish. Task, like I can't get all the way to buying the ticket or making the reservation, then I'll just add that to my running list.

    So, oh, I saw, there's a performance of this ballet that I love, for example, or this Broadway show is coming to our area. I'll put that on my running list and then the next time I have a few minutes, I might look up and see, all right, how much do tickets cost? , and then I will the next couple of minutes.

    Compare it to our calendar and see what we have going on, and could we make one of the performances? You can break it down that way and make real progress in those small chunks of time. Okay, so now let's talk about some ideas. If you happen to be without your phone, so maybe you just don't have access to it right now, or if you're like me and sometimes you don't trust yourself to do other tasks on your phone and you wanna stay off of social media.

    Maybe you try one of these ideas the next time you're waiting or you have those couple of minutes between things. So I said earlier in the intro that sometimes our downtime is so short that all we can do is maybe close our eyes, or I love to stare out the window at the horizon to really give my eyes a break from all of the screen time.

    So I'm sitting here in my office right now. I'll swivel my chair over to the side. And I will just look out at the trees in the distance and see them moving slightly in the wind, right? It could be as simple as that, or it could be an actual meditation Headspace, calm insight timer are all apps that have very short either guided or just with a soundtrack timer behind them, short meditations.

    So if you have two or three or five minutes in the middle of what is probably a very busy, a very full day, can you use that time to calm yourself down? Can you center yourself and maybe lower your heart rate with a few breaths, a short meditation or just a gazing out of the window? Another fun thing that I like to do, and again, this depends on where you are or how much thought you've given in advance to where you are, but you could write a letter or a card.

    I love this, and I'm always so surprised when I get a card or a letter or a note from someone, and it does, like I said, require you to have. Stationary on hand, but that's usually pretty simple if you are carrying around a purse or a tote bag or a diaper bag. Anyway. So, for example, last week, my youngest has his soccer practice on Friday nights.

    My older two I can drop off at practice. But with my youngest, I typically stay and sit through the hour practice and I brought three blank birthday cards and spent a little bit of that practice sitting on a blanket writing. Those birthday cards and getting those all ready to send out. So whether it's a birthday card, a thank you letter, or just a note to a friend because you want to, it is something that so many of us say we don't really have the time for, or we're always rushing to get those ready and in the mail in time.

    This could be such an easy waiting task. Another thing you could do is what I like to call a thought download. I did not coin that term, but I love it and I've latched onto it and I use it. It's just another way of saying write journal. You could spend a couple of minutes writing down whatever it is that you're thinking, how your day is going, what is on your mind, what you're worried about.

    This is another thing I hear so frequently that women wish they had time for, but don't. Well, while you are waiting for a meeting to start instead of checking your email for the hundredth time. Jot down just a few thoughts on a piece of paper. Even if that gets shredded or recycled afterward, no big deal.

    The point is just to write. Start simply with the prompt right now I'm thinking and fill in the blank. Getting those thoughts down on paper instantly feels like you've offloaded something that you've been carrying. What a great use of a few minutes of time. You could also stretch. So at the same soccer practice last week where I was writing some birthday cards, I looked over down the field, down the sidelines.

    There are like two teams that practice at the same time. So this was not my son's team. I didn't necessarily know the parents over there. And there was a mom on her blanket stretching. She was, what would she do? Oh, she was on her back. She was doing like the dead bug, what do you call it? Anyway, I can't demonstrate 'cause you can't see me, but you know what I mean?

    And I thought what a great use of time. And again, another thing we all know would be good for us stretching, but it's not something that we usually prioritize or feel like we have the time for. So I was thinking, well, if you're at your desk or maybe you're in a more public space or you're working in the office, it could be as simple as rolling your neck, rolling your shoulders forward and backward, or maybe doing a little torso twist to, Ooh, I just did that.

    My back cracked right To stretch out your back a little bit, if you have some privacy, you're working from home. Where no one's around to watch you. You could stand up and touch your toes. You could take a lunge, you could lie on your back. Sure, a whole stretching routine would be great, but even one or two minutes of holding a stretch is amazing and better than nothing, and it's certainly better than scrolling on your phone.

    Lastly, you could read a physical book. So for those of you who did not like the idea of reading a book on your phone or on a Kindle, I totally get that if that is not your thing. So start carrying a real book with you. Carry it in your bag, leave it in your car, just in case. Have your book. On the table next to your couch in the living room.

    So if you have a couple of minutes while your kids are entertained and they're safe and they're playing independently, grab your book or you're going to sit in the waiting area like I was before my haircut the other day, or you're sitting in your car waiting or on public transit.

    Grab your book and read just a couple of pages.

    You can turn that waiting into you actually making it through the latest novel or memoir. A couple pages at a time.

    Now I fully recognize that for so many of you, there is just not a lot of margin. In your days, you may not have the large blocks of time that you would love to be able to do some of these things, but don't overlook the moments of waiting time that are sprinkled throughout your week. Added up, they can create some pretty decent shifts and progress in your life if you choose to use them intentionally and if you plan ahead for them.

    This is not about cramming more productivity into every minute, though there are certainly days where we need that. It is about choosing how you use those pockets of time. Rather than defaulting to scrolling or letting our phones hijack that time, wouldn't it be cool to say that you read a couple of books this year, or that you reached Inbox zero, or that you've had your longest meditation streak ever, or that your photos are organized on your phone?

    All from just being more purposeful with how you use time that you would otherwise spend waiting as you transition from one activity to the next, or one appointment or routine to the next. And if you choose to use those few minutes just to close your eyes and breathe well, I fully support that too.

    All of my coaching work comes down to choosing intentionally, doing things purposefully instead of by default, or because we think we have to or we should. So whether it's time spent waiting or how you spend your evenings, the work that you do, and beyond what. Do you choose? And what kind of experience do you want to create for yourself and for your family?

    If you'd like to learn more about working with me about coaching, how it works, who it's for, you can visit my website at themothernurture.com/about for all the details. Now, I mentioned some changes coming to the podcast in the next couple of weeks, and I wanted to give you a little sneak peek, , of what you can expect.

    So I shared on Instagram, which if you're not following me over there, please do. I'm at. Love mother nurture that I was considering the idea of bringing on some more guests. So if you've listened for a while, you know that I have occasionally had some clients on to talk about their experience in my programs, but I am thinking, or I have been thinking

    about extending those conversations to a broader group of interviewees. And so my community on Instagram, and for those of you who responded to that poll, thank you so much overwhelmingly said, yes. We would love to hear conversations. We would love to hear you in conversation with other. Women with other working moms.

    And when I asked for topic suggestions, what ideas do you have? What things are you interested in, what are you curious about? Who do you want me to talk to? What it really came down to and what I overwhelmingly got as the response was, we wanna hear from everyday women who are doing what I'm doing, women who are.

    Managing work, potentially growing a career or changing careers, raising a family, sharing responsibilities perhaps with a partner or a spouse, navigating mom guilt, fitting in exercise or other things for themselves. That's what we wanna hear, and so that is what I'm going to be doing.

    I have another solo show planned for you next week,

    and then with the start of October, we will be kicking off what I'm going to call season two of the podcast, which will be a series of

    conversations with women. Who are in a variety of roles and industries with different sized families, with different interests and unique ways of doing things, and I am going to be asking them lots of very curious questions about how they do things. I don't know about you, but I love to know

    what someone's day looks like. What time they wake up in the morning? How do they get everyone fed? What does childcare look like? What are their work responsibilities and work days look like? What are the additional activities that they do? How do they prioritize time for the relationships in their life or one-on-one time with their kids?

    I'm going to be asking them those types of questions. And it is also my hope that each conversation will have a focus. So whether that is navigating mom guilt, traveling for work with young kids, taking trips for fun with your family, and planning for those fitting exercise in

    non-traditional work schedules and so much more.

    I cannot wait to learn from these women and to share these conversations with you. So I hope that sounds exciting to you. I will be testing it out. As with everything that I do in my life, it's all just one big experiment, right? We have to try things to know if we like them, how they work, , what does and doesn't work about it.

    And so I would love your feedback. I would love for you to let me know. Which conversations are really resonating with you, which ones you find to be so fascinating, what you'd love to hear more or less of? Please reach out. You can always find me in the dms on Instagram or send me an email, which you can find all of my contact information on my website.

    But I hope that, , you'll come along for this ride as I experiment with a season of interviews from people who I have found personally inspiring or have relationships with in my own life. It'll be like listening to a couple of working moms chat about life and all of the things over coffee. And so please look for those changes in the coming weeks.

    All right. That's all I have for you today. And until the next episode, I hope you take care. I'll talk to you soon.

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ProductivityKatelyn DenningWorking Mom, productivity, time management