Episode 89: The Productivity Advice Working Moms Should Ignore

ITUNES | SPOTIFY

Tired of trying to follow productivity hacks that just don’t work for your life? In this episode, we’re calling out the rigid, one-size-fits-all strategies that ignore the real lives of working moms. You’ll learn why these frameworks leave you feeling like you’re the problem (you’re not), and what a more flexible, human-centered approach can look like. If you’ve ever felt like you’re drowning in to-dos and still not doing enough, this one’s for you.

Be sure to register for Plan It, Do It, Done—my upcoming class where I’ll teach you the exact (yet flexible) framework that will help you finally feel on top of work and life.

links & resources mentioned in this episode:

  •  Do you feel like no matter how much you do each day, you can never get caught up? If you're anything like my clients and a lot of the listeners I've been talking to, I'm guessing your answer is yes. You live with this nagging feeling that you are behind. If you could just get some time to get organized, get caught up, you'd finally feel like you were on top of things and that would feel so good.

    But whether you have a newborn, toddler, or teenager. Large blocks of time like that are hard to come by, and there's always more to do. You need to be able to get things done now without waiting for more time. If that resonates with you, I want to invite you to a brand new training I'm offering called Plan It.

    Do It. Done three simple steps for working moms to finally feel like they're on top of things at work and at home. During this class, I'm gonna walk you through exactly how to get organized, how to focus, and how to finally get things done so you can get out of catchup mode for good. It's happening on Thursday, January 29th at 12 noon Eastern, 9:00 AM Pacific.

    Head to themothernurture.com/class to register today. Again, that's themothernurture.com/class. I can't wait to see you there.

      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 another episode of the podcast. I have been, reviewing and creating some lists for myself all around books and reading. I know it's what, the third week of January by now, but I give myself the whole month to. Recap and reflect on last year, and to think about this coming year in whatever way feels good to me. And one of those fun ways is to think about reading.

    It's a huge part of my life. There's actually a great episode I've referenced before where I was a guest on the Unmeasured podcast talking about how I fit reading into my days, what reading has done for me. In this season of my life, I'll put a link to that episode in the show notes. And as I was looking at my 2025 reading recap, I ended the year at 96 books, which is wild, , especially considering that.

    I am not a books to grammar. I am not out here trying to share all of my reviews. I have a full-time job, many other things in my life, but it is something that I do truly love to do. And I noticed in my list, and this has been a trend over the last couple of years, that I am reading more and more fiction than nonfiction, which is totally fine.

    To be honest, given the state of everything, I have needed that escape and to give my mind a break from learning or thinking about optimizing anything or bettering myself, because, let's be honest, a lot of my nonfiction reading tends to fall into the category of personal development. Not only do I personally love that, it also is of course, linked to so much of the coaching work that I do with my clients. And that's not to say that I'm not reading those books. I definitely am. I'm just, it scaled back in the last year or so. But one category of books that I did notice from this last year is distinctly missing is productivity books.

    I. Used to read lots of productivity books in my early career days, in my early parenting days, I honestly, it's been so long, I can't even rattle off some of the names, but you know what I mean. The book's all about working smarter and not harder, and how to be more efficient or effective or productive with your time and your schedule and all of the things that you have to do.

    And that's not to say again that I don't read them at all. I do. But I am very selective now

    about which books that I will read and therefore allow to have an influence on me.

    It takes a really strong recommendation from a trusted source for me to read a book in this category, and if I do, you can be sure that I am checking to see if it's written by a parent and even better a female. Because here's the thing, if one more guy tells me or you to just wake up at 5:00 AM or just focus, my eyeballs will likely get stuck in the back of my head because I will have rolled them so hard.

    It's like that trend on Instagram. Maybe it started on TikTok. I would not know where it was essentially. Like, I will take your advice only if, and then it would list all of the experiences and realities that needed to be taken into consideration for that advice to be heard or valid.

    For parents, it would be like, I will only take your advice if your lived experience is that of taking care of someone else, of witnessing temper tantrums because you cut the banana instead of giving it to them whole or being woken up in the middle of the night at all stages of parenting, we have been up.

    So much lately. Side note, due to growing pains, two of my three kids must be in the biggest growth spurt because holy smokes, it feels like every night they come in crying about their ankle or their knee. Right, or only if you understand what it's like to be on the couch with a sick kid when you yourself are also sick.

    If you don't understand that, then I'm sorry, but what you have to say is probably not going to be for me.

    This non nuanced advice, these tips, these hacks, these strategies that don't take into account what it is like to be a parent. They're everywhere , and so the number of parents who read these articles or follow these experts on social and think that this is truly the best way to reach your goals or be productive or get things done, and then when it's hard to follow through or put it into practice because, hello, we can't always control every piece of our days.

    They feel guilty. They question? What's wrong with them? Or they think they just need stronger willpower or better focus maybe in some instances, there is an opportunity for stronger follow through and focus. These are things that we definitely address in coaching, but it is not an across the board fix.

    It is not going to make that advice or that template or that framework necessarily work. So let's get honest about why these tactics or this kind of advice doesn't work. First off, it's rigid. At least that's what I read and see when I consume any type of, just do this and you'll get that. It's wake up at 5:00 AM every day.

    It's follow this same routine every day. Set up your schedule this way, and follow it every day. There is value in that, especially for those of us who do respond well to routine. And find safety or comfort in that. But what happens when daycare calls because your kid has a fever? Or what happens when your manager puts an urgent meeting on your calendar that you must attend?

    What happens when your kid was up multiple times the night before and you are dragging this morning? How does that rigid schedule. Which is what you need to do if you're going to get this thing or if you're going to be as productive as possible. How does it work in those scenarios?

    I would love to know, which leads me to the next reason that this kind of advice doesn't work. It assumes that your energy is constant, not just your schedule and your ability to do the same things in this order every day or every week. It also assumes that your energy is constant when in reality. It's shifting all the time.

    It shifts throughout the day. It shifts throughout the week, throughout the month, and your cycle. It even shifts in different seasons. The energy that I have today when it is very cold outside is so different from the energy I have in the middle of summer.

    And your energy is definitely different depending on those outside circumstances. The emotional support that you're providing to a kid who's going through a tough time, the weight of your marriage and the season that it's in. What's happening with your parents? Perhaps for those of you who are part of the sandwich generation like I am.

    Or just how well you slept last night, or what you ate yesterday. Did you have a drink last night that's gonna impact your energy today? Like it or not, all of these things affect our energy, which has an effect on our ability to focus, to be able to get things done and follow through, and how much effort those things are going to take.

    So the idea that the same strategy is going to work day in and day out, or week in and week out it's just not realistic for us.

    The third reason that this advice and these strategies.

    Don't work, so I'm sure there are more than three. These are just the biggest reasons. It's that this advice assumes a certain level of support and a certain level of autonomy. Whenever I see an Uber productive person in the world. My follow up thought or question is to wonder about what their support looks like.

    That's not to say that maybe there are people out there who are wildly productive and not getting any type of support, but a lot, a lot of them are, and it doesn't necessarily have to be paid or outsourced support like having a personal trainer or. Having some sort of meal service or a laundry service or a house cleaner or tutor or nanny or au pair, right?

    Tho those things all certainly can have a massive impact on how much you can get done, but even support in terms of is there someone else sharing the mental load with you? Is there someone else worrying about the emotional support piece for your family? Is there someone else thinking about your kids and their development or their academic support, is there someone who's even just thinking about upcoming travel your finances, summer camps?

    When you are responsible for other people or for any of these types of things that I just listed, it's not as simple as just putting your head down and working, just grinding it out, getting it done. Now, I do believe that is a skill we can practice. Not the grinding and the hustling, blah those words, but on putting your head down and following through on what you said you were going to do.

    I think you can practice focusing on the task at hand. And I have tools that I work with my clients on to help them set aside the thoughts about everything else when they're trying to. Complete something when they're trying to check something off their list or they have the time dedicated now for this project, but if your productivity advice, the template or framework you're following isn't taking that reality into consideration, the reality that there is so much more that you are carrying than just your to-do list or just your work priorities.

    Then I don't need that advice. A couple of years ago now, I read a book called The 5:00 AM Club. , you may have heard of it. I've had some clients who've read this too, and I love the idea of it. I'm not upset that I read this book. It did provide some perspective for me and has actually helped me form the way that I think about mornings today.

    But this idea of waking up early at 5:00 AM as the author prescribes and creating the space for yourself to do something physical, like a workout, to do something emotional or spiritual, if that resonates with you, like maybe journaling and something intellectual, like reading or learning. It's a real challenge to fit those things in during a normal day,

    it's hard to carve out the space for you to move your body to support yourself emotionally and to do something intellectual that maybe is not just checking things off. A work to-do list. So for a lot of us, probably, I'm gonna say us, but maybe working parents in general, 5:00 AM or thereabouts is one of the best opportunities or timeframes in which that works.

    Oh, I don't think I ever got to 5:00 AM I think it was 5:30 AM when I tried implementing this framework, which is fine for our family because my kids' school is like a late start school day. But anyway, it did work well at first, and I did love it. I loved having those things done, completed before anyone else was awake.

    But it worked until one of the kids got sick and then another got sick. And another, because in our family of five, we like to pass the baton every few days so we can just drag out illnesses for as long as possible. It's what we do. But needless to say, that morning practice went right out the window and it was hard to regain it.

    I felt guilty for that. I felt frustrated with myself, especially because I had done it before. Why was it so hard to get back in the saddle, so to speak?

    But what I learned during that time. Was that I didn't need to have such a rigid morning plan. That's actually when I developed my idea of a morning menu. You can check out episode 18 of the podcast, the Truth About Morning Routines. If you wanna learn more about that, I'll put a link to that episode in the show notes as well.

    It was actually enough for me to journal a couple times a week. I didn't have to do it every day to read in the evening before bed and to change up my workouts based on my sleep and energy as long as I was getting a variety of things done throughout the week. Strength stretching, walking.

    I am not a robot, and it is okay if I don't do the exact same thing every day, regardless of whether it's the 5:00 AM Club or some other productivity book. What I want to offer is that sometimes you don't need more discipline. What you need is more flexibility. You need a system that flexes. With your life.

    That takes into consideration the pieces that are beyond your control. The fact that your energy ebbs and flows and, and acknowledges that you carry a lot, that not everyone can see. Sometimes it's not just about sitting down and writing that grant proposal or following through on that project or setting up that meeting.

    There's a lot more happening under the surface, and it's okay and probably in your best interest to acknowledge that, but at the same time, we do still need to get things done. When I say flexible, that's not flexible, so you can just. Release all of your responsibilities or sit around and not be productive at all.

    That's not the world that I think any of us really live in, and we have to show up for work. We have to do what we are there to do or what we get paid to do. We still have to take care of our kids. We want to take care of our kids, and like it or not, we still have to sign up for summer camp or register for T-Ball or make that appointment or plan that trip.

    Getting those things done requires knowing, first of all, that those are the tasks on your mind or those are the tasks with a deadline A deadline that does matter to you. It requires looking at and taking into consideration where getting those things done might fit. When can you do those things?

    It does require you to focus when that time comes, learn to set aside the thoughts, the worries, the distractions, and do the task or the project or the work at hand. And then above all, it requires flexibility. Acknowledging that there are so many things beyond your control, that your energy isn't constant, that your kids are their own people.

    So what will you do when things change? How will you adapt? How will you get things done in a different way? Now that you have this new information or this new set of circumstances? What's important to you? Now?

    I've been teaching bits and pieces of this framework as it's been developing over the years to my clients, and I am putting it all together now in a training that's happening next week on January 29th. It is called Plan It, do It Done. If you've been feeling like mainstream productivity advice doesn't work for you, or that you have to be so rigid and grip so tightly to make it work.

    Come to class and learn a more nuanced way. This is not outdated advice or strategies. It's not rigid. It doesn't assume that you have complete autonomy and control over things. That's not what a, our reality is as parents with careers.

    It is time to approach how you get things done differently.

    If that resonates with you, you can head to themothernurture.com/class for all of the details and to register, and I hope that I will see you there. All right, until the next episode, I hope you take care, talk soon.

    Thank you for listening and as always, for being a part of this working mom community. You can find everything related to this episode in the show notes at themothernurture.com/podcast. And don't forget, if you're not signed up for my brand new class, plan It Do It Done three simple steps to help you finally feel on top of work and life.

    You can head to themothernurture.com/class to register today. It's happening on Thursday, January 29th, and I really hope I'll see you there. All right, I'll talk to you again soon in another episode of the podcast

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ProductivityKatelyn DenningWorking Mom, productivity, morning routine