There were years of my life where I prided myself on productivity and efficiency.  I was really good at getting stuff done.  In record time, I could accomplish household tasks, work tasks, and still feel like I was making enough time for the people I love.  Then we had our first baby.  It was DEFINITELY an adjustment…but I was on a 1.5 year long maternity leave and while I had a few things to do for the end of the year at school, my time was mostly free for him.  It was during that 1.5 years that I fell in love with our DSLR (I already loved photography from days in the dark room in high school!) and began to dream of running my own business. When I went back to work again, I went back to my super productive ways, teaching part time, growing my business part time, and being a mother with what I had left, and I did that for a couple of years, including adding another baby in there, before it was just running me completely dry.  Before it felt like my best was going to my work, not my family.

So that was when we decided I would stop teaching and take half the work load off, and since then my business has had the opportunity to grow in ways it never could have when I was split so many ways.  My work life balance wasn’t perfect, but honestly, I am not sure it ever can be.  I really just think the pendulum swings back and forth from one way to the next– way too much work and not enough family…then way too little time for work to get anything done.  I think the trick is to get the pendulum to swing the direction it needs to at the right times.  I definitely believe there are times for hustle in business, and times for much less so that you can give more to the other parts of your life when they need it.

Right now, I feel like I am in a spot where I desperately want the pendulum to be able to swing both ways at once.  I am going to share more about the work side of that in the coming weeks.

Instead, honestly, for maybe the first time since I took that 1.5 year leave with my first baby, I am choosing the family side at every turn instead of work…and it feels really good.  I didn’t set out any strict boundaries for my maternity leave.  I knew I didn’t have a wedding until 4 months after the baby was due, and that in between due date and then I scheduled just a handful of official business things.  I also knew that the off season is a really productive and efficient time for me, typically full of lots of updates to my website, all of the 50+ documents I send to clients all year long, a good look at what worked and didn’t work the previous year for goal setting, and so much more.

And I am getting little bits and pieces done here and there.  But mostly?

I’m sorry I can’t…I’m snuggling my baby instead.  

I remind myself regularly that that is ok.  That it is ok that I am so enjoying the time with him instead of hopping 100% back in.  That it is ok to take things slower than I may have thought I would, and to be starting back up here quite a bit later than I did last time.  That my business will not crumble from blogging only once a week instead of 4 times.  Or not posting on social media as much as I used to.  I have to remind myself of all this because it is not the approach I took last time at all. But I have felt so very pulled to take it this time, and I am really excited about a time with less productivity and efficiency.  And that isn’t really something I ever thought I would say.

So if you are curious about what I have been doing these last couple of months?

Snuggling my baby instead.