Mini Pod: Time Management & Self-Care for the Sandwich Generation

Now , if you follow me over on Instagram , I'm often sharing personal stories from my life as a mom , sports mom , athlete , as well as insights from my work as a fractional chief marketing officer and executive coach . These mini pod episodes are meant to give you a little glimpse into my life and share wisdom from the trenches of my business .

So thanks for listening and let's get after it . Hey y'all , welcome to my first mini pod . I'm doing something a little bit different .

I am not dressed up , I am , it's late in the evening and I have been thinking a lot about doing these episodes for a while , these shorter episodes , because I have so many things that happen during the week where I'm like , oh , I'd love to just share that , share my thoughts , share my ideas , share my experiences with you .

So that's what I'm doing , and so sometimes you're going to see me with full Zoom , face on , glammed up , and sometimes you're going to see me like this , really dressed down and winding my day down .

It's a Sunday , and Sundays are really important for me because I use them to prep for the week , get the kids ready and get my mind around the week , and I was in a meeting this afternoon with a service club that I belong to and there was a really powerful discussion that I want to share with you , because I think so many of us are going through

it right now . Life is lifing really hard for so many of us . If you're a working mom or working parent , you know what I mean , especially if you're an entrepreneur .

There is a lot to manage , and one of the things that I know I've noticed is many of my friends who are raising kids are also helping out aging parents , and in several of those cases , those friends have lost a parent and we're in that weird season it's not a weird season , I guess .

We're in that season of life where we are starting to lose our parents and while , at the same time , we are trying to raise our children , and that is so stressful and really just can knock the wind out of you . So I want to talk to you a little bit about time and how I think about my time and also being part of the sandwich generation .

And a quick story I live in the southeast , my sister lives on the west coast and a couple of years ago my dad became deathly ill . Deathly ill and my sister , who lives closer to my parents who are in Las Vegas , went out to help my mom out .

And when she got out there my sister called me and said hey , listen , dad's really sick , you need to get out there .

And so , uh , of course I dropped everything and um got on a plane to spend a stretch of time with my parents and , um , I was still in my corporate job , so I had to sort of pick up and leave that and my husband took over the kids , and that time I realized how much help my mom needed , everything from doctor's appointments to filing insurance for the dogs

, vet's appointments . There was just so much to do , and I know so many of you have parents nearby who are doing this work , and one of the things that I tried to do while I was out there unsuccessfully , I might add was convince my parents to move closer to one of us , either myself or my sister .

I was lobbying for the Southeast here in North Carolina because the cost of living is a lot cheaper , the weather's good and there's really good medical care out here . Well , I will just share that .

My dad eventually did rebound , but it was just really frightening and it was so stressful for the entire family , and so many of us are dealing with that really having to be caregivers , especially when your parents are very close

to your parents and raising kids and that puts a lot of pressure on your schedule , on your daily work . And the thing that I've thought about over the last few years , especially as I've watched my friends experience losses I have also had losses in 2012 . My brother died very tragically . That's for another story , 2012 .

My brother died very tragically that's for another story and it just the whole thing made me rethink how I'm using my time and where I'm spending my time , and you know , it is the one thing that we never get back and it's so precious , and so I wanted to just share a few thoughts for you in terms of how I think about it .

First of all , when I lost my brother and um , when I started , when I became an entrepreneur and had to really lean into the work of leading a business and still parent my kids and still support my family .

All of a sudden , those requests for my time , whether they were an hour or volunteering for something , really became very important , and I have a motto , and it's this if it's not a hell yes , it's a no , and I have had to get really good at saying no , because I don't have the kind of free time that I used to .

And , ironically , even as a corporate executive , I traveled all the time and I had almost no time .

But I have found , even as a corporate executive , I traveled all the time and I had almost no time , but I have found that even as an entrepreneur , I just my time is used differently , and so that has been really important for me to really think about where my priorities lie .

What kinds of choices and trade-offs do I need to make in order to have the kind of quality of life that I want ? And if you're taking care of parents and you're taking care of kids , all of a sudden you have to make very different choices about where you spend your time .

Maybe you can't volunteer as much , maybe even your actual job needs to change because you're needed . I think this is why this hybrid and remote schedule has been so great , especially for women , because we often are the ones who take care of our families .

So the other thing that I think about then , in terms of choices and trade-offs , is I just think about how do I leverage my support network . I'm an oldest child , I am aggressively independent , trying to get over that , and I really had a hard time asking for help .

People would say things to me like let me know if you need anything , and of course I would say , oh yeah , of course I will . And what I realized is I never did ask for help because , to be candid , I didn't know what to ask for help on .

But now I know that one and so but now I know that one my support network is everything , and I've had friends come over and help me with the kids . I've had friends run errands for me .

I have had friends just bring a dinner and I would say to you , especially as you're juggling , taking care of your parents and raising kids , don't be afraid to ask for help . We will all need it at some point , and the village

is there for that reason and it's such a gift , and so that's a reminder for you . The other thing I think about is just in terms of taking care of myself . I am a recovering workaholic and it's hard .

I'm one of those people who could work all the time , but I have worked very hard to create boundaries in my life , where this is especially needed when you're an entrepreneur , because you could literally work 24 hours a day on your own business . But I have really learned to think about how I prioritize downtime .

If you follow me on Instagram , I see a trainer . I work with a trainer , which I love just because it gets my butt in gear , and those days I feel lazy .

I can't do that when I'm with my trainer , but Tuesdays and Thursdays I work out with my trainer and that is a set date on my calendar and I really , really try not to move it unless I have to travel . So that's something that's really , really important . The other thing that has been incredibly important for me is just staying organized .

I have shared online that I have ADHD , and so I'm very easily distracted . I can struggle with getting tasks either started or starting too many projects and not finishing them , and so I work really hard to stay organized . I live by my planner . I actually have a paper planner .

I use my Google calendar , of course , like everybody , and I always joke that if I ever go missing . Just look at my Google calendar because you will know exactly where I've been .

But I also keep a paper calendar because I like to visually see all my major appointments and events written out and it's just a way for me to mentally organize the work that I'm doing . So that's a hack for me . I work really hard to keep my workspace very clean .

If you see me online , you'll see this is my home office here , but I have a standing desk , I have a walking treadmill and I have very organized drawers , and I made the investment a year ago to hire an organizer to organize the major places where the family spent time my office , our kitchen , bathrooms just because that visual clutter for me and I think for

so many of us , is distracting and also we suck time away because we can't find things , and so really making sure all our spaces are neat and tidy has been a lifesaver for me . I find cleanliness and organized spaces very calming . Maybe you might too .

The other thing that I think is really important in thinking about just the time management and being a sandwich generation , raising kids , taking care of parents is just preparing for the inevitable financial , unexpected financial hit that might be a medical bill . You didn't expect that might be a repair that needs to happen .

Just a couple of weeks ago , we had to replace the HVAC on our top floor in our house and , believe me , it is not cheap to replace an HVAC . It wasn't anything that was in the budget , and so we had to go into savings and to pay for it , and so , luckily , we had it , but it was really .

It was an expense that we could do without , but I'm glad that we had a rainy day fund that we could pay for it . So thinking about how you can prepare for unexpected expenses like medical bills , home repairs , car repairs , is really important .

And finally , again , I just want to say the importance of prioritizing and really thinking about where you spend your time . We all , I think , especially as women , we have a hard time saying no , and we love to volunteer . We get asked to be the room mom or the team mom , and I have learned to say no and not feel guilty about it .

In the past , I would say yes and I would feel resentful and angry , which is also not healthy , and so I encourage you to just really think about where is my time best spent .

How do I make sure that when I am saying yes , it's a hell yes and how do I make sure that it truly is a hell yes and , if it's not , release myself from being guilty , feeling guilty if it's a no , because your time is valuable .

Speaking of time , one last little story I want to share with you and I think it just speaks to the importance of your friends and your network , and I read so many articles about how hard it is to make new friends , to maintain friendships later in life . I'm a Gen Xer . I had kids late in life , so my kids are quite young .

I have a 15 and a nine-year-old and a lot of our friends . Their kids are in college and so we just are on very different tracks . And I joke that we're in the high contact parenting stage still , where we are going to school presentations and practices and

games . One of our kids does travel sports , and so we're just really busy with kid stuff .

And I found that between the business and trying to be a good daughter and a good daughter , good sister and raising my kids there just didn't feel like a lot of time for friendships , and so this year I have really put a premium and priority on connecting with my friends , whether that's going out for drinks , meeting up for lunch , going out for dinner , just

catching up . And I used to say no far more often than I said yes , because I had kid stuff , family stuff , and what I realized is that those friendships , my friendships , really fill me up . They energize me , my friends pour into me and I pour into them , and so I have made it a priority to stay connected to them .

Just the other day I reconnected with a friend I hadn't spoken to in a couple of years . We were very good friends when we worked together in New York and I just adore her and she's so lovely . We knew each other before either one of us had kids and before all of life happened . She's got four kids .

I've got two , she now lives in another , she's left New York and now she's living in the Southwest . And she called me up out of the blue . I happened to be sitting in my car literally doing nothing because the kids were at events . I had my eyes closed in the car and then my phone rings and I see her name and we ended up talking for 90 minutes .

It was like no time had gone by and we just talked about everything . We talked about work and what it was like . You know , all the stuff that's going on in the world right now . We talked about just our kids and some of the challenges we were experiencing , and by the end of that call , I just felt revived and I had this huge smile on my face .

She had totally made my day and so , as I think about that , it's more of that , and we also , by the way , said that we would never let that much time go by . I frequently , by the way , text my friends quite a bit and then we will jump on a call , or some of us use Marco Polo , but I just , you know , in closing , want you to think about that .

We're in this time that's really challenging , especially if you're caring for parents , caring for kids , you're working full-time , either in your own business or in a company , and our time is so precious . And think about where you want to really spend it , what truly matters to you , and , along the way , think about how you can take care of yourself .

As women , we burn the candle at both ends so often , and we deserve to be able to have ease and rest in our lives , even when life is demanding so much from us . So thanks for hanging out with me . Let me know what your thoughts are .

Reach out to me , dm me on Instagram and at Portia Mount and let me know what you think and what your experience might be with this . I'd love to hear your thoughts . I'll see you next time .

You can follow and DM us on Instagram at ungovernablexwomen , and TikTok at ungovernablexwomen . See you next time .