← The Goal Digger Podcast | Top Business and Marketing Podcast for Creatives, Entrepreneurs, and Women in Business
The Goal Digger Podcast | Top Business and Marketing Podcast for Creatives, Entrepreneurs, and Women in Business
924: Drowning in To-Dos? This Home System Changes Everything
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Get your us today@dell.com deals, terms and conditions apply. See Dell.com for details. Your home life and your business life aren't separate. They are not mutually exclusive. They are feeding each other for better or for worse. And that is why I think today's topic and the question that has not left my brain for months is so important to talk about. I'm Jenna Kutcher and I help you trade hustle for purpose and build a business that gives you the life you actually want to live. From a $300 Craigslist camera to a seven figure business I run from home, I've learned that success isn't just about what you do, it's about how you live. Here. You'll get strategies that work, systems that give you your time back and steps that turn your effort into results and impact. If you're ready for clarity, conf and a business that feels as good as it looks, you're in the right place. This is the Gold Digger Podcast There has been this question running through my head for months and I have been thinking about it for so long that I decided to create an episode about it. So the question is, what if we could run our lives like we run our businesses? Like imagine this with me now. Imagine having streamlined workflows and clear responsibilities and built in rest and rhythm not just for like the work you're doing daily, but in your actual daily life. Now this question comes to me because as an entrepreneur with adhd, I have spent years building these incredible, repeatable scalable systems in my business. Like I have launch calendars that run like clockwork and podcast workflows that practically manage themselves. I have automated email funnels that nurture and convert while I sleep. My business, it hums like a well oiled machine. It is literally built to rinse and repeat. I have very few surprises in my business life, and while business has been incredibly predictable, my home life for the longest time felt a little chaotic. And here's the thing about having adhd. If there is any amount of chaos in your home, I will argue that everything feels ten times worse. Like I am personally super scatterbrained. I lose things constantly and I am very quick to spiral into overwhelm. Now maybe you can relate to that feeling of your business maybe being buttoned up while your personal life feels like it's held together with duct tape and hope. So over a year ago I learned this idea from my dear friend Natalie Ellis. She introduced me to this concept of having a life operating system. And when I first learned about this, it completely changed my perspective. It made me ask this question like what if we borrowed what is actually working in other areas of our lives, including our businesses, like the structure, the systems, the automation? And what would it look like if we applied it to our real lives? What if we stopped treating our homes like the chaotic backdrop to our organized lives and started giving them the same strategic attention? So today I want to take you completely behind the scenes of how we've built systems in our home that actually support our real life. I'm talking about everything from meal planning and laundry rhythms to how Drew and I communicate about household responsibilities to outsourcing the tasks that drain our energy instead of fueling us. Now, let me just preface this and say, just like everything I do, this is not perfect. These are not perfect systems, and we are absolutely, positively not perfect people. But we have built a rhythm that is helping our family function in a way that lets me flourish both as a mom, as a wife, as an entrepreneur. And I think that if you adopt even just a little piece of this, it might help you do the same. So grab your coffee, get comfortable, and let's dig into how to build a life that runs as smoothly as your business. Here we go. So I feel like I first have to just paint a picture of why this thought kept circulating in my brain in the first place. So I am 1000% the type B person in our relationship. Like, Drew is the type A. I often joke that, like, I should have known that this man was highly structured and highly organized. When I started dating him in college. He was the kind of guy where I could say, do you have a double A battery? And he would pull out, like, a little clear storage tote from his closet that was labeled, and he could give me the battery. Now, for me, like, if somebody asked me for a double A battery, I would go steal a double A battery from the remote control and then hand it over to you. Like, I don't know where things are. Like, my brain is incredibly disorganized. And so for me, what I've learned is that for most of my adult life, I really pushed against having structure and systems. Like, to me, that felt like caging a wild animal. And I think for me, motherhood tips me over the edge where I recognize that, like, whoa. Having structure and systems actually gives me freedom and clarity. It takes a lot of, like, the mental work off of not knowing what to expect next. And so I did, like, a full 180 on my belief of, like, what are structures and systems built for? Because as somebody who went into motherhood with, like, zero structure, now I'm someone who absolutely craves it. And so I've realized that in areas in my life, if I don't have systems, my days feel really scattered. And I feel like I'm coming at life from this, like, reactive standpoint versus a proactive one. Like, it feels like I'm just putting out fires instead of actually living. So here's what I've learned, especially after getting diagnosed with adhd. ADHD thrives in structure and absolutely struggles in chaos, which means that for the majority of my life, I was struggling in total chaos. And so what's been Interesting is, is that in my marriage, I'm the type B. Drew's the type A. In my business, I'm the type B. And Marissa is my type A. She is the person who helps me build out these systems. And so I hired her after I became a mom and realized, oh my gosh, I don't even. I like, sit down at the computer and I don't even know what I'm supposed to do. Like, I don't. I know there's so much to get done and I don't even know where to start. And so over the last nearly seven years, we've built out so many systems. We built out launch calendars and workflows and sequences and all these different things. And I've realized that, like, wow, this structure gives me clarity, it gives me certainty, it helps me stay efficient and focused. And so I started to think, like, wait, where else in my life can I apply what I've learned both about my brain and about systems? And I recognized that my home life was actually the weakest link. And so this shift happened because I recognize, like, in business it's really easy to create structure because you can recognize in your business that structure can save you time, it can eliminate decision fatigue. But what's interesting to me, and I think why so many of us, and I'll speak mainly for myself, why I was hesitant to implement these ideas in my home, is that I was failing to connect the dots. Like, I was failing to see that structure doesn't just save time, it can, like save your brain. Right? Like for me, when my ADHD brain is constantly making a million micro decisions, like, should I start the laundry now? Did I water the plants? What are we eating tonight? I am operating from decision overload before I even sit down to work. And I've recognized that when I have predictable rhythms, when I know what's happening, when my brain can actually focus on the work that moves the needle. And so it's been really interesting because in my business, I feel like I know what to expect. I know the rhythm, I know what is expected of me, I know what tasks I need to focus on. And so I wanted to kind of take that blueprint and copy and paste it in to my life because there's nothing worse to me when I feel like at the end of the day I am just shut down. Like, Drew will ask me a simple question, question of like, should I put a hard boiled egg or a yogurt in the girls lunches? And like, I just like, shut down. Like, I've Decided too many things. I cannot make one more decision. And so I question, like, what would this look like if we brought some of this system into our lives? So here's what led us to actually do this. I feel like so many humans out there, business owners or not, we are all juggling so much. And let me just preface and say, I recognize that what we are juggling is incredibly different across the board. You might be a caretaker, you might have children, you might not. You might be working a corporate job, you might be laid off, you might be unemployed. We all have different things. But there is truth that every single person I know is juggling something. And I don't want to make any assumptions about your business and where you're at, whether you have systems or not. And so I really want to speak from my own experience, but I want to hope that you've applied some of the strategies you've learned on this podcast and you've actually created some systems in your business. And so I think that there is this universal truth and I think we should just call it out. Have you ever noticed that, like, let's say if your business is doing great, like, maybe, or maybe it's just any aspect of your life, like, there's one area of your life where you are just crushing it. Like, everything is flowing, everything is feeling easy, Maybe money's coming in. Like, have you ever noticed, like, when that's happening, other areas of your life are just, like, up in flames. Like, your laundry is a complete disaster or you are eating takeout every single day, or you're heating up instant rice for every meal. Like, have you ever noticed that juxtaposition of, like, when one area of your life is thriving, it seems like another area of your life is barely surviving. Or maybe it's the opposite for you. Like, when you finally get your house perfectly organized and tidy, you open your inbox and there are like 800 emails screaming at you. Here's what I realized. You cannot juggle two full time jobs running a home and running a business without systems. Okay? And what I would say is that most of us are trying to do just that. We're trying to be the CEO of our company, no matter what stage your business is in. And the CEO of our household, and we're wondering, why are we drowning? I mean, it's no surprise we're exhausted, right? And what I didn't realize for the longest time is that it is all connected. When there is chaos at home. My ADHD feels 10 times worse in business. Like, I am scattered I'm losing things. I'm spiraling. But when my home feels calm and organized, I am able to show up completely different as an entrepreneur. Like, my creativity flows better, My focus is sharper, My energy is higher. And so here's what I want for you to just think about today. Your home life and your business life aren't separate. They are not mutually exclusive. They are feeding each other for better or for worse. And that is why I think today's topic and the question that has not left my brain for months is so important to talk about. So when I learned about life operating systems from my friend Natalie Ellis, she cracked something open to me. So let me just first preface this and say, when I first started hearing just how type A she is, oh, I could just bow down at the temple of Natalie. But I am not that okay? Like, this girl literally has manuals for when people stay at their house, just giving them all the information they need to know, like, how to arm their house, if they need to turn the alarm on or wi fi or how to make a coffee. Like, I freaking love the level of detail this woman has, but that is not me, okay? I just. I do not operate at that level. I look at people with awe who do, and Natalie is one of those people. But what is so interesting and what took me so long to really fully adopt and, like, see, is that what Natalie does so well is she essentially takes, like, SOPs, also known as standard operating procedures, and she turns them into rhythms. Like, that is the way that this woman does business. That is also the way she lives her life. And so when I started learning about this idea of having, like, a life operating system, essentially stealing the things that work really well in business and applying them to my life, I was like, wait, I see opportunities to do this. And so Drew and I really started to sit down and figure out, like, okay, how do we create systems that work? And here's the thing that's interesting. Drew is somebody who doesn't need systems and structure. Like, he is already just a very linear thinker, right? Like, his brain is wired to think of, like, A, B, C, D, in that order. My brain is like a Z, Z. Oh, I forgot to circle back to D. Like, that is just, like, how my brain is. And so this has become more of something for me, less of something for him, because he naturally just operates in that way. But it has been something that I think we both would argue has given us more clarity and certainty in our home life. And just, like, how the rhythm works and feels okay. So here's kind of how we started to incorporate in a rhythm. So, for example, on Sunday nights, this is kind of where the magic starts. So we are getting out of weekend mode. We are getting in to the week. And so I would argue that Sunday night is, like, the night for setup for us. And this could look totally different for you. I'm just giving you our example so you can start to think through. Okay, well, what of this could work for me. So I would argue Sunday night is where the magic starts. So when we put the girls to bed, we gather all of their dirty laundry from their hampers and bring it to the laundry room. Right. Super simple step. We also open up instacart, so we do grocery delivery. But if you go to the grocery store, this could work the same way. And Drew will go through and add in our grocery staples. So he is the kind of man who will stand in the kitchen, open up the fridge, and be like, do we need more blueberries? Okay. Again, my brain does not work that way. Like, I am the person sitting on the couch yelling into the kitchen, like, do we need more chia seeds? Yes. Okay, got it. So Drew will add in all of the staples. And while he does that, I choose out a few meals that we are going to have prepped for the week. Now, here's the key. I am not a Pinterest perfect meal planner at all. I essentially choose some meals that can be fully prepped ahead of time, and then I add in those groceries to the instacart order. Now, I'm going to explain what happens next a little later into this episode, but essentially, we have figured out that this process works really well. I am a little bit picky in terms of, like, what I want to eat for the week. And so we found that if I just choose the meals and Drew does, like, all the rest, it works really well for us. And then we feel like we're both doing it together. We're looking at the grocery order together. No one's blaming anyone if you forgot the granola bars, et cetera. And so then what I love is that we're already thinking through how to combat that, like, 4:30pm panic of, oh, my gosh, what are we gonna eat tonight? Right? Like, we. That question alone, especially at that time of day, can literally set me off. It's been this way for years. I mean, we've literally talked about this since the inception of this podcast. I hate the question, what's for dinner? I don't know why it. Like, I just hate it. And so this is, like, our way to combat it. So Sunday is grocery prep. Getting everything in order, figuring out what meals are we gonna actually eat this week and getting all that ready to go. Now what's interesting is, is, like, we only prep a few meals for the week. We could totally, like, get even more ham on this. But I've found that, like, a looser structure works for me, especially as we're implementing systems. And so the other nights, like, we typically do one family date night per week where we all go out to eat for dinner. We have this little box of questions that I bring into the restaurants, and we sit and, like, talk, and it's so fun. Like, some of the questions are like, if you planted a magic tree in your backyard and it could grow anything, what would it grow? And, like, let me just tell you, when you hear a three year old's answer to that question, it will make you cry. Like, it's so sweet. So we do that. We do one family date per week, and then oftentimes we'll do, like, a really simple dinner. So for example, last week I went to visit my grandma, and I picked up the kids from school, and I just made these little, like, bento box dinners for them because we were spending time in the car after school. And so, like, it's just super simple. I mean, it's like little mini charcuterie boards, basically for kids. And so we do some really easy meals in between the prepped ones. The point here is not perfection. It is literally just having a plan so that we're not constantly decision making in the moment. A few of my other favorite meals, just because I know people might ask. So Drew and I love spaghetti squash. Like, I freaking love spaghetti squash. So one of the meals that we do at least every other week is like basically a pizza casserole. It's spaghetti squash with marinara and ground beef that's been cooked up. And then you literally just put mozzarella cheese on top and pepperoni and you bake it. And like, that sucker is so good. We did a version of it last week, is like lasagna with ricotta and cottage cheese mixed in. So we do, like, almost like casseroles, and that way they keep well in the fridge, and then also they double as amazing lunches the next day. So for me, I eat very healthy for breakfast and pretty darn healthy for dinner. And lunch is, like, where I fall off the bandwagon, just because if I get into a work project or if I actually find a focus, I'll like, come out of my focus cave and be like, I want chicken nuggets. And so what we found is, is that if we prep meals like this, then I also have healthy lunches, which is super helpful for me. And what I end up doing, love it or hate it, is I go onto ChatGPT and I started a conversation with it, and I said, I'm looking to plan meals for my family that can keep well in the fridge, be reheated. I want them to be paleo. We don't eat Paleo, but I think it's a great way to eat healthy. So we want them to be mainly paleo, not spicy for the kids. These are ingredients the kids like, these are things we don't like, etc. And so I've used this prompt, and I've gotten about 20 different recipes now that we've tried and tested. And so now we just kind of cycle through our favorites. So this week we're doing chicken pot pie soup, which is delicious, as good as it sounds, and we're doing a Greek chicken quinoa salad. And we just keep all the ingredients separate on that one. And then we mix it up with all the veggies and things, and then we keep the kids a little bit simpler. So that's how we do the meals. And I have created a whole system around what that looks like. This podcast is brought to you by Mercury Banking that helps entrepreneurs do more with their money. Okay. I remember in the early days of my entrepreneurship journey, clients would literally mail me checks, and then I would have to drive all the way to the bank to deposit them. It took me literal years to make things go digital. And I am ashamed to admit I still have a filing cabinet with paper contracts because I'm way too afraid to throw them away. But that's the beauty of growth, right? Like, you learn what systems serve you and which ones hold you back. 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If you are a stay at home mom or a working mom or I mean literally anything and you feel like the majority of these decisions and needs fall onto you, I think that can get really hard. And so one thing Drew and I have done for the last two years is based off of this book called Fair Play. It was actually a Reese's Book Club pick and it's written by Eve Rodsky. And essentially it's, I mean the subtitle of the book is A game changing solution for when you have too much to do and more life to live. Freaking love that subtitle. And essentially the author of that book created a deck of cards. And so two years ago I bought this deck of cards. It's like the Fair Play deck of cards and we use it and we revisit it pretty often. I would say like once a quarter. And so essentially what it is is it's a deck of cards. And on the cards it has all these different tasks. And what I love about this is it doesn't just have physical tasks like take out the garbage, but it also has tasks like remembering your child's doctor's appointment or buying your kid the next size up shoes. I mean like maybe not that specific, but you get the point. Like there's a mental tasks and physical tasks. And so I will never forget. I can still like close My eyes. The first time we did this, we went to one of our local favorite restaurants. We went on a date night, and we sat down and we started laying out these cards and we started dividing them. And essentially the goal of this is both to see, like, what you and your partner are agreeing to, if you have a partner, and also to see, like, how much the mental load is tasks that you're carrying. Right? It's just a beautiful, like, physical reminder of, like, all of these things that live inside my head are actual tasks that matter to our life, to our family life, et cetera. And so for Drew, he owns a lot of things. And one of the things I love about this Fair Play deck strategy is that the goal is, is if somebody takes that card and they say, this is my task, they own it, right? You can release it from your brain. You do not have to follow up on it. It is theirs to own. So, for example, Drew has garbage. And so he is fully in control of taking out all of the garbages and bringing it all the way down to our street, which is really far. We have a long driveway. And I can't even tell you, literally, I cannot tell you what day of the week garbage day is. I don't even know because that is how far removed I am from that task, which my mental load loves. Okay? And so when you think of delegation and role clarity, I think what's nice is a lot of times I have found that people share tasks, and that way nobody owns it and everyone is to blame. And to me, that just doesn't work. Like, in my business, my team members own tasks, and if something falls through the cracks, we know what fell through the cracks. And if something is successful, we know who is responsible for that success. Right? And so what is interesting about doing this is, like, when we did this, I found that, like, I was owning the majority of the mental tasks, right? Like the doctor's appointments, the ordering the clothes, the birthday party, planning, getting gifts for friends, birthdays, like, all these different things. And, like, I felt like I was drowning in, like, the mental load. And yet it was, like, hard to vocalize where I was struggling. And so what we discovered is, is, like, I'm handling the majority of the mental tasks, and these aren't small things. Like, these feel like full time jobs that might not look like work, but they're happening in my head all the time. Like, even this morning, I went to switch the laundry over and I realized, like, oh, man, Coco's PJs are like a size four. And this girl is going to be seven. Like, we need to get her new pajamas. And then it sends me on the spiral of, like, well, while I'm ordering pajamas, didn't she just say that her rain boots are too small? And speaking of rainboots, she also needs winter boots. And do her snow pants still fit her from last year? We should probably pull them out from the bin downstairs. Speaking of the bin downstairs, like, this is just how my brain works, right? And so it can be so hard to really vocalize that and also to understand that. And what I found is, is, like, tasks take up so much energy, and for me, mental tasks take up more energy than physical tasks. Like, I. What's interesting is, is, like, they're invisible, right? And they often get discounted or overlooked. But when you do this deck of cards, I think it's just phenomenal, and it's just so helpful. So when we divided all the life tasks using the fair play deck, we could see what each other was agreeing to and what each other was carrying. And, like, I recognize, like, whoa. Drew carries a lot of the physical tasks that happen in this house. I'll remember, like, one of the things he grabbed is, like, doing the dishes. Like, I am the girl that just throws, like, the random bowl into the dishwasher. And I had to clarify with him, and I said, okay, you're taking the dishes. So I have a question. If I just leave dishes in the sink after lunch in the middle of the day, are you going to resent me? Like, and just, like, getting clarity around, like, what does this look like? And so it's just a really, really great way to separate. So once you've separated, the next piece of our puzzle personally, is doing these weekly sync ups. Now, this is something that we learned through a marriage coach, Juliet. She is phenomenal, and we freaking love her. And essentially, what this is, and I, like, tell everyone about this because I think it's just so life changing is it's like a 30. 30 connection time is what she calls it. So every single week, you should aim to have 30 minutes of play with your partner and 30 minutes of dedicated conversation. Like, intentional conversation is how I should say it. And so essentially, we alternate who plans what each week. So this week, I am planning the play, and Drew is planning the conversation. In fact, this morning, he texted me and he said, let's do our conversation tonight. Here's what I want to discuss. And I, like, freaking loved that. And what I think is fun is that I want him to lead conversations of topics he wants to Talk about. I get to lead conversations of topics I talk about. I was literally just telling a mom about this at a hotel and we were in the sauna together and we were talking about it and she was just talking about how busy life is. And she was on this like 24 hour staycation to celebrate her anniversary with her husband. And she's like, I don't even know what to talk to him about because we're so busy, like chasing our kids. And I was like, oh, okay, here's this thing that we do. And so Julia recommends having a shared iPhone Note of just things you want to discuss with each other when the time is right. And I don't know about you, but like, oftentimes at the end of the day I'm like, I am too tired to go into like a really intense conversation or there are things I've just shoved under the rug that we should probably talk about, but right now does not feel like the right time, etc. Or just like things I've been curious about. And like, I want to hear what you think about this. Like, for example, two weeks ago we talked about, like, how do we want to contribute more in our community? Like, what do we want our community involvement to look? Like, how do we want to get involved in the kids school? How do we want to give back? Like, that was what our conversation was about. So it doesn't all have to be like, heavy stuff, but it can be so good. And then for play, like, we do fun things. So like, we've done games of cribbage, we play bananagrams. One time we spent 30 minutes outside in the garden together. Just like gardening together and connecting. And the goal here is just like intentional fun time. Like, remember that you have fun with your partner and that you make time for fun with your partner. And so I just think having these weekly sync ups has been really beneficial for us. And it's kind of funny. Like, I am so systemized now that I'm like, send me a calendar invite. Just so that I plan my mental bandwidth around knowing, like, hey, after the kids go to bed, we're going to have a conversation about X, Y and Z. Like, I want calendar invites. I want to know. This is the intentional 30 minutes time. One week, Drew was like, we were in the sauna and he was like, so how's work going? And I was like, good. And it was like, it caught me so off guard. And then he was like, well, that was my conversation time. And I was like, wait a minute, what? Like, no, I Just thought that was, like a regular conversation. So we've gotten, like, really specific about, like, here's the structure around this and here's how we do this, and it's been so fun, and I just think it's been really life giving and such a great connection tool. So if you plan in your weekly sync ups again, 30, 30 connection time, 30 minutes of play, 30 minutes of conversation, you'll naturally kind of start to find a rhythm with that, and I think it's just really fun. After that, then we take a look at, like, what are we doing this week? What does our next week look like? So for me, one of the big things I pulled from my business into our lives is more like project management tools, like having documents, things like that. I've talked about how we finally got, like, a visual calendar. So we got the skylight calendar, and I think we got it probably a few years ago. I've talked about it on the show before, and essentially it is this, like, beautiful screen with a frame, and we keep it in our pantry and it shows our shared calendar. Like, our shared calendar is up every single day. So every day I know what Drew's got going on. He knows what my workload looks like. He can look at that skylight calendar. Even the other day, he was scheduling carpet cleaning, and he was like, okay, I noticed on this day, you have some things blocked off. What is that? So that I know if we should do this or not. And so the skylight calendar has been so great so that both of us can see. Like, we get a glance. Here are things coming up. I love it. We also have a living Google Doc, and inside that doc, and this was inspired by Natalie Ellis. She calls it kind of like the Hub. We have everything from, like, what our vitamin regimens are to doctor contacts to vets, even, like, favorite takeout orders. So, like, let's say Drew is swinging through Chipotle and he says, hey, do you want Chipotle? I'm like, yeah, he can look up. Here's the order that I want. Instead of going back and forth a million times, like, again, this is like, when Natalie explained it to me, at first I was like, oh, my gosh, this sounds crazy. And then I'm like, oh, I freaking love this. It eliminates so much back and forth. And so, like, anything that I can add to the Hub, we have all of our logins. So I was traveling with Coco recently. I don't know our Netflix login. Drew manages all of that. So I went into the Hub, grab the login logged in and watch a movie with my daughter. So, like, just things like that that take up a lot of little mental space. I love that it's essentially just a brain dump for all the stuff that would otherwise just be floating around in our heads. And when we created it, like, we put in, you know, who manages our 401k and who do we go to for X, Y and Z? What is their contact info like? It was just nice to coordinate everything into one place. You know, I only share stuff I'm genuinely obsessed with. And so when I kept seeing bolinbranch sheets all over Instagram, I was like, okay, are these actually worth the hype? Drew and I have been using their sheets and duvets for over a year now, and honestly, our bedroom feels like a completely different space. The moment you touch these sheets, you'll get it. They're incredibly soft to start, but they literally get softer every time you wash them. They're made from 100% organic cotton, so they're super durable and they're breathable, which is perfect for piling on cozy layers without turning into a furnace at 2am this is hands down the best bedding I've slept on, and I'm so genuinely excited for you to try it. Start building your sanctuary of comfort this fall with bowl and branch. For a limited time, get 20 off your first set of sheets, plus free shipping@bolanbranch.com Gold Digger that's Boland Branch. B O L L a n d branch.com Gold Digger to save 20 and unlock free shipping, exclusions apply. Okay, can we talk about bras for a second? Because, honestly, for the longest time, I just accepted that being uncomfortable was just a part of being a woman. Like those underwire digs, the straps that leave marks on your shoulders. Spending half of your day readjusting everything, I thought that was just life. But then I kept hearing about the Skims Fits Everybody collection everywhere, and I finally gave in and I tried it, and I totally get the hype now. The fabric is ridiculously soft and stretchy, but not in that cheap way where it loses its shape. It literally feels like it was made for your body specifically. And I'm not even kidding when I say I forget I'm wearing anything half the time. It is one of those things where you don't realize how uncomfortable you've been until you finally experience what comfortable actually feels like. Now trust me on this one. You just need to try it. Shop Skims Fits everybody collection@skims.com once you place your Order, make sure to let them know we sent you. Just select podcast in the survey and choose the Gold Digger podcast in the drop down menu that follows. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm all about creating spaces where people actually want to be. So when we started hosting on Airbnb, it honestly felt like the most natural thing in the world. And it's turned into one of the best decisions we've ever made. Over the years, we've hosted hundreds of couples in our little spaces. We've had so many repeat guests come back, and we've created this incredible community, not just with our guests, but also with the people who help us care for our space. Whether you've bought properties as an investment or have unused rooms waiting to be shared, hosting on Airbnb is a practical and profitable choice. And just think about it. If you've put a ton of time, effort and work into your home, someone out there probably would love to experience it while they're traveling. So next time you're planning a trip or want to make some extra income from your spaces, you should definitely host on Airbnb. Your home might be worth more than you think. Link Find out how much@airbnb.com host so I am just pro having everything documented, having documents for things, even, for example, some friends went to stay at our lake house and we have a document that we can just send them. And it's like, here's how to get in. Here's what you need to know. Here's the WI fi code, here's how to access asana, here's how to turn it on. There's this weird little switch you need to put in the back. Like, and so we have like, everything that we need, even a little, like, info sheet for if somebody's dog sitting. Like, it has everything. So as we started compiling all these resources, I was like, oh, we've created a lot of this. It just doesn't have a home. So now it lives in the hub. The next strategy that I stole from my business is just really looking at, like, how am I time blocking? And I am really trying to look at it from a place of, like, energy, awareness. And like, what is this going to look like in terms of scheduling? Now, I have done this for a long time in my business where, like, for example, I take no meetings on Mondays and Thursdays, so all meetings happen on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. And when I record my podcast, it happens on a Wednesday. Like, I just figured out, like, a rhythm that works for me and my energy. And I am so lucky to be able to do this. I recognize, like, running a business and having the time and space to be able to call the shots like this. What a freaking privilege, right? Not everybody has that. So I just want to call that out and say, I recognize and acknowledge that. And I feel so lucky that I can kind of say, like, hey, I don't want to do this on Monday. Not everyone can do that, right? Like, how lucky. So I took what was working really well in my business and started to bring it into my life. And so I've recognized, like, when my energy is low, I don't want to tackle high execution tasks in my home life. If I'm feeling mentally drained, I don't want to try to, like, go in and organize the pantry or plan next week's meals. Like, I want to figure out the rhythm and flow. And that's why, like, having the structure of, like, okay, Sunday nights, this is when we do this. Like, do this. Like, Sunday's a pretty fun chill day. As a family, I have the energy to devote to, like, thinking through the rest of the week. It's really just about, like, matching tasks to your energy levels instead of just powering through everything. And for me, that's been so helpful. And I recognize there are different constraints for every person out there. So when I think about all of the areas that I've brought this in, the biggest thing that I've learned to lean on is something that might be slightly controversial. I was slightly nervous to talk about, but I'm just bringing it on here. So I recognize that I wanted extra support in areas of our home that I felt like were slipping through the cracks or just simply not getting that. And here's something that I want for you to think about. So let me set the stage and then let me set the reframe here. So earlier this summer, we recognized, like, we don't need a lot of childcare. So the kids were both home full time during the summer. I'm still working, right? Drew's home. Home. And we had three hours of child care every single week this entire summer. Okay, so it was Wednesday mornings from 9 to noon. That was the amount of childcare we had for the summer. We didn't have date nights. We didn't have any extra support. So three hours of childcare for a week. So if you think of, like, the entire week of it at a glance, we had Wednesday mornings for childcare. But I recognize that, like, we are, for us personally, we want to spend time with our kids and, like, quality time and so instead of outsourcing childcare, we decided, can we outsource some of the things that take us away from our kids or make us be not fully present there? And so I had been talking to one of my friends, and she was talking to me about having kind of like a house manager. I don't really know the best term or words for it, but essentially somebody that helps you with some of the tasks around the house so that you can be more present for your kids. Now, I recognize this is not totally relatable. This is not feasible for everyone. I am not coming at this from a place of saying that. But here's something I want you to think about. If we're taking strategies at work in our business, how fast are we to invest in our business? Like, we'll buy a 97 course, or we'll sign up for our $47 a month software subscription, or we'll hire a VA for our business. And oftentimes we do those things without blinking, Right? But when it comes to investing in support in our home life, like, I know for me, we hesitate, like, we feel guilty. We're the kind of people that can handle all of this by ourselves, surely. But here's what I found. The more freedom and peace you have in your home life, the better you show up in your business. Again, they're not separate buckets. They're connected systems. And so for me, like, when my home runs smoothly, I have way more mental bandwidth for creativity, for strategy, for growth in my business. I also have way more presence for my family when I'm not working. I was the kind of person who, you know, I would try to get my kids excited about, like, doing the laundry on Saturday and like, oh, my gosh, this is so fun. And then I would be half in and half out, like, playing Elsa and Anna with them. And I'd be like, shoot, I gotta switch load over. Oh, my gosh. I didn't. I didn't actually get it put away. Oh, I'm so mad at myself. Now the kids are in bed. Now I'm doing all these things. I get it. Like, that is a lot of our realities. And so what I realized is, like, there are different ways you can outsource. And so for us, we ended up getting a quote house manager. I don't know the best way to say it. And essentially she comes over on Mondays and Fridays. So Mondays, she will put away the instacart order that was ordered. On Sundays, she will prep the meals that we selected and she will fold and put Away the laundry. So meal prep and laundry and then on Fridays she'll come in and if there's laundry from the week, she'll do that so that we go into the weekend without laundry to do. She'll water the plants. She does all my vitamin regimens. Like just like little things like returns a package to FedEx. Like things that would threaten to keep me away from being fully present with my kids. And so it is a few hours a week. It is probably the best money I've spent. We have never eaten healthier as a family. Like I look at it as if we doordash one time less. This week we have just paid for the investment and we get to support an amazing local woman who loves doing this work. And she is like phenomenal. She is the phenomenal chef and it's just so fun. So anyways, again, might not be relatable hesitant to share it, but I just wanted to help you start to imagine like for me, I have always looked at outsourcing. As for the money I'm spending and the time I'm getting back. Could I earn that amount of money in the time and or could I just enjoy my life more in the amount of time to make it worth it? And if the answer is yes, it is a valuable spend. And so maybe it's not hiring somebody to do those things for you. Maybe it is using Instacart. And I will always argue that Instacart saves me money because I'm not impulse buying things in the grocery store. Right? Yeah, it costs more than shopping for yourself, but it saves you time and it prevents you buying all the things on the end caps that look delicious because you're hungry. Right. Or maybe for you it's instead of ordering doordash a few times a week, you invest in a meal delivery service that gives you healthy foods. So here's what I want you to say. Look at where you're already spending money reactively and see if you can spend it proactively instead. And so for us, we hired our house manager for under 10 hours a week and her focus is on repetitive low grade stressors that just drain my energy. Again, like the goal is, is like Monday set us up for the week. Friday set us up for the weekend. And it has been so helpful. Like they're not super hard tasks. Yes, I absolutely could do them. But they are the kind of tasks that create mental clutter and that really just hold me back. So this is a reframe that changed everything for me because I am 100% like you, I'm a Midwest girl. I can do everything by myself. I don't need help. Here's my reframe. We're not outsourcing because we can't do these things. We're outsourcing so we can be fully present for the things that matter most again. And the other reframe for me was like, for me personally, this is something I had to just understand for myself. And again, this is gonna look entirely different for you. But for me, instead of outsourcing childcare so we can do laundry, we outsourced laundry so we could be with our kids. Right? Like, just understanding, this is the reframe I personally needed. And so it has been so helpful for us. It has been really life changing. And, like, let me just tell you the joy of, like, opening up the fridge and seeing beautiful cooked meals ready to go that I can just pop into the oven and pull out and enjoy with my family. We are eating healthier, we're eating together more, and I have awesome leftovers for lunch. So again, I can't stress it enough. So here's the final thing that I want to walk through before I give you my weekly rhythm. So I just think that the mental load deserves more respect. And I recently did an episode with the amazing Morgan Cutlip, and we talked about the invisible work that's exhausting women. And I think that most women, especially entrepreneurial moms, we're not just managing to do lists. We're holding mental tabs open constantly. It's like, essentially my brain feels like having 47 browser windows open all the time, and every single one is running in the background. And it is draining me. It is just draining my mental battery. And so before I had systems. Let me just paint you kind of a picture of what my brain used to feel like. I would walk into the kitchen and I'd see a dirty hand towel, and then I'd think, wait, have we washed these? When did we wash them? When was the last time we did towel? Should I start a load real quick? And then I'd walk past the plants and I'd think, did I water those yesterday? Or was that two weeks ago? And then I'd open up the fridge and I'd panic because we have no plan for dinner. And I'd start playing a game of chopped in my head of, like, what ingredients can I throw together that will make something that's slightly nutritious that my kids will actually eat? Basically, everywhere I looked, I would see open loops. And then here's what would Happen. I would sit down and I try to work on something important for my business, but instead I'd be thinking about laundry. So then I'd get up and I'd start the load. But then I noticed that the bathroom needed cleaning, so then I'd start that. And then I noticed that I never actually used those organizational tools that I bought at Target. And so then I'd grab those out, and before I knew it, I'd spent two hours on household tasks, and I completely skipped the work that actually moved my business forward. This is just like a tiny glimpse into my brain. And so now having systems. I know, okay, Monday is laundry day, and I know that Alex waters the plans on Friday, and I know that our meals are planned on Sunday and prepped on Monday. And the mental tabs can finally close, because there is a system, there is a plan, and I can trust that things will get done without me having to remember everything. The goal is not perfection. The goal is about reducing unnecessary mental friction so that you can actually be present for your work, for your family, and for yourself. And here's what I'll say. Systems don't solve everything, but they do create space. And I feel like most of us are just craving space. Space can give us the ability to rest. It can give us the ability to play, to feel human again outside of being a constantly running machine. And so maybe the way that you approach us is entirely different than me. Maybe you take a mix of what works for Natalie, and you take a mix of what works for me, and you create your own sort of system and structure. But whatever you do, I hope that you collect a nugget that you want to put into action today. This is not meant to be a here's how to change your life, but this is meant to be. Here's how to think about your life, maybe in a slightly different way. So in closing, I want to give you just kind of our weekly rhythm breakdown again, not as a blueprint, but just so you can kind of understand how this has helped me and how predictability reduces decision fatigue at a mass scale for me. And so this has been so helpful. So again, Sunday night, we do the instacart and we plan out the meals. We collect the laundry. Monday morning, we hit order on instacart right away, and we start the laundry. I will switch the laundry over before I start work on Monday. And then by the end of Monday, our groceries are put away, all of the fruits are washed, the meals are prepped, the laundry is folded and put away, and the Week starts out beautifully. Now, again, not everyone is going to have a house manager. I get that. But, like, how can you take some semblance of this rhythm and apply it to your life? Then throughout the week, we leverage the meals, we do, our family date night, et cetera. We do 30 minutes of play, 30 minutes of conversation as a couple, and just make sure we're connecting on that. And then on Fridays, we reset the house. So this is just anything that could take me away from being fully present with my kids on the weekend. What a freaking joy that is. And so, like, I just want to start the weekend feeling fresh and not frazzled. And that has been such a game changer for me. And so, you know, Drew handles garbage day, we trade off, who packs the lunches. We've just created this kind of system in our house. In the mornings, Drew does breakfast, I get the kids up and dressed and their hair done for school, et cetera. So we have this kind of just rhythm moving through as a current. You know, we have a system and a schedule for things like when we wash the sheets, when we wash the towels. So, like, on Fridays, we go through our house, collect all of the towels, collect our sauna towels, like, everything, load those up, that gets all done on Fridays. Again, just like, creating a system and structure has helped me so much. And I want for you to just take what works for you in this and let the rest fall away. And maybe I'll come back and visit this. Like, maybe you'll be like me. When I first heard Natalie Systems, I was like, heck, I know that sounds like crazy. And now I'm like, oh, give it to me. Like, I want more. And what I found is that it's just really helped me to walk through my house and not feel angst, not feel resentment, not ask a million questions, not feel like I am the only one carrying all of the things. It has just been so helpful for me. So whether you are a working mom, an entrepreneur, whether you're neurodivergent like me, or all of the above, here's what I want for you to walk away from this episode with life does not have to feel like a constant game of catch up. For me, for the longest time, I thought, like, juggling it all means I just gotta accept this chaos. That being an entrepreneur and a mom meant living in survival mode, always feeling like I'm one step behind, always putting up fires. But what I've learned through building systems like these are systems don't just save you time, they save your sanity. They save your relationships. They save your energy for the things that actually matter. They save your ability to be present instead of constantly worried about what you're forgetting or what's falling through the cracks. So here's my challenge for you. If your business runs with clarity, rhythm and purpose, what if your life could too? What if you stop treating your home like the chaotic sidekick to your organized business and started giving it the same strategic attention? I want for you to think about this. What is one system you use outside of your home life that you could apply to your home this week? Maybe it's time blocking. Maybe it's having standard operating procedures. Maybe it's delegation or project management. Maybe it's simply scheduling important things instead of hoping they happen. Start small. Pick one thing, try it for a week and see if anything shifts. And here's what I personally know to be true. You didn't start a business to burn out. You didn't become a mom to live in constant overwhelm. You deserve systems that support the life that you're actually trying to build, not just what you're trying to grow. Until next time, Gold Diggers Keep on digging your biggest goals. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you know someone who would benefit from it, be a good friend. Hit that share button and I hope you loved this episode and I hope you apply these systems to your life. Thanks for listening to the Gold Digger podcast. I hope today left you inspired and equipped with something you can put into action as you build Build a business that truly supports your life. If this episode resonated with you, here's how you can help this show reach even more entrepreneurs. Hit follow. Share it with a friend who's building something meaningful and if you're feeling generous, leave us a review. Those reviews help other listeners discover these conversations when they need them the most. This show has become so much more than I ever imagined, and it's because of listeners like you who show up and share. You are helping build something that will inspire entrepreneurs for years to come. For show notes, links and resources, head to golddiggerpodcast. Com. Keep digging your biggest goals. The world needs what you're building.