Latest / Work It Like A Mum / How to Thrive During the School Holidays: Quick Health Hacks You Can Fit in Around Kids and Work With Nutritionist, Wilma MacDonald

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How to Thrive During the School Holidays: Quick Health Hacks You Can Fit in Around Kids and Work With Nutritionist, Wilma MacDonald · Work It Like A Mum

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willits and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I'm a working mom with over 17 years of recruitment experience and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women job board and community.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: In this show, I'm honored to be chatting with remarkable women redefining our working world across all areas of business.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: They'll share their secrets on how they've achieved extraordinary success after children, set boundaries and balance, the challenges they faced and how they've overcome them to define their own versions of success.
• 0:43
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• 0:44
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• 0:45
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• 0:49
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• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Think of this as coffee with your mates, mixed with an inspiring TED Talk sprinkled with the career advice you wish you'd really had at school.
• 0:57
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• 1:07
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• 1:10
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• 1:17
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• 1:29
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• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Now back to the show.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Welcome to today's Facebook, linkedin Live and Instagram Live as well.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: We're chatting with Wilma about how to survive and thrive in the school holidays, which is so timely because I know you're you're in Scotland, your holiday is coming up very quickly and I don't know if you had half term last week, but we have just had half term in England and that was a week and that, to me, felt stressful enough.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: So I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts as well.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Comments please pop them in the comments your experiences of how you manage the juggle in the school holidays, whether you love it, whether you hate it, any tips for surviving school holidays?
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Please share them in the comments.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: But thank you so much, wilma, for joining me today, and we were just chatting, weren't we, about it?
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Because yours is, yours is coming up very soon, yes, and I'd like I keep.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: And this is only my second year of having to do like.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Last year was my first year of having to figure out school holidays and there was a big shock to the system.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: And it was why.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Because he's been at nursery before.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: You mean, yeah, he'd been at nursery before, so he's only he's finishing up primary two this year, so he'd been at full-time private nursery before that.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: We're three days a week private nursery, so we didn't have to like.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Holidays wasn't really on my radar.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: So when I had lots of plans last year of how I was going to manage the summer holidays and then they all imploded spectacularly, so that didn't happen and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna be more organized this year.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: What were your plans gonna be then?
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: What were your plans?
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: Right, okay, so my plans last year was so I don't live in the same place as my family, as my extended, as, like my parents and extended family, the plan last year I was going to go up to where my parents were from and where they have a house, and my sister is there with my niece, who's three years older than my son.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: So I thought I've got there for a month, then I can juggle with my sister as to write her working hours, and then my mum would be in the background to kind of pick up, you know, because we'd be living with her.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: But then not to put it down on this my mum died, so that kind of imploded spectacularly.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: So that never happened and I was thinking this year I'm going to be more organised and I am a little bit more organised.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: There's a group of us mums in the school who kind of are kind of going to help each other out over the summer holidays and I've got some holiday camps that honestly they're so expensive.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: I just I'm like I can't.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: I know they're really valuable and he's going to love it, but I just can't do it.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: I just don't want to do it for four weeks.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: So it's more, I think for me this year, because I'm self-employed, it's easy for me to manage and control my time.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: I'm very aware of that.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: But also because I'm self-employed, I'm very aware that I carry the business.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: So if I'm not working then I don't want it to stagnate and slow down and there's so much that I want to do this year so for me it's very much what the bare minimum I can do to keep the business going and make sure my son is not bored and spending his time in front of a screen.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: You know we live in Scotland.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: We might not be able to go outside all the time because it's probably going to be rainy, so there's kind of like all these kind of things.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: And then I'm very aware of how to get after myself during this period of time, because who's going to be busy and who's going to be stressful.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: So I'm doing as much as I front-loading as I can just now around pre-empting the stress that's going to be over the next few weeks.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Because I do have a husband, so there's going to be.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: I have that support.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: But he has no holidays left, so there's going to be no summer holidays.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: I will forgive him at some point in time, but I also have a mother-in-law and all that kind of stuff, so I do have some kind of support network.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: But for me as well, and for what I want to talk about today, is about how you can look after yourself during this time, because it's going to be busy, this is going to be stressful, you're going to be out of your normal routine and the small humans are going to be out of their normal routines and like so how do you make sure that you don't lose your shit over the summer?
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: And you know you don't come out to it the other day and thinking what just happened there.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: So that's kind of my thoughts.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: I find it.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Hi, afsah, thanks for joining.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: I find it really stressful the holidays and I feel really bad and also I think this is going like you from a privileged position being self-employed.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: When you're sat at home on your computer, you can deal with things as they come in and that's fine.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Where I find it quite stressful and this sounds really terrible, and I obviously wanted to be self-employed to be a bit more flexible for the kids, but if I am taking them out, I find it really hard not to check my phone to see what's happening at work.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: And then it's something like you know, the shit hits the fan.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I'm like and like you, it all falls on you, doesn't it?
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: And you're out and you're like, and then you're not present and I find that a really stressful thing so I have no work email on my phone.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: So I have, like I made a conscious decision of that when I became self-employed and my husband keeps saying, why don't you put your email on your phone?
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: And I'm like no, because I've been looking at it all the time and then I began like trying to figure out what I could do when I should be doing something else.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: So that is my one thing and I like I'm very, very strict on that.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: I refuse to have working on my phone, and that's not going to work for everybody, but I would say, as far as you can, what kind of flexible boundaries can you put in place over the summer?
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Because loads of people are going to be the same persistent as you are, they're going to be distracted, they're going to have small humans, they're going to have their attention being pulled in 20 different directions and, you know, trying not to feel guilty about the whole thing at the same time as well.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of like we, for these whatever long six to eight weeks, we usually give ourselves a bit of slack and kind of like, okay, I'm out here, even if it's for like an hour or two hours, just park it.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Nothing is that urgent that it can't wait for two hours all right.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: do you know, I'm getting lots of advice?
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Today someone said about deleting Instagram and I was like, yeah, I'm gonna do.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: You know what?
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: I'm getting lots of advice today Someone said about deleting Instagram and I was like, yeah, I'm going to delete a lot.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I might go through my phone this afternoon and have a little delete of apps.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's kind of like so you can like I think you can put them to sleep.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: So I sometimes just put them to sleep and so I don't have to go through loading back in.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: So I just kind of put them very aware that my son is now, he's seven.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: In a couple weeks he's going to move away with technology and I want him to be technology aware.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: My husband works in IT and he's very into all this technology stuff.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: So I want him technology aware.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: I don't want him to see me on my phone all the time and think, well, that's kind of why am I not getting a phone and why can't I do this?
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Well, mommy's on her phone all the time and mommy's working all the time on her phone, blah, blah, blah.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of like that kind of thought process goes on my head.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like, um, you know, it's like it's just all these kind of different things and it's just kind of like it is about having boundaries in place and but making sure they're flexible.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: You know like we're not being kind of like rigid, it's just kind of like and lowering expectations, and I think I have I remember somebody saying that to me before my son was born about lowering expectations and I said no, no, no, it's all gonna be fine.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: You know, especially by what my house looks like behind me.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: I have lowered my expectations around my laundry basket, my house and all that kind of stuff, because it is what it is and I have only a set amount of time, and but I'm also aware that if things are too messy it stresses me out.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: So it's that whole constant battle that we're all facing and it's kind of like, okay, what is important right now?
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: My son's in school, so this is my working time, so I'll focus on that.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: The washing machine can wait.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: It's these kind of small things, and over the summer my aim is to make sure that I still have some kind of structure and routine in the day, and so does he, so that we're not kind of flailing around and I'm not thinking, okay, well, I can squeeze in 15 minutes of work here, I can squeeze 15 minutes of work in there.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like, okay, if he has an hour of screen time in the afternoon, okay, I can spend an hour doing emails or whatever needs to be done so, yes, talk us through it, because that is the good.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: That sounds like it's really helpful.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Is that structure?
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: When there is a structure, how do you what's your structure look like?
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: what's it going to look like?
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: Well, the good thing is my husband's home.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: He's going to be working the whole through the whole summer, so he'll still have his structure.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: But when he gets it, when you know he's going to log on and stuff like that.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: So we are are going, I'm going to be a bit more flexible.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Bedtimes I'm going to be really strict about, because I like my evenings and I do a lot of things in the evenings.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: So bedtimes are not going to be flexible for my small human, unless it's a lovely day and somebody else is taking me outside.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: But I'm just going to be more focused on okay, what do I do right now?
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: So I get, you know, I do my whole.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: I have a side of vinegar, warm water, breakfast thing in the morning.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: That is my routine every morning.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: I try and do a bit of meditation.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: So that is going to stay, just because it sets me up, and you know it's me, but me and my needs, quite frankly, at the moment.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: So what do I need?
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: To make sure that I can get through the summer, because my son is going to just be like well, it's not, we don't have to go to school, but he'll still want to see people and see his friends, so what?
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: yes, it's actually about half an hour for you, basically, yeah so it's like what sets you up and I talk to.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: I speak to some of my clients about setting themselves up in the morning to have the energy and the ability to face the day and whatever challenges those because you know it's not an energetic thing at all and it's gonna be.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: I've started to really prioritize.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: I do like between 20 to half an hour, 20 minutes to half an hour of like, just do.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: It's not like an energetic youtube exercise video, but it's on the thing and if I don't do it I feel shit and actually it's not.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: It's just doing something that's yours, isn't it?
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: for half an hour it's just something and like you don't need to be you.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: You know you don't need a hardcore HIIT exercise and probably if you're a certain age I'd probably prefer you didn't.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: But there's got to be something that helps you set yourself up for the day, Because I know myself, if I sleep in and I'm rushed, it kind of sets always sets a tone for the rest of the day.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: For those of you first get up, Once you get into the routine of the day, then you do feel much better.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like, okay, what things can you do for yourself, not for your small humans that will set you up in the morning and this is me going to bang on about this.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: But it's kind of like having caffeine after you eat.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: You know whether it's five minutes of looking out the window.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: You know, getting some daylight on your face first thing in the morning is really good for kind of helping you with your energy levels during the day.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: And it's kind of these small things that we don't think will have much of an impact but actually will help us set ourselves up, to have the energy to face the day, Because these kids don't need to be set up, they just have energy in building them and we need to be able to keep up with them.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Over six to eight weeks.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: It's a lot.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: So what can we do for ourselves?
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: And it's going to look at your routine just now, whether it's your eating routine, whether it's your exercise and movement routine.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: How much of that needs to flex over the summer and what can stay.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: What is kind of?
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: What are you really strict about?
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: So I go boxing on a Monday and Wednesday night.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Nothing moves that, absolutely nothing moves it.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: So these are kind of like that is just a given, so we work around that.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: So where can you get support if you need to kind of do something during the day that's not movable, but you don't have the capacity because you're a small human resource school or whatever?
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: So look at your schedule ahead of time.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: I think that in the holidays and I love that, it's non-negotiable.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: But you know, I, you know, if you, if you've not worked in the day, and then your evenings, then it's literally like the work day.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: How do you then?
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: I just know that myself, if I don't do, if I don't do that I like my creativity, my focus, my motivation, my, my mood, everything.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: It's so noticeable that if I don't do it, so I'm not going to do it for the next two weeks because my husband is away and I know by the time I get back to it I'm going to really, really need it.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: It's something that keeps me grounded.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: It's something that keeps me so when I do get to work, then I'm more focused and I can find solutions.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: And I'm more focused and I can find solutions and I'm more creative and connected than I would be if I wasn't doing that.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Sometimes, things like I'm taking time away from my when I could be working, but actually it's giving me more.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: So when I do actually maybe do half an hour work, I'm in a better place because I know if I don't, I just be too, my head would be too noisy.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: My head's really noisy, so I need something to clear it and that's what does it.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of figuring out.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: Okay, does it feel like it's taking away from me?
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: It's like meditation.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Sometimes People say they don't have time to meditate and that whole thing was if you don't have time, then you need to do like.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: You need to do more of it.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of like where you know we all have time, it's just what.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: Can we kind of shift the focus on a little bit and you don't need to be like me, you don't need to go off and do boxing twice a week.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: But it's like what you were saying 10 minutes, whether it's in the morning, at lunchtime or in the evening, can make a huge difference to how you are feeling and how you can actually a lot of it's a bit stress management over the summer.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: It's like how are we going to manage the stress of like the whole coordinating everything?
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: And so it's kind of like these little, tiny little things can make much.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: It can make a big difference absolutely, really nice.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Do you get up, you do your routine, it's your routine.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: And then what?
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: And then?
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: like last year, like things like so in the first day of school holidays last year my son woke up with like what looked like a tennis ball in his mouth and he ended up going into surgery two weeks later for his teeth.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: So things like that.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: You can't predict these things happen and you just have to roll with it.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: So we just then.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like I'm not one of these.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: I do not have an activity planned out every single day.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: I live beside a play park so I'm kind of like let's go to the play park.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: All his friends are close by.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: I kind of I'm not going to be like we are doing this on Monday, we're doing this on Tuesday, this is what we're going to do every week.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: I kind of a bit more go with the flow and see what happens to that person.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: But as long as I set myself up for the day and that I'm not thinking, oh, I should be working or I should be doing this, then it seems to the detection happens for me, because that is what I struggle with the push pull of work and family when there are no boundaries, like you have boundaries when they're at school.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: you know, normally you have those, you know and you don't, do you work?
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: from home.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I work from home, so it is for me.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: How do I manage it?
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: I don't really, because sometimes I'm kind of like, oh, I could be working, but I've got the small human and I'm not going to lie.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: Sometimes, when you know, my husband gets up and locks himself in his office and you know is there, I get really a bit annoyed and a bit resentful, and I shouldn't.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: And because I'm going like, well, it's like, as many women will know we are, we become the default and especially if you're self-employed and they're employed, we have more flexibility, which is true and part of the reason I am self-employed but doesn't mean I can't get a little bit annoyed and irritated and resentful.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: So I have to manage that and the way I do that is by getting my rage out on the boxing bag.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: So it is all.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: It's almost a push pull.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: It's never going to be like I said before, we logged on.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: I have logged out the month of July, so there's no client facing calls on the month of July, and I can do that because of the nature of my work.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: But there's lots of stuff that happens in the background that needs to keep going.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: So I need to figure out ways and means to kind of do that in the pockets of time that I have and then graciously accept the fact that I have made this decision for myself and I made myself employed to be flexible.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: I decided to have a small human later on in life, so I have to kind of graciously accept my decisions and figure a way around it.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: And I'm not perfect.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know what happens and I do get annoyed and I do get snappy sometimes, but overall, whatever happens over the course of six weeks will not make or break my business because of the way I've set it up.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of like it's a set period of time that we know happens every year and is not going to be.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: It's going to be a little bit stressful, it can be fun and the most important thing is I want people to look after themselves and not get caught in the stress of it all and sometimes we just have to kind of accept that it is what it is and I, like I think when I was growing up, my mom was a teacher, so she had the holidays off.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: So I never, you know, it didn't even really kind of cross my mind because she had all the holidays off that we had off.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: So it's just get some mom friends as well, because I remember somebody saying this before.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: I had a small human and moms used to terr, terrify me, so I didn't know I was going to make mum friends.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: But I have and I've made it got really good group of friends and we're just going to help each other out over the summer.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Like figure out, we're going to set each other days and it's going to be a lot because four or five little boys but you know they're going to reciprocate.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: So it kind of works out.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: So it's always unless you're going to.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: My thing was that maybe I would have put them in.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: I was like I'll put them in for four weeks of school clubs, but they're a lot.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: They're so expensive and I think he would keel over from tiredness because you know they're eight or six, five days a week and pretty full on.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: So it's finding what works for you and kind of blocking out all the noise of what you should be doing and what other people are doing, and you know other people are off to kind of.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: You know my sister's been in greece for four weeks and I'm kind of, like you know, blocking out noise of everybody having a wonderful time and you're kind of like stuck in the mire, trying to juggle it all and kind of figuring out what works for you, what loose boundaries you can fit in, how you can keep some semblance of a structure for you so that you don't get lost in the whole strength of it, and you know making sure you're hydrated, you know looking after yourself, eating well at the same time as well, so kind of having a bit of a plan around what you're going to eat over the, you know, over the course of a few weeks.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: It's all that boring shit that nobody wants to do but actually does make a big difference in how we live our lives.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, it is a shame that it's so expensive because I do find the holiday camp quite good and I don't put mine in every day.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: But you know, unfortunately I'm self-employed so they'll go in two or three days a week, yeah, but actually that to me quotes those boundaries.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Then that I know they're in two or three days a week, so some weeks they might have gone into some three depending.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there was and I knew I had those two days or three days to focus on work yeah, and my son's going in.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: He's going in for a full week at one home to camp and he's gonna love it because you know, imagine how fabulous I think I am.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: He doesn't want to hang out with me for six weeks and not see his friends, so he's going to get bored with me quite quickly.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: So he's going to want to hang out with his friends and luckily they're all really close by.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to facilitate that as much as possible because it gives me time and it gives him his interaction with the small humans that he wants, because he is an only child.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: So he's got nobody else to play with apart from me and his daddy.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: So you know, it's kind of they don't need us the whole time.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: So, like, remember that as well.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like the small humans need other people as well.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: So never think that it only has to be you and it.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: You have to be the main point of contact, the main caterer, and do everything for these six weeks now.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Give them a bit of like, obviously, depending on how old they are they, you know, let them see their friends and get other people to look after them and all that kind of stuff, and you know they'll be fine, so I know you're a nutritionist, so what are your health tips then for looking after yourself when time is stretched?
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: do the small things and it's like we're thinking that the small things and I can buy.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: I bang on about this a lot and it's kind of like the basic stuff that we all overlook in favor of the complicated things.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's keep it basic.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: What we can do really, really, really basic, obviously hydrated, especially over summer.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: I'm being very positive here.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: That's going to be a hot, sunny summer, but I live in second ball.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: I've got my, I've got my, I've got my knits on today.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: It's not warm in the slices today, but anyway, I live in ever hope that Scotland will get above 20 degrees at some point in time, but even still stay hydrated.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: Food before you caffeinate always plan out a week at a time, so I would be like looking at.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: So what I plan to do is, with my partner, my husband, is to look at our schedules, see who's got what on at what week and then plan what we're going to have for dinner, like a week in advance, just because it sounds boring and lots of people are kind of like don't do you mean planning it's?
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: You know, when I find something in my freezer that I put in last week, I love past me because it's so easy.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: So where can you stuff things in your freezer to make, especially if you're out?
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: You know, see, you are out for a day, whatever, hanging out with a small human.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: You come back and everybody's starving and hungry.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: That's the worst time to start planning what to eat, because then you're just going to face plant the first thing that you can find, or you're going to order takeout.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: And we've all been there and we're all done it and we're all going to do it again.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: But plan as much as you can advance, stay hydrated, find pockets of time where you can sit in silence, even if it's like a minute at a time, just so that you can kind of recalibrate and you're not kind of overstimulated.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: And look at your bedtime, look at what you're doing around bedtime and how you're getting to sleep and how much sleep you're getting, if you're still getting woken up, or you know all that kind of thing, because if you're sleep deprived the next day you're going to be tired and grumpy and then you kind of get caught in this kind of cycle and I know I still get interrupted sleep.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: So my son woke me up twice last night.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: So it's not a case of that, you know.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Know, I'm kind of like in bed by 10 30 and sleep through to 7 30.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: That's not the case at all.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of like where can we kind of find, what can we do to help the quality of sleep that we are getting and still being interrupted, if we're still getting woken up or if we're just waking up because you know, we're women of a certain age and things are kind of starting to go, things are starting to change.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: That's going to impact your sleep as well.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: So, hydration, eat before you caffeinate, find little pockets of time for you, meal plan as far as you can and look at your sleep as to what you can do around that to support as much as possible.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: And it's kind of like the stress management piece is really really important because it's going to be stressful and as much as we're going to be kind of like oh, it's going to be a lovely summer and we're going to.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: You know, I've read somewhere I'm going to give my kids an 80s summer.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: You know where they're going to be outside all the time.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: All sounds very lovely.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: So I had not heard of that.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, 80s summer where you just chuck them outside and you, at nine o'clock that night when they'd absolutely knackered I don't know.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: I do remember doing that as a kid, but I just think I don't.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't dare do that with my he'd never come home like I get it.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: But I grew up on the edge of hebrides, you know we were outside.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: It was just like it was fine, it was safe, we were outside all the time, so it was no big deal.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: It's kind of slightly different.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: I live in edinburgh so I don't think I would be able to check him outside for 12 hours and not worry about him.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: So it is.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: There's no getting away from the fact that it's going to be a little bit stressful.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: So look at how you can manage your stress.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: I think that's a big thing, because stress can have such a systemic impact on us that I want to make sure that stress management things are in place right now.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: So for me, like we break up in two to three weeks I can't remember to end of June and, and I know, for England it's slightly later so what can you start doing now in preparation to support what might be a busy, stressful summer?
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: I did it in the summer holidays.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: I did it probably too late, but it's helped me this year and it's probably more applicable to business owners.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: But I suppose if you're employed still is what work have you got that can be automated and then get invest in some systems that automate that work?
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: So I map everything out.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: So I did, I mapped everything out and then, as I looked at, not actually what can I use, like Calendly for, for example, where can I use certain tools and systems that will take this off my plate and that probably did it too late because I did it in the holidays, but that has helped me massively this year but that's kind of set you up probably for, like, holidays going forward, so it's going to get.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: So what can you?
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: What can you automate now?
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: through.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: You know you've got, then that is definitely a worthwhile thing to do.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: See what yeah, and I think one thing like that'll happen that'll reduce during the summer holidays is emails and text messages from people on holiday, so work tends to be a bit quiet, yeah, so that's going to free up some time, because a lot of people are on holiday, so work tends to be a bit quiet yeah.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: So that's going to free up some time because a lot of time is kind of like school management you know school email management so that's going to free up a little bit of time.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of like look at others, if you are a business owner, what can you automate, what is not urgent over the summer holidays?
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: And look at your client base what are they going to be doing over the summer holidays, how are they going to be operating and what do they?
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: What are the expectations from them, type things.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: So you know, like not every school holidays, not everybody has small humans, but like what we just need to manipulate we I think we set our standards so high for ourselves and we want to entertain our kids 24 7, so they have you know that stupid meme that went around a few years ago, but we only have 18 summers left with our small humans.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: You know it's gonna like pile the pressure on to make it the best.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: You know I mean I like I saw my parents every summer and like up until last year.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: So it's kind of like you know it's it's nonsense, so like there's so much pressure put on us to have this kind of like picture perfect.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: You know, great summer where nobody falls out.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: We're all kind of frolicking in the seaside or whatever and you know mummy's not stressed out.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: She's floating around in green with her little neck fit under green smoothie and kind of all being all chilled.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: It's nonsense.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: So we just, you know, we make, do and we take and ask for help where we can get it absolutely so.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: I know you're not doing client appointments in july, but maybe you've still got some left, so how can people work with you?
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: you know either side of july july, yeah, so, um, I so it's, I be honest, like everything's really.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: I'm going through a big transition phase at the moment, so summer is helping as well.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: So I currently work with mothers and mothers who are perimenopausal, so I am working developing a program around that.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: So that is not going to be live until after the summer.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: So there's really not much ways that people can work with me this year, but if people engage with me on linkedin, instagram I have an email newsletter then I'm still going to be sharing information, ideas, stories on there that will help, you know, manage this stressful period of the next six, seven weeks or however long it's going to be for some holidays.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: So you know, please follow me it's marig motherhood on linkedin and instagram and always open to answering any questions anybody has around anything health related, stress related, all that kind of thing well, thank you ever so much for joining us today.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Well, we'll put all in the show notes.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, everyone that's watched.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: I'm going to actually add this to a podcast as well, so maybe if you've listened as well through the podcast, I think this will be very, very helpful for a lot of people and we're always open to hear everybody else's how everybody else manages the summer holidays.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: I'm always open to hearing, because you always somebody's always with something that they do that you're just going to have oh, I never thought of that.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: So any suggestions around how other people, how you, manage the summer holidays, then I am all ears.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Thank you ever so much for joining us today.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to another episode of the Work it Like A Mum podcast.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and subscribe, and don't forget to share the link with a friend.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: If you're on LinkedIn, please send me a connection request at Elizabeth Willett and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: You can also follow my recruitment site Investing In Women on LinkedIn, facebook and Instagram.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: Until next time, keep on chasing your biggest dreams.