Latest / The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler / [Part 1] The Paper Productivity System That Finally Tamed My Mom Overwhelm

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[Part 1] The Paper Productivity System That Finally Tamed My Mom Overwhelm · The Christian Homemaking Podcast: Simply Convivial with Mystie Winckler

• 0:01
  Speaker: So if your brain feels like mine often does, like it has 47 open tabs going
• 0:09
  on all at once, and every single one of them is yelling, "Urgent," the problem is
• 0:17
  not really that you have too much to do or that you just can't figure out your life.
• 0:24
  The problem is that you are trying to manage your home and your life
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  from just inside your head, and your head was never designed to
• 0:34
  be your family's command center
• 0:38
  Hi, I'm Misty Winkler, and this is the Christian homemaking
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  podcast, Simply Convivial.
• 0:44
  Convivial means enjoying life together, and that's the kind
• 0:49
  of hospitable atmosphere that we want to create as Christian moms.
• 0:54
  But it gets hard the more overwhelmed we feel.
• 0:59
  So we have to find ways to step back and not accept that feeling of overwhelm when
• 1:06
  it presents itself, and that is possible.
• 1:10
  I'm a homeschooling mom, grandma, and author of the book
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  Simplified Organization: Learn to Love What Must Be Done.
• 1:20
  My goal is to help you become a cheerful, content, competent Christian homemaker.
• 1:29
  And so we have to start with our attitude, with our responses
• 1:35
  when we feel overwhelmed.
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  So grab a basket of laundry to fold, and let's dig in
• 1:43
  So we feel overwhelmed so often because so much of our work is invisible to us.
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  The work re- itself really isn't invisible, but we don't
• 1:57
  have a concrete anchor for it.
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  We're just keeping it in our head.
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  A meal plan, meal options, a grocery list, appointments we need to make, or maybe
• 2:08
  appointments that are coming up, laundry to be done, things to deal with with the
• 2:13
  kids, errands we have to run, texts we should send, decisions we should make.
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  And these things just loop in our heads, compounding, adding, multiplying, because
• 2:29
  they are just spinning in our heads.
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  With our to-do lists so much in our head just spiraling and spiraling,
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  even if we are sitting, even if we are working, we feel behind.
• 2:48
  We feel like we're never getting anywhere
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  But that's because the mental to-do list never really sorts itself
• 2:57
  out by priorities or importance.
• 3:00
  It just all kind of pops in at random times in unexpected ways, and with more or
• 3:07
  less pressure and stress, depending on m- a multitude of other factors in our life.
• 3:15
  So when we try to manage our life just from our heads, we will feel
• 3:21
  constantly behind and overwhelmed.
• 3:25
  But there is a better way
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  Writing things down, especially on paper, turns that invisible looping to-do
• 3:36
  list into a concrete set of actions.
• 3:41
  When we write down what we need to do, we can stop the swirling thoughts,
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  stop the repetition of sometimes needless pressure that's going on in
• 3:53
  our head, and we're able to actually mentally process and work through
• 4:00
  what's really on our plates right now.
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  Paper helps you stop rehearsing the same tasks over and over.
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  It will help you not be afraid that you're gonna forget something
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  important, which is another kind of overwhelm that we all feel sometimes.
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  Writing things down on paper will help you see what's real versus
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  what's just a vague anxiety.
• 4:28
  Those vague anxieties, which often do well up the more we try to
• 4:33
  just hold everything in our heads, can't be written down on paper.
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  They have to become specific concrete things in order to write them down.
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  We have to put it into words.
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  And so it helps us see what's real and what is just a feeling that
• 4:53
  doesn't really have any substance.
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  And then most importantly, when things are written down, we are
• 5:02
  better able to choose the next right thing, the next faithful step
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  When your brain and your mind is just a fog, you need to clear the fog by
• 5:16
  writing things down, and that will help you name the next thing, which
• 5:20
  makes it possible to do the next thing.
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  Even if it's not on paper, even if it's just typing it out,
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  putting it into words will help.
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  I think paper is better.
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  We're gonna get more into that, but putting it into words counts.
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  And that leads me to the third point
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  Your management productivity system as a mom has to be small.
• 5:48
  It has to be something that takes less than five minutes a day.
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  We don't have time for elaborate systems and keeping a project
• 5:58
  management app up to date.
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  We don't have time for that, and you don't need that to do what matters most.
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  You don't need the fanciest, biggest, best planner with all
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  the right colors and stickers.
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  You need something small that you can do daily, every day, and
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  actually repeat consistently.
• 6:27
  That's why I love the daily card.
• 6:29
  The daily card works because it's small, it's visible, it's disposable
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  , it does not build up clutter, it's repeatable, easily repeatable, and
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  it's limited to one day, just today.
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  And tomorrow is a totally fresh start with a new card.
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  Now, this is actually part one of a series on the daily card.
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  So I'm gonna get more into the how this works in the next episode,
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  which you can queue up next.
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  But for right now, I just want you to notice that you do need
• 7:08
  some way to manage your life.
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  I know that it's so easy to feel overwhelmed by writing everything
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  down, and maybe you've tried many other planners, or you've filled out
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  habit apps or task management apps.
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  You've gone through Etsy a million times looking for the right planner or
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  the right printable that will help you finally pull all these threads together.
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  But that desire for an everything all at once, all in one place answer and
• 7:48
  solution is part of what's keeping you stuck in overwhelm mode, because
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  it's caving into our perfectionism.
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  And the daily card makes it smaller.
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  It cuts through the perfectionism and makes you actually repeat
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  something faithfully day over day.
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  It helps you put in the reps, and that's what really matters.
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  There is not an ideal homemaking system out there.
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  There is just you getting better at making the moment mo- the moment to
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  moment decision about what to do next.
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  And that's what we are going to talk about more in the next episode.
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  So don't miss part two, where I explain how a daily index card
• 8:35
  can help you end your overwhelm.