The most asked question I get when I tell people I’m an author who is also the mom of six children is this: “How do you do it all?”
[Tweet “The important truth we have to learn when we’re writers who are parents: We can’t do it all.”]
I mean, we can try. But we’re going to end up frustrated and burned out and exhausted from the trying.
It’s taken me a long, long time to learn this truth—not just in my writing projects but also in the interior of my life. There are so many projects that come to me on a monthly and weekly and daily basis, and I have them all written down in a massive brainstorm binder, where I let them sit and flesh out, if they want to, while I’m not looking. Sometimes it’s just a phrase jotted down on a piece of notebook paper. Sometimes it’s the opening line for a book or a story or a poem. Sometimes it’s a whole paragraph of information about a character who’s insisting that I write about him or that I explore her story.
I can’t get to all of them at the same time, that’s easy enough to see.
But what’s not quite as easy to see is that I will also not be able to get to all the other things in my life. This “you won’t be able to do it all” applies to something larger than just my writing career. It applies to my life as a mother and wife and volunteer and friend and sister and daughter.
I can’t tell you how many times I go somewhere or hear from someone who enjoys my work, and usually the second thing they say after “I enjoyed that essay about (fill in the blank)” is “I don’t know how you do it all.”
It’s indicative of our society to notice that this is a universal comment that comes to me on a regular basis. I get it. It’s because I’m the mom of six kids, and yet I still manage to produce tens of thousands of words every week. How in the world do I do it all?
Well, you should see my house.
The thing is, when we’re parent writers, we will reach that point where we have to ask ourselves, “Is this something that’s important to do right now, or can it wait?” This is the question I ask most often of my responsibilities around the house. Things like laundry, cooking dinner, tidying the house, those are nonnegotiable for me. Kids have to be clothed, they have to eat, and I function best in a (mostly) tidy house. But things like scrubbing the baseboards and cleaning the insides of counters and moving the stove so I can mop the floor underneath it? Those are negotiable.
I recently missed my oldest’s third-grade field trip, the first one I’ve missed in the years he’s been in school. I was all torn up about it, until I remembered that we’re not going to be able to volunteer at every school event with our kids, just like we’re not going to be able to have a perfectly spotless house and we’re not gong to be able to have meetings with those people we used to meet with every day of the week if we’re really serious about using our time to make a career out of this writing thing.
I stay home with my kids half the day, and the other half of the day I have roped off for working. Writing. That means I don’t schedule meetings with friends and I don’t volunteer at my kids’ school, unless it’s a week where I can afford to take some time away.
Our society demands a whole lot from us. I’m a mom of kids in school, and that means there are parties to volunteer for, programs to attend, end-of-year-parties and playdates and all kinds of things that will creep into my work time if I let it. It’s not easy to look at our schedules and know how to label one thing negotiable and one thing non-negotiable, but it has to be done.
[Tweet “If we don’t schedule our writing time like it’s work time, we’ll never finish our book.”]
Something will always compete for our time. It might be the kids, who want a ride to the store so they can spend that $5 they got in the mail yesterday. It might be a friend, calling just to talk. It might be the floors and all those spots, reminding you it’s been way too long since it was mopped.
We’re not going to be able to do it all, writers. What’s more important: mopping a floor or writing a story?
I know which one I’d choose.
We’re not going to be able to do it all. We’re not.
Sometimes this will bother us. Sometimes I regret that I didn’t volunteer at my second son’s kindergarten Christmas party, like I had volunteered at his big brother’s, because work was too busy. So we adjust. This year I made accommodations and finished up a project early so I could do volunteer at his first-grade party instead. Because sometimes, we can justify the break, when we know we’ve been working hard all year and now we deserve to take a day off. But when I look around my house and see the dust an inch thick on my bookshelves and tables, I don’t feel the least bit guilty. Because my writing time is worth sacrificing that one little thing so that I have a few more minutes to change a life or two.
We have to be able to rid ourselves of the pressure to do it all. Society doesn’t make it easy, but we have to do it. We have to look at all the things we could set aside, even if it’s just for a season, just until we get this one manuscript finished, that’s all we’re asking, and then we have to make sure we’re okay with that decision.
[Tweet “We’ll never be able to be the best at anything if we’re trying to do it all.”]
How to combat the urge to do it all:
1. Hire someone.
If it’s in your budget to hire someone to help out with something, then do it. If you need a sitter for a couple of months until you can finish something pressing and get it out into the world, do it. If you need a house cleaner because you’re not that great at cleaning anyway, then do it. If you need a lawn team to take care of yours, hire them. There are reasons these services exist, and what you’re really doing is buying yourself time and energy.
2. Discuss with your spouse and children what you might be able to let slide for a season.
Sometimes you’ll let the cleaning stuff slide, sometimes you’ll let the cooking slide and just eat picnic dinners for a season, sometimes you won’t be the one signing all the school papers. Sometimes you won’t worry about organizing the garage right now, because there’s too much on your plate anyway. Sometimes you’ll stop attending that Wednesday night meeting because you need the time elsewhere. It’s okay to let some things slide for a time.
Do I need to say it again? It’s okay to let some things slide. You don’t have to do it all.
3. Delegate.
Some of the tasks that are on our plates we can delegate to others. My boys know how to hold a dusting wand, which means they can start doing this job for me. It may not look like I want it to look when it’s all said and done, but that’s okay. Help is help. And they’re helping me pursue my dream by taking my place dusting, whatever that looks like.
4. Make a “no” list.
This is helpful when you’re a yes person like me. Here’s the typical formula: If someone asks me to do something for them, I answer yes. I don’t like disappointing people. I have a hard time saying no. If you make a list of all the things to which you’d have to answer “no,” if asked, the list will help guide your decisions in every situation. Goals can also help with this, if you’re not so keen on making a “no” list.
5. Take a day off.
Determine whether a day off here and there is something you can do and still get back into the rhythm of creating. (We don’t have to say no to everything that doesn’t serve our purpose. There’s room for fun.)
Like I said, at the end of last year, I decided that I was going to volunteer at my boys’ Christmas parties. There were three of them in school at the time, and I had to divide my time among the three of them, but we had a grand time. I was able to plan for that volunteering and then adjust my workload accordingly. It meant I had to work a little harder on the week before, but it was totally worth it.
Week’s prompt:
Write a poem that is really a wish list for all the things you feel like you need in order to launch a writing career.
