Mastering The Mental Load: Time Management Tips For Moms with Valerie Recore

s on yourself. I'm Lisa Foster, your host. And today I'm here with a fellow mom, productivity and time management specialist, and a certified fair play method facilitator, Valerie Recore

she is here to help us gain control over that mental load of parenting so that we can spend more time doing the things we love. Hi, Valerie. Welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for having me. Well, I am excited to have you because I just feel that our listeners here can really understand all the juggling that we have on our plates.

, we have kids stuff. We have our own stuff. We have careers and yeah, it's just a lot. So how do you help moms really gain control of that crazy to do list? Yeah. So a big focus of my work with moms is, using the fair [00:01:00] play method, which we can get into in a little bit, but it focuses on looking at what our values are, both individually and as a family.

And if values feels like way too big of a word, we can look at what are your goals in the season and the next six months to a year and are what is on your to do list. And the things that you have committed to getting you there, as well as having a conversation around all of the daily grind tasks, like the dishes and the laundry and all of the things, right, that we have to do to keep a family functioning that seem to be never ending because most of them are.

And really just how do we focus on what's important to us, say yes to what's important to us individually and as a family and really make sure that we're doing the tasks that are moving us forward. So we're not just getting cut up in the daily grind of keeping everybody alive and fed in the house,

yeah. Oh, I love that. Well, and you said so many things because as soon as you started talking, right? [00:02:00] Like I'm like, okay, goals for this season. Like I have goals for myself, maybe more like career oriented, but not since I really like. a goal for the season or for the family or for Yeah, it just seems mine is much more career oriented than anything And then I also liked what I heard and maybe i'm interpreting it wrong but I almost feel like everything on my to do list is like Those dishes and things that I need to do and like there is no fun on my to do list There is nothing there but like listening to you.

It sounded like there could be Some fun things on there Absolutely. I know it sounds silly, but it is totally okay to schedule fun. Like my to do list includes texting friends to get together and make plans, right? Cause otherwise it's never going to happen. It might be scheduling time to do something as a family.

And so making sure that we are fitting that in there, like, yes, dishes need to happen, but sometimes they can wait while we are focusing on having dinner with some friends or [00:03:00] spending some time doing something fun as a family or doing something for ourselves, those dishes are always going to be there.

I think carving out that time for ourself to do something fun makes the dishes feel less draining and maybe makes us less grumpy about there always being dishes because we get to go do other things and have. Something outside of that. No, I like a clean and tidy house. I certainly fall into the trap of like, I got to get these dishes done.

I'm not going to, you know, go do anything fun until we do this. And that certainly like happens, but it is totally okay to schedule time to have fun. And make that a priority. Absolutely. Yeah. I love that. We all kind of rely on a to do list. I don't know one parent that doesn't have some sort of to do list, right? Like even if it's just writing something down to remember. How do we even write a to do list that's more a realistic and then incorporates all the things you just said?

There's several ways to do that really. So coming back to your values and defining your [00:04:00] values and I put goals in there because sometimes I just hate the word values. I was like, I don't want to figure out what a value is. I don't get it. I don't want to talk about it. I've come around to having values in my business and values in my life.

And we've, we're talking about them as a family. What do we want our family values to be? Because they really help you clarify what belongs on that to do list. And if for some reason the word values feels too big, or you hear the word goals and you're like, I can't deal. What do you want life to look like or feel like in this season?

So I have a nine and 11 year old, two girls. My oldest just started middle school. Like we're in a season where things are starting to shift and we're, we're all kind of realizing that, you know, my daughter's going to be moving out soon. You know, not too long from now. So what do we, how do we spend more time together as a family or what do we, what activities we want to be doing as a family and really making sure those get on the calendar?

, what is important to us as a family tonight? My. 11 year old had a friend over for the evening [00:05:00] because, her friend's brother plays soccer and she doesn't want to go to soccer practice several times a week with him. And so she comes over here once a week because community and supporting other families in our neighborhood is important to us.

And my daughter loves spending time with her friend. And so. we, say yes and yes, we're, we have an extra mouth to feed at dinner, but we are, we can do that. And so knowing those things helps us figure out what to say yes to and no to, and that's kind of on the bigger, bigger thing of like, what are we committing to?

Are we joining the PTA? Are we, joining the PTA board? Are we just saying I want to be on the email list. I want to know what's going on, but I have no interest in volunteering or I don't, I have, I don't have the time or whatever that might look like. Or my goal is usually to volunteer for one activity each year.

I can spend that time. ,what activities are the kids doing? What do birthday parties and holidays look like? Those are big, Discussions that you can have as you're as a family. And some of those [00:06:00] tasks are going to end up on your to do list. And then you bring it down to the daily stuff of making lunches and clean.

Who's making what's for dinner and do we need to go buy groceries? And all of those kind of nitty gritty also needs to be on your to do list. But if you're sharing all of that equitably with your. partner and your family, it doesn't all need to be on your to do list because it's not always Your job as mom to be figuring out all of that stuff all of the time.

Yes. I like the way you're saying to prioritize. If you know what's important to you. Um, yeah, making sure those are getting on your to do list and those are easy yeses.

Now I am hearing you say like the lunches and the dishes. I'm just. Even probably making doctor's appointments or taking a kid to a doctor's appointment. Those can be shared responsibilities is what I'm hearing. So let's talk about that because I do think we tend [00:07:00] to, as At least I do.

I know a lot of moms that do it. It's usually one partner. It could be a dad too, but there's usually one partner somehow really in control of especially like school events and doctor appointments and food shopping. And even if they are the working parent too, they somehow like gain all the role that I am in control of all this.

So how do we a share that? But here's a bigger thing. How do we also let go of the control? Because I think part of this. Issue is something maybe we even create ourself is if I don't do it, it doesn't get done in the time I wanted to, or it doesn't get done at all, or not the way I like it. Right. So that's a whole issue too, of letting that control go.

So yeah. Can you talk to that a little bit more? Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. This is why I love the Fair Play Method, because it gets into all of that. And I think first, it is understanding that as moms, we have been conditioned to believe [00:08:00] that it is all our responsibility. That we need to take care of it because we're going to be judged by society for not taking care of it if something slips through the cracks, or it's not done right.

We fall into this trap of believing all of this stuff. And there certainly might be some times in your life where that did happen. You asked for something to be done. It didn't happen. And so the fair play method is this method. And I did not, this is a method. It's a book written by a woman named Eve Rodsky.

And I love this method because it is designed to get both you and your partner and really any, it can work in a lot of different situations for the sake of this conversation. And. Let's say it's a mom and dad. And it's getting both of you on the same team, discussing all of this stuff from magic at the holidays to birthdays, to doctor's appointments, to who's doing dishes and buying groceries from the lake.

Nitty gritty to the bigger grand life stuff. And you're bringing your values into [00:09:00] all of this. And you're having these conversations about what does a clean kitchen look like? What is the outcome? What is the timeline? And you are agreeing upon this. So it's not. I, as mom, have higher standards. You need to meet my standards.

And your partner being, well, I don't understand why you want this done so well. Why don't you just do it? It is this conversation happening that gets you both on the same page. And I, by no means, I'm saying this is easy, but it's definitely worth it, to get into these conversations. So the example I like to share in my life is the dishes.

Several years ago, I think it was during the pandemic. You know, we're all home all the time. We've got lots of dishes. I am tired of the dishes in the kitchen. And I feel like they are always my responsibility to deal with. And I sat down with my husband and I was like, I'm tired of feeling this way.

It's like the dishes are taunting me every time I come into the kitchen. Like the dishes need to be, the dishwasher needs to be emptied. There's a pile of dishes on [00:10:00] top of the counter that need to be dealt with. And I'm tired of it. I feel like it's always my responsibility. And his reply was, it's not. I just assume one of us will get to it at some point.

So I was putting that pressure on myself of like, oh, well, you know, my job is more flexible. And so I'm just going to go deal with the dishes. And it's just expected of me. He wasn't thinking that at all. It was just like, well, we'll get to it at some point. And so we using Fairplay came up with. Something that worked for us that we've now been using for several years and we check in regularly, which I can talk about, but we have it set up so that Sunday through Saturday, one of us is fully in charge of loading and unloading the dishes, the dishwasher.

Hand washing anything that needs to be hand washed. And then we get into what Fairplague calls the minimum standard of care. And this is that conversation that can get kind of sticky of like, what does complete look like?

And for us, it means whoever comes in the kitchen to make breakfast. doesn't [00:11:00] have to clean the kitchen from the night before. So whatever, however that happened the night before doesn't matter, and I'm usually the one making breakfast, and there have been times where one of us, myself included, like didn't deal with it properly, and I'm cranky and grumbling as I'm having to like clean up, and so that, That's, that is our, like, minimum standard of care, is that the dishes, the kitchen has to be clean enough, not spotless, but like, enough counter space that somebody can make breakfast.

And the second part of that is whoever takes over on Sunday is not spending the day cleaning up. from the week before. And there have been plenty of Sundays where one of us is still doing dishes and like catching up on a dishwasher load or hand washing stuff because we just kind of fell behind during the week.

, but you can't leave it for the person on Sunday. And then we talked about it at regular check ins and that's the key part of all of this is you have the conversation and then you have regular check ins and the check ins are where you kind of bring your grievances. So it's not me. [00:12:00] Like waking up my husband on a Friday morning because I'm mad because the kitchen wasn't clean the night before.

I don't get to yell at him that morning, even though I might want to in the moment. It's saving that for a weekly check in where I can say, Hey, I've noticed X, Y, and Z has been going on. What can we do about it? And then we're on the same team and we're working together on this. And then as we did that over time, we've layered on, if it's all, if it's your week for dishes, you're also responsible for taking the trash and recycling out and taking the bins out.

They happen to go out on Sunday nights with pickup on Monday. And so you're kind of in charge. Cause again, the trash was something that it was like, we'd be leaving until somebody got around to doing it. Like it doesn't matter how full it is every Sunday night, you're taking the trash and all of the trash out in the house and rolling the bins out. And so we've just clarified. And so it's not. Wondering who's going to do it, not leaving the trash overflowing. Cause we're mad that I'm the only one ever taking it out. We're talking about it in a way that gets [00:13:00] us both on the same page. So you have expectations. I also like that you go back and forth.

I'm assuming that's not for every chore in the house. Like sometimes you're just in charge of maybe the school stuff and that's how it is. We don't tend to have conversations, right. We just tend to make up stories. What the other person's thinking about us or why they're not doing it or whatever, but we don't tend to like actually talk about it and try to resolve.

The situation. So I love the idea of taking, something a chore or something that's on our plate and having a discussion on how we can make it easier for each other. So do you do this with only the things that like? I don't know. I'm going to say bother you, or do you just do this with, with all the things?

Like, do you take your to do list and say, okay, this is what's on our to do list. Let me see your to do list. Let's talk about it. How do you start this conversation? this is what I love about this method is it is you can tweak it for your [00:14:00] situation. So, Everetsky came up with, there's a hundred tasks that she created.

, out of a list that she made of stuff she does and just kind of, I think it sort of morphed over her research of the book. So there's a hundred tasks that you can talk about and not all of them are going to be relevant. Some of them are like moving and a new job and , illness of a family member, like bigger stuff that might be very temporary.

And you're going to have these conversations for what makes sense for you. If you want to sit down and slowly work your way through this entire deck, there's a deck of cards that you can buy that has 100 cards in it, which can be a very great visual system. My husband and I have never, we tried once to sit down and talk about the cards, and it was, don't do it all at once because it is a lot. . So you can start with something that feels super easy that, you know, is gonna just be like really good practice for this conversation that, you don't really fight about like, Hey, we just deal with the trash and it's fine, but let's come up with a way that makes it work so that I am not the only one [00:15:00] reminding everybody else to deal with it.

Or start with something sticky. Start with something that, like, is really bugging you, and really, you just want to have a conversation to fix it. Because you know, like, the dishes, right? We always have dishes in our house. There are four of us. We run our dishwasher at least once a day, sometimes twice. So it's a constant.

So yes, we should talk about the dishes. So there's a couple ways you can approach it. And then you could work your way through the cards over Over time. And I know folks who've never really made it through the entire deck. There's plenty of stuff that my husband and I've never talked about that. We're just perfectly happy doing whatever.

Like I just deal with my kids needing new clothes and shoes. Like I'm happy to take that on. I grumble about it, but not because I want him to do it just because it's stressful in the moment sometimes. And then the things that. That you, you don't want all of the time. Or like, we've never discussed what a clean bathroom looks like and who needs to clean it.[00:16:00]

I keep track of when it needs to happen. And then we talk about what's going on over that weekend. It needs to happen. And then one of us just does it. And it, that works for us. And so. It's going to fit your situation and it can change over time. And that's the, the key to the regular conversations and check ins is there, do we need to add another card?

Like, Hey, this has really been bothering me that I feel like I am constantly the one paying attention to X, can we talk about this? And then you kind of work your way through the questions that, that you would to make that happen. So it can totally fit your situation and your season of life. And I like the, once again, going back to the conversation, because A lot of times we have to problem solve and figure it out, right?

And just bringing somebody else's perspective to a situation, even if it's as simple as cleaning the bathroom. Sometimes it's really good ideas that I've never thought of. Like we don't like the dishes either, honestly. And we both just do them like he [00:17:00] does. He does probably dishes more than I do at this point.

Cause I've lowered my standards and I don't really care if there's dishes in the sink, I'll be honest. But so there was like a month or two that he's just like, Buying paper plates. We just cannot do it. They're recyclable. We're just gonna take two months. And you know, it wasn't the , answer to everything, but it gave us a break.

And it was a good thing to try. Right. So it's just nice to have somebody else's perspective to you. And if you're just going in alone and just chugging along, well, then you're not getting that insight or that creativity from somebody else either. So I think that is such a great point to have. Have a conversation so important in relationships, right?

Yeah, absolutely. So hear a lot of the to do's right now. I know one of the things that you do is help people make times they can do other things besides all this stuff. So how do we do that? How do we balance everything coming our way? So one of the benefits of doing this work of [00:18:00] implementing fair play in your life is that you will, you do have time, because you're not the one doing everything now.

So Eve shares in her book that she passed off, something with sports to her husband, like all of it, not just showing up to practice, but like all of the logistics, the scheduling, the, and she gained like six hours a week in her life from passing this off to her husband. And one of the very first things that I do with my clients is have you schedule once a month, whatever feels doable.

We'll start with like one night a month or one time a month where you and your partner separately get to go do something just for you. It's what Eve calls your unicorn space or really just time for yourself. And if you don't know what to do with that time, go sit in a coffee shop with a book or go sit around the corner in your car and just sit there and like, listen to the radio for 20 minutes.

Like it doesn't have to be this big. I'm going to go sign up for. A six week pottery class or take a pickleball. And if, if you want to [00:19:00] do that and you know, that's what excites you, then please schedule that and make that happen. But if you were like me kind of sort of still to this day of like, I don't know what I want to do with that time.

I want to go sit in my basement and watch Netflix and be left alone for a while. Totally fine. The key is that you were doing something where you were not responsible for your family or anything else, but yourself for a little bit of time and your husband or your partner gets that same. Treatment and then you can also work in the date nights and and time with friends and whatever that and so The part point of that is that you're just getting a break from all of the other stuff And so then you're not coming to these conversations Crispy or as crispy because you've had a break.

You've gotten to breathe and just like let something go and And I feel like at least in my That was really hard for me to figure out what to do with that time [00:20:00] of like, I don't know how I want to spend my time. And to be honest, I'm still working on that piece. Um, But you know, joining a book club, like doing all of these things that maybe you've thought about, but have felt logistically complicated, it would like just way too much work

I had a neighbor or good friend who took a pottery class this summer and she said it was one hour a week where she just checked out. Like she loved that she just got to check out and play and she wasn't thinking about her job, her kids, she was also working on a degree, like she just had so much going on and this was her time to just not.

Think about any of it , that's one of the first things I want my clients to do is to create time for that. Even if it really is just 20 minutes sitting in your car, doing nothing at all, because we deserve that rest. Like I, I don't want to help you get more done. I want to help you get the right stuff done.

And some of that really is making that time to just rest and just be, instead of trying to check [00:21:00] so much off our to do lists.

Yeah. Now what are the first steps for somebody who wants to kind of get started using this method?

What are the first steps that they should take? Yeah. I think the first step is really understanding that It's not all on you to do everything and that there is a method or the tools out there to help you share all of this in some way. And I think that's one of the biggest things we were talking about that earlier really is like, how do I let go of some of this?

And then the second piece is, I would kind of do, if you're going to work on this on your own without support, which Is great. And then there's always people out there like me to help guide you through this. Do a time audit. Where is your time? Very truly going not. Sitting down at the end of the day and writing it down.

But like truly every 30 minutes to an hour, documenting how you're spending your time, and really understanding your values or how [00:22:00] you want life to look and feel like, and do those match. So here's how I'm spending my time. And here's what's important to me. It does this lineup. And if not, are there small steps that I can take to get there and then Kind of figuring out maybe something you can offload or share with your partner, whatever that might look like, whether it's fully giving away a task.

Like my husband just took over. He takes care of our, we have two cats. He does most of their care. I've always been the one that has taken them to the vet. And just this year, he took that over. And so that's his job, but , he's just now like fully taking that on.

So that felt like a lot of steps. So let me, it's figuring out where your time is going.

And what your values are, or your, how you want life to feel, and is there a disconnect, or are things really kind of fitting how you want them to be, and then how do you make the shift so that you're more focused in? With where you want to be. I love [00:23:00] reflecting on your list to make sure that you are spending the time where you want it to be.

I have two questions. One, is what about single parents that don't have somebody that maybe they can share this load with? I think doing this, the, at least the initial work of how you're spending your time and how you want to be spending it is key. And then depending on the age of your kids, getting them involved in these conversations.

So that they do realize it's not just on mom to take care of that. It's we're we all pitch in So as my kids have gotten older They are doing more. We are working this year on my kids noticing stuff around the house. So We buy groceries My husband and I put away all the stuff that needs to go in the freezer and the fridge.

They're responsible for noticing that there's bags of groceries that need to get put away and they need to put it away. So bringing them into that conversation of like, we have all of this stuff, these tasks that need to happen. We all live here. So how are we going to divide and conquer what [00:24:00] needs to happen and getting them age appropriately involved?

So my kids are both doing their own laundry this year. My nine year old needs help with that. She can't lift some of the stuff to get it into the, you know, the, the laundry detergent where it belongs, but she, she can do most of it. My 11 year old can just do it on her own and she's it's fine. And so it's teaching them these skills and then letting them run with it. . So my other question to you is, Just to do this. I've seen to do this like I have my own. I feel like it's manageable, but I have lots of friends. I even have clients that I work with. They have these to do that are like ages long. I mean, they're obscenely long to do this. So what is a reasonable expectation for a to do list?

How many items should we be having on our less, every day? Yeah, I think pulling out three to five tasks each day, what are your three to five, like priorities supposed to be singular. It's [00:25:00] supposed to be your priority is your one thing. We've pluralized it because that's who we are here. But it's really, it's like your three to five.

And that's going to depend on how long things take. But pulling out the top three to five things that are moving you forward and making sure that those are very granular. So like for example, years ago, so it was at least a year ago, we took a camping trip to Yellowstone.

And for the year or two before that, my to do list just said Yellowstone and my brain would see that and was like, I don't, I don't know what that means. Like, I can't help you here. So I had to sit down and like write out what I meant, like what were all of the tasks that need to happen? I needed to know when.

Reservations for camping opened up. I needed to do research on where we wanted to camp so that I knew the day reservations opened up, I knew what I was, what campgrounds I was looking for. When did we want to go? And then I could make that list and then I would, my next day, it might say research when campgrounds open. [00:26:00] And so trying to make, and those are doable, right? Those tasks I can check off that list. I could make that happen.

So really, Making it as granular as possible. And you're not going to get pages of to do's done every day. I will often have like my list for the day and then a bonus list. So these are the three things that I need to have need to happen today.

I need to get done. And if I have time, I'm going to do these other three things. And if you sort of planned that out for the next few days and you wake up, you don't sleep well, you have a flat tire, like something goes wrong, you know, well, today I wanted to do these three things, but I don't have the brain power for this one task.

It's not due tomorrow. I'm going to do something for my bonus list. And then move this other task to the next day. And you kind of have a sense of that when you have pages of to do lists, it's harder to know what to pull out and you're just going to put it aside and go scroll on your phone. Right. And the, the list seems to go to the next day to the next day, right.

Because you're never going to be able to do all those. So, [00:27:00] yeah. So like kind of like three priorities. I like that. . And maybe. Including something kind of fun or just doing three, but having time for something fun, right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So what do you want the listeners to kind of turn off this podcast and start doing today?

Yeah. You do have the time to evaluate all of this. From what's on your to do list to how you want to be spending your time. Even if it's five or 10 minutes or while you're walking around the block, just taking the time to evaluate what your priorities are and how you are spending your time and what small steps you can take to change that.

If things feel out of whack. Yeah, let's just start there. . Now where can listeners find you and what do you offer? Yeah. So you can find me at stride productivity. com. And, um, as we're recording this, I'm kind of shifting some of my work to I have a mom's community where we do the fair play work and [00:28:00] just kind of how are we spending our time and a great support group there, and I'm expanding to working with couples, both hopefully in a group program as well as one on one.

In implementing Fairplay, because it can be helpful to just have that third party neutral party out there to just help you work through some of the stickiness and really just get both of you on board , to implementing that in your life. Yeah, I could see that being really, really helpful.

Well, thank you so much for coming on this show. This is definitely getting me to think I have to shorten my list. I thought I had a good list. But no, I don't have three items on it, so I have to prioritize and relook and make sure I'm aligned. But thank you. I appreciate your insights. Yeah, thank you for having me.

Thank you for joining us for this episode. If you want to learn more about Valerie, just click on the links in the show notes and until next week. Let's reassess our to do's. Let's make sure that we are talking to our spouses and our significant [00:29:00] others to make sure that we are sharing the mental load and also just reevaluating our list in general to make sure that they are aligning to our core values and our goals.

And make sure you carve out this time next week, or we'll be dropping a new episode next Tuesday with another incredible mom.