I recently had a chance to speak about the motherhood overload at rounds. It was a really lovely conversation on an important topic.
Illusory Effect.
Easy-nos.
Difficult-nos.
How to ask for help when you first become a mother.
Whether you should sleep or clean the kitchen.
We discussed it all!
And here are the questions I asked the women to help them decide on where they might most easily say no. Note: I don’t say “can easily say no right now”. Because if it was already an easy-no, these tasks would already be off of their list.
After this talk, I realized there is still a lot of resistance to letting go of the “easy stuff.” And what you might advise your closest friends to do (like shower while her baby naps instead of cleaning the kitchen), is often not what you would actually do yourself.
I asked questions like:
1. What would you like to stop doing, but think “it’s just faster if I do this”?
2. What would you like to stop doing, but think “if I don’t do this, it will never get done”?
3. What would you like to stop doing, but think “no one else can do this the RIGHT way…”?
I hope these questions help you think about your own massive to-do list. And to pare it down!
I can’t compress the whole hour into a blog, so here is the link to the whole talk:
Question: “Where are you holding on because you’re worried it won’t get done the right way?”
