[F6] Why Business Systems Alone Aren’t Enough for Mom Entrepreneurs

Phylicia Pough: 00:00:19

Hey, friend. You're listening to Harmonious Mompreneur, where faith, family and business come together.

I'm your host, Phylicia Pough, a Christian wife, mom of two, and life and business system strategist for moms.

If you've ever felt like there just aren't enough hours in the day, or find yourself craving more time for yourself, but feel guilty about it, you're in the right place. While many strive for balance, I believe it's harmony, an integrated flow that works for you, that truly sustains.

Each week, I'll share insights from my personal journey and practical strategies to help you design systems that bring peace to your business and home life. So give your kids another snack, take a deep breath, and let's dive into today's episode where we'll start creating your harmonious mompreneur life.

Phylicia Pough: 00:01:08

In the last episode, we talked about building business systems. But business systems alone are not enough. Because business systems, they only manage the work.

In your business, they don't manage your home, your family, your energy, your personal routines. And without life systems, the best business workflows can't prevent overwhelmed.

You can have a streamlined client process, an automated project management system. But if your home and your life feels chaotic, then your energy and your focus is still going to be drained.

This can show up as endless decision fatigue. So always thinking or asking, what's for dinner? Did I remember to pay the bills? When is there a doctor's appointment?

You can have frustration just managing the day to day of your household tasks. And because you're so frustrated with the day to day, this can reduce your productivity in your business.

But when you have life systems, just like the business systems, they create structure, they create support and some level of predictability. They allow you to show up fully for your business and for your family. But here's the key. Without burning out, systems truly support you.

So in this episode, we're going to get into some life systems that every mompreneur needs and how to start building them today. Now, life systems are simply the way that you do things in your home and in your personal life.

Like I mentioned in the last episode, they integrate your processes, your tools and your people to support you.

So three areas that every mompreneur could systematize is, number one, your household management, number two, your family rhythms, and then number three, your personal care. So let's start with number one, household management.

This can look like your meal planning, your laundry, your cleaning schedules, your decluttering plan, your grocery shopping, whatever you do to upkeep your home and to manage the day to day of the household operations. Okay. Now, in a previous episode, I talked about how I implemented a meal planning system.

Because, you know, dinner time used to be very stressful for me. I never knew what to cook. Prepping meals while the kids were hungry, it was just a mess.

And so I decided, okay, let me create a system around this to support me to reduce this decision fatigue, to minimize the stress, right? To have more time to be able to engage with my children and even have space to do work instead of like focusing on this meal planning.

So I created the system. So here's what my system looks like. By Friday, I know the meals that we are going to have for the following week.

Once I know the meals, I'll also know the ingredients that I need to pick up from the store.

So I know that by Friday, Saturday morning, I go grocery shopping and I get all of the things that we need, all the items for the meals, and also just our regular fruit and vegetables and things that we kind of always have in rotation. And then I prep for the week on Sunday. And I usually do this once the kids go to bed, but sometimes I start doing it earlier if I have a lot to prep.

But, you know, I do the prep on Sunday, I'll have my music on. And it just becomes like a peaceful time for me just to be reflective and just get these things done.

While I don't necessarily love cooking, I love the idea that I'm getting it all done and out of the way. And so what happens now is that through the week, when it's time to. To sit down for the meals, I don't have to go ahead and prep things.

I don't have to cook things. It's already done, it's already taken care of.

And so now I have that time and space throughout the day to just spend more with the kids or do some work. But it's definitely not as chaotic and stressful as it used to be.

Now I find that when I do not follow my own system, I fall back into that old pattern of experiencing chaos and stress because the system really does support me. Okay, so that's just a little nudge for you.

If you have already created some systems or you started trying to create systems for your home, but you fell off a little bit, just go ahead, hop back into it.

It's not going to be a perfect journey, but the more you're able to follow the system that you created that works and makes sense for you, the more relief you are going to be able to feel. Okay. That's the first area that you can look at to build life systems is your home management.

The next area that you can look at are your family rhythms, or some people might say routines.

But think through what are some of your morning and evening routines or rhythms I mentioned in a previous episode, you know, the nighttime routine that I have for my kids. And having this nighttime routine again, it creates this level of predictability. So the kids are prepared, they know what's going to happen.

I never have any protests for going to bed. In fact, sometimes the kids are saying, you know, especially my younger one, he's two, he is saying, brush my teeth.

Like he's ready to brush his teeth and go to bed. Like they know at a certain time, okay, we're going to brush our teeth, and they know what to expect.

So it removes this uncertainty and this anxiety that might be coming along with the unknown. So that's morning and evening rhythms. Think about your kids, schedules, communication, even with your spouse or the people that you live with.

What does that look like? Can you create some type of system around that to make it easier, to make it more efficient?

Even thinking through things like your family calendar management, like getting everybody's schedules onto a calendar, a shared calendar, so everybody is in communication and we're not missing appointments or double bookings. Right. A lot of times you will find the area that you need to create a system for when there is some level of friction.

Okay, so we talked about the household management or the home management. We talk about family rhythms or routines. And then finally, you want to create some systems around your personal care.

And this is important because as women, we are givers, we are nurturers, and we. We give and we give and we give.

But especially as mothers, we have to learn to take care of ourselves and pour back into ourselves or allow ourselves to be poured into, to rejuvenate, to refresh. Right.

And so if this looks like you need to create a system for having space in your day, to stay grounded in your faith, whatever that looks like for you, if it's specified times to read your Bible or to pray, if you want to create a system around what rest looks like for you, so you are not constantly falling into exhaustion or burnout, Right.

If you are creating a system around what exercise looks like for you, identifying those things that make you feel good, but also identifying those areas that need to be addressed, maybe there are some traumas or roadblocks that you have not addressed.

So just creating a system around all of those things that allow you to take Care of yourself and allow yourself to be refueled and refreshed so that you are able to show up fully in your business, but also in your life as well.

Because what I see a lot of times is that we put the emphasis on the business system so that we can show up in the business, but then everything in the life falls apart. We need life systems too, so that our lives can be supported and we can show up fully in our lives as well.

Because our life deserves just as much, if not more attention than the business. Okay? So when we're thinking through systems overall in our lives, yes, we want business systems, but we need life systems as well too.

And so some areas you can think through are the household management, family rhythms, and also your personal care. Now, where do you start with this?

For me, what I have found that works well, and I kind of mentioned it already, is start with your biggest pain point. Start with the area that is causing the most friction. Start with the area that is causing you the most stress.

So for me, at the time it was meal prep, so now I'm moving on to some other things. But start with one thing. Don't try to systematize your whole life in a weekend, right? Just start with one thing and practice.

This is going to be important. Practice executing the system, right? If you created a system, you want to make sure it's one that makes sense for your life, right?

It gets you to your goal. Sometimes getting to your goal requires you to do things differently than you have done before.

That requires new thoughts, that requires new actions and new habits. But that does not happen overnight.

So while you are in this process of building systems for your life, also understand it's not going to be a perfect journey and you should give yourself grace in this journey.

Creating new habits is not something that necessarily comes easily, but there is a high benefit and reward to it if you are able to be disciplined and consistent in it. Okay, so what I would love for you to take away from this is that business systems alone are not enough. Focus on your life systems as well.

And if you want to go deeper into the home management systems piece inside the membership. Harmonious Mom Legacy Lounge I have a training specifically about the home management systems. You'll get guidance on that.

So if you want to join the membership, click the link in the show notes and get in Today, Friend, thank you so much for tuning in. With grace and gratitude, I will see you in the next episode.

Phylicia Pough: 00:11:40

Hey friend, I'm so glad you tuned in today. Before you go, will you take a moment to leave a review.

Leaving a review ensures other mompreneurs like you can find this show and get the insights and strategies they need need to create harmony between their business and home life. I appreciate you so much. With grace and gratitude. See you in the next episode.