"How does she do it all?" I don't. You shouldn't either.

"For real, tho?"

Yes, for real.

Let me spin you a tale. A Mother's Day tale.

How was this a movie?

For this Mother's Day, I had quite a morning planned for myself that would start with celebratory public outing with hundreds of other families, and commence with lunch and a nap in the afternoon. I had been organizing this for weeks, sending emails, making multiple calls, arranging printouts and pick-ups and drop-offs, because I knew it would be something my family would enjoy.

Note that I had orchestrated much of this myself, even though I have capable people in my family that could have made some plans on their own for me, the Mother in question.

On the Saturday night before Mother's Day, as I was going to bed, I realized I was feeling ill. But maybe my malady would go away by the morning.

It did not go away by morning.

I felt worse.

Now what?





I asked my husband to cancel our plans, as I would be spending the day resting in bed.

Instead of going out, we had breakfast at home, and my husband asked what he could do to make this a nice Mother's Day for me.

I told him he should do something to express his feelings about my being a mother, preferably in an inexpensive way.

As stated, I spent the rest of the morning lying in bed, watching the new season of Master of None, until lunch, when I was presented with mini cupcakes, a hand-decorated card, and an original song written by my husband and performed by most of the members of my family.

I then lied on the couch for the afternoon continuing watching Netflix on my computer, wondering how Aziz was going to get out of that jam.

"I didn't get out of this one!"

My family members wandered around the living room doing their own things, while I enjoyed a series I would not have made time to view otherwise.

It was a lovely day.

You maybe thinking to yourself, "What's your point, Mahlena? Spend Mother's Day on the couch?"

My point is that I shouldn't have been planning my own Mother's Day, especially not based around what the non-mothers in my family might want to do.

I should have delegated the planning of the day to the non-mothers in my family, told them what I wanted, and let them make it happen, EVEN IF IT WASN'T PERFECT.

I don't need to do everything in my home to know that it will be done well.

I don't do all the dishes, wash all the laundry, buy all the groceries, scrub all the toilets, vacuum all the rugs, take out all the garbage, dust all the shelves, pack all the lunches, tie all the shoes, clean all the noses, or wipe all the bum-bums.

But it all gets done.

Sometimes, it does not get done.

It will eventually, or it's not important.

Writing this post, and others like it, is important to me, so I'm doing it.

That means I'm not doing a myriad of other tasks, like putting away a mountain of clean clothes, or cleaning my bathtub, or taking my family to the park, or purchasing paper towels, or reading an assigned book on my dresser, or writing my fourth novel called Love at a Luau, or reaching out to women's organizations to propose my presentation called Love, Money, and Magic: A Digital Vision Board Workshop.

I can't do everything at once.

This is why I delegate.

I tell the people around me what to do, or I show them how to do it, and I let them do it.

I also eliminate.

For instance, there was a project I was working on last month that I thought was a genius way for me to move forward in one area of my life while having fun. I then found another way to elicit the same result in a different way with much less work, less energy, less time, by taking a class.

Even though the second option was not necessarily as much fun and involved less creativity, it fit into my current life more effectively than the first option. Plus, I'm fulfilling my creative needs in multiple other aspects of my life at the moment (including this post! Look at those gifs!). So I ended the first project and moved forward with my class.

The point of this story is that I DID NOT DO BOTH THE PROJECT AND THE CLASS.

I picked one, and I kept it moving.

I strategized and prioritized.

Similarly, figure out what is important to you. Then make the time for you to do it.

Delegate other tasks to other people or to other times in your schedule. And eliminate the things are no longer as important as they once were.

"Yes! I got this!"

Dreamers, are you "doing it all", even though you know you shouldn't? How are you delegating tasks to other people? What previously important things have you eliminated from your life?

Share your questions and answers in the comments, or email me at iHaveADreamBoard@gmail.com.

Thanks for reading!