Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Burnt out on e, pouring from an empty cup. Three synonymous phrases to describe the chaotic life that we were just living in. The busyness of life left absolutely no time for ourselves, much less each other. Today. F is for focus. Well, describe exactly what we did to restore order back in our lives and what we're continuing to do to eliminate the excess. If you're ready to trade a little bit of the chaos for a whole lot of calm, this is the episode for you. Let's get started.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: It.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the f podcast. And welcome to episode four. This is an episode that we have been looking forward to recording and debuting because it is going to reveal all the deep, dark secrets about us.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: Yes, the deepest, darkest secret.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: The truth about our marriage.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: I'm just kidding.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: So before we get started, guys, we just want to welcome you back. And we want to say there might be some change to the format of today's episode. We're going to kind of get you guys to know us a bit more with a little fun fact segment. Yes, and. Oh, go ahead.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: I was going to say we're going to try this out. You let us know in the comments if you like it. So we're going to have three segments. The first one will be a fun fact. Basically, we'll have five minutes on the clock, and we're going to ask the question, give an answer, just so you get to know us a little bit more. Then our next one will be f is for. With that, we'll kind of get into the meat of the discussion. And then our last segment will be our final takeaway. So I'll start with f and just kind of a way to organize everything we do. Just so if you just kind of don't have as much time, if you are not as interested in getting to know us, you maybe skip the fun fact or go straight to the final takeaway or just focus on the meat. And so an easy way for you guys to follow along as well.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: So what is this episode's fun fact?
[00:03:03] Speaker B: All right, so we decided to each come up with some questions, but I liked his questions so much, so I decided not to come up with any of my own. So this is James question for us. Also, if you guys wanted to come up with any questions for us, you can leave them in the comments or also dm them to us on our instagram page. But this week's question is, if y'all were granted one single do over in life, what would it be? Okay, five minutes on the clock. You both have to get our answers in and this five minutes. Our one single do over.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: Okay, I'll go first.
[00:03:40] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: All right. So my one single do over would probably be not having moved across the country for my graduate degree. I think I did that to change scenery and to kind of explore, but I think I could have gotten that same change of scenery and that same level of exploration by just staying in my own state and developing friendships and relationships here. I don't regret any of this stuff.
[00:04:06] Speaker B: Yeah. You had so much fun.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: I did, yeah. But I know that if I was smarter with money and if I was smarter with the choices I made, I probably could have gotten a leg up in certain aspects of life if I had just stayed in state.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: So kind of a more practical one.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: It's funny. Cause mine's like the opposite of yours. You didn't talk about this beforehand, so mine was actually in my twenties. I wish I would have done more just experiences.
[00:04:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: And so it's funny because that's the complete opposite of yours. I felt like I was so studious. Probably abnormally studious, abnormally strict, abnormally disciplined for someone who's in their twenties. And that's the comment I would always get from friends, like, wow, you were so disciplined. But because of that, I would say no to a lot of things that I probably could have said yes to.
[00:04:53] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: And so I think for me, if I was gonna do one do over, I just would have been to say yes to more. Just experience. It's not like clubbing or partying experiences, because I tried that, did that. It was whatever. But just like, just fun adventures that are kind of once in a lifetime opportunities or just the one time in your life where you have that much free time, you can just kind of say yes to a lot of things. I wish I would have said yes to more things in that period.
[00:05:18] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:05:19] Speaker A: That's so funny that we have opposite stuff.
[00:05:21] Speaker B: I know.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: That actually is pretty funny. All right, guys, so, like Shailen said, if you. If there's something that you've been wanting to ask us as a married couple or just about us individually.
[00:05:32] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:05:32] Speaker A: Comment something below or dm us on Instagram or Facebook, we'd be more than happy to answer it. And eventually, like, we could go live or something and tackle, you know, multiple ones in one sitting, but we're just gonna do one at a time for each episode. I think it's fun that way.
And, yes, one thing I wanna say is, you just see that awkward swallow I did.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: Well, I was going to say, I was like, I think we need to address the elephant in the room.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: The elephant in the room?
[00:05:56] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: With what's going on here, so there's.
[00:05:59] Speaker A: Something very nefarious going on, and I'm just kidding, guys.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: You always have to take it some weird direction. Just tell them no.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: There's, I think, a little cute acute sickness going on in the household.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: So all of us except for the baby. Thank God.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: Yeah, the youngest.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: Yeah, the youngest baby. We do have two babies, two under two, but I think we have it the worst, which is actually pretty nice that the kids are not too bad. Yeah, we are stuffy. We sound gross. You might see us coughing from time to time. We'll try to edit some of those moments out, especially if we're gonna have to, like, blow our noses or anything. Absolutely disgusting.
But if you kind of see us clearing our throats, we have our waters right next to us.
[00:06:40] Speaker A: I'm all clearing my throat while you're.
[00:06:41] Speaker B: Talking, getting ready for this next session. I'm ready to clear my throat, too, waiting till I'm done talking.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: So we're gonna do a lot of alternating as well. Yeah.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: So that's just so, you know, with that and all the craziness going on, if you hear something kind of gross sounding, we're just a little sick.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: That's all it is.
[00:06:58] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: Episode four f is for focus. And so if you feel like you've been running on empty, you've been running on fumes. If you feel like your head is just all over the place and you can't wrap yourself around any one given task, because there's just so many things going on, this episode is for you. And so why we decided to focus our efforts on this focus episode is because after last episode, we got into a little scuffle discussion. Yes, yes.
[00:07:35] Speaker B: Or honest conversation.
Yeah, we just.
That month before, we had just been running on empty, and so we were kind of essentially going from, like, crisis to crisis. Essentially, everything was a big deal because he was pretty busy at work, I was pretty busy with the stuff that I had to do, and we just could not get, like, a good footing on anything, the podcast stuff, answering friends. I'm sorry, Ami, for being so delayed and answering your messages.
It was just a very crazy month, and so we realized that we just needed to do a big reset because, yes, we were busy, and we were doing some things that were kind of just a one time thing. Our normal rhythm is not that busy, but because we were busy, we kind of let go of all of our normal rhythms and normal routines. And we kind of just were attacking, essentially crisis after crisis, and everything wasn't organized. The laundry was piling up. Just different things weren't tended to in the house. The house was looking pretty messy. Our lives just looked kind of chaotic. And I was, like, just taking care of the next most urgent thing instead of kind of keeping a maintenance is, like, what we normally do, like, keeping a normal schedule for laundry, keeping a normal rhythm for cleaning. And we kind of lost our way with that.
[00:09:02] Speaker A: Yeah, it was. It was really sad to actually see how thin Shailen was become. Like, how thin I was spread thin. Sorry about that.
[00:09:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:09:12] Speaker A: And we just realized that we had to make a change because this wasn't sustainable. And it was very exhausting not having the usual schedule and routine that we have set for ourselves. And so if you're struggling with that in this season yourself, we hope this episode definitely helps you, because we're gonna have some tactical ways to, like, approach, you know, those deficiencies.
[00:09:36] Speaker B: Yeah. I think one thing that kind of helped, or kind of helps describe the season we were in is this matrix that is in Stephen Covey's or Covey's. I never know how to say his name. Should have looked that up.
[00:09:48] Speaker A: I think it's Covey.
[00:09:49] Speaker B: Is it Covey? Stephen Covey's seven habits of highly effective people? It's basically the book. And he has the matrix that I have it on my phone. That's why you kind of see me scrolling. But he essentially has a matrix where he has urgent and important, important and non urgent, urgent and non important and then not important and non urgent. So James is going to have that slide up for you just to kind of show you guys what it is. And so we were living that whole month of March and part of April. We were living in the urgent important. We're basically living in crisis mode. And so everything, because we were not organized, everything was essentially a crisis. So stuff that shouldn't be a crisis, like, oh, we're out of food, order the food, or we're out of clothes, we need to wash our clothes now. And so things that we normally would have a rhythm for, or we normally order groceries a certain day, we normally wash clothes a certain day, all those things. Instead of just kind of being an orderly weekly, the weekly day to day type of thing became essentially crisis mode. And so that's what made us feel like we were running on empty because we were attacking crisis after crisis instead of taking time to focus and schedule the important.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: It's so funny because I'm like, I don't like the word crisis. It sounds like everything was going crazy and bad in the household, but I think you have to actually categorize it as that, because it's that much of a detriment to your daily routines.
[00:11:18] Speaker B: And the thing is, as you live life, yes, there's going to be a crisis that comes up here or there, because that's life. But we don't want to be living our life in that first quadrant. We don't want to be living our life where every single thing is urgent, important. We're going from urgent and important thing to urgent important thing. Instead, we want to live in the important and non urgent. And so that's what we'll talk about later. With having schedules and routines, we're able to schedule out those things that are non urgent but important. So obviously we need food. But if I have a rhythm of every Tuesday, I make the list, order it. Every Wednesday, we pick it up, then we have, like, a routine down. It's no longer a crisis. Oh, we're out of milk for our son. It's like, oh, no, we know milk is coming this day, so we have to be panicking or laundry. Yes, exactly. The boys running out of PJ's. We're out of underwear. It's like, okay, this is a crisis. I need underwear now.
Yeah. So we have to do a quick load. It's a quick load after quick load. Cause it's just like, all I have time is to wash, like, this underwear and, like, these shirts and this whatever. And just crisis after crisis. But if we spend time in that second quadrant where we focus on the important, but it's not urgent, helps us avoid living in the crisis.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: One thing I want to bring up is what this was really affecting was the stuff that is essential to just feel sane.
[00:12:45] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: So it was affecting hygiene.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: Yeah, it was affecting. You don't to go through the nitty gritty, but it was.
[00:12:51] Speaker A: Yeah, it was affecting, like, our mental. We felt mentally tired.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: Yes.
Using inappropriate escapes. Not like, you know, I'm not gonna, like, go, like, deep, but it's just like I was using social media to kind of, like, just get a mental, instead of, like, just using, like, instead of just kind of having natural margin, I was utilizing other things just to kind of give me a mental break, because I was just so deep into going from one thing to another.
[00:13:19] Speaker A: The more sad thing is it was impeding on our ability to really pour attention to the boys. We just felt tired just trying to catch up in doing the regular things.
[00:13:29] Speaker B: Speaking of kind of that, we were using distractions, which is like non important, non urgent, but we're using those distractions to kind of just, I don't know, to kind of fill in the emptiness we felt because we were going from one thing to the next. So some distractions that we use that we shouldn't have been using social media. We were definitely using screen time way more than we should have. And our son was having tantrums because of it.
[00:13:52] Speaker A: I know.
[00:13:53] Speaker B: And so essentially what we wanna talk about today is with doing our reset, what we're doing to live in the important and the non urgent, how we do that, and kinda what we had to do with looking at our lives and kind of the craziness that was going on and to get there. And so we have another matrix, too, but the thing that it says to do is if something is important, but it's not urgent, we have to schedule it. And so we'll be focusing on that in this episode. And so you kind of have both matrices are up for them, but that's kind of what I wanted to talk about with those.
[00:14:31] Speaker C: Yeah, that sounds good.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: And I think if we ever want to re explore any of these, it could be another episode, but we're really just tailoring it to scheduling stuff that needs to be priority in your life in this season.
[00:14:41] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:14:42] Speaker A: And the whole goal of this is so that everyone could feel at peace in their own home and feel like everything they're doing is sustainable and not exhausting. Yes.
[00:14:51] Speaker B: We're not meant to be running on e, and that's how we felt. And there's some seasons that are busier than others. And so that's why we were essentially running on e. But with doing what we did, what we'll talk about in just a bit, we were able to kind of get us some running on e to a more like maintenance and orderly routine.
[00:15:13] Speaker A: So if the clip appears a little jumpy, we had to stop recording so that we could address one of the crying children and also to blow our noses.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: Yes. So see this as like a little commercial break, one that we'll do.
Yeah.
Once we become big, famous podcasters, this would be the time when we'd have our brand deal. So I cannot wait for that.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: Please. No, I'm kidding. We're not desperate for that, but it would be cool if that happens.
[00:15:39] Speaker B: It'd be cool if that happens. Our whole goal with this is to be a ministry, to bless others, and we've got a lot of good feedback from that. But if we can bless others and also get a brand deal.
[00:15:49] Speaker A: I'll take it.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: Yeah, we won't be opposed to that. So, one thing I wanted to mention about intentionality before we moved on, it's just kind of a Bible verse that really drives me personally whenever I'm thinking about why I need to be intentional. And it's Ephesians 516 through 17. So it's be careful, then, how you live. Not unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil, and then 17. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. And so, because I just see this as we have just a set amount of time on this earth, and I don't want to be wasting time and not living out my true purpose, and I don't want, because I maybe am wasting time on social media or maybe sleeping in a little bit too late. I don't want that to be the thing that prevents me from accomplishing all I want to accomplish.
[00:16:47] Speaker A: And so, yeah, that's true.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: That's why it's so important to me to be intentional. Because when I schedule the important, or when we schedule the important, or when we have rhythms and routines that we keep, then we have, one, we make sure we're getting done what has to be done. And then, two, we have room for other things. We have room for if someone invites us to something we can see, oh, yes, we can do that because we know all the important stuff is already getting covered. So that's just the last thing I kind of wanted to add into that.
[00:17:16] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:17:17] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: And now we'll jump into what we did to address everything that was chaotic and what propelled us towards having routines and rhythms and schedules once again. So the very first step was just simply reviewing what the heck was happening.
[00:17:34] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: And we didn't have. What had happened was we didn't have our monthly meeting. We stopped doing our weekly meetings. We stopped checking in on one another, and that led to us not having enough scheduled time for your usual daily hygiene and your usual being able to just kind of sit alone in a room and just clear your head space. We usually give each other that.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: Yes, we had absolutely no margin because, like we said earlier, we were essentially living in crisis mode. And so we wanted to just review and look at our schedule. Like, okay, obviously there's some things on the schedule that we do not do every single month, every single week, you had a big event for the organization you work for. I was adding on new clients for my bookkeeping business. I'm not trying to add anyone else.
Let's just make that clear. I don't want any more clients, but I was onboarding some clients. So there's just certain things that we don't do normally. But our big, I guess, failure in that was that because we put kind of all of our effort into those things. We neglected the stuff that keeps us going. We neglected our routine with laundry. We neglected our routine with ordering our food. So we were running out of milk multiple times and had to do a quick run to Heb. Cause our son needs milk. We had to do our crazy laundry really quickly. And so things like that, it even.
[00:18:59] Speaker A: Made, like, our monthly. No, we try to have a monthly big date. It even made that, like, just boring because we just wanted to catch up on rest. And you're just feeling energized again.
[00:19:10] Speaker B: So we're just sitting across from the table from each other, just kind of looking at each other, but, like, slowly dying inside.
[00:19:16] Speaker A: Like what?
[00:19:17] Speaker B: Desiring rest?
[00:19:18] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:19:19] Speaker B: Because we were just going from thing to thing. We didn't even have, like, a full day, which is kind of like 30 minutes lunch because we didn't really fully schedule it. We kind of just went thing to thing and crisis to crisis, and we had to get back home to take care of other stuff. Because you were kind of living in that crazy mood.
[00:19:35] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:19:37] Speaker A: The next step is to reduce waste and eliminate. Yes.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: So this one, I think, really was on me, at least what I can focus on, what I had to do. So once I just, once we reviewed kind of what went on, we saw, okay, these are the areas we really need to focus on, and these are the areas I want to ride. Whether it was upkeeping the house, doing too much screen time for the boys, or like that, the next step I did, or we did together was just figure out, okay, what am I doing that just doesn't need to be done? After reviewing what happened, am I wasting time? And I noticed for me, because I was using it as an escape, I was using social media way too often. Like, all throughout the day, I was just scrolling on social media. And it's one thing, you know, during, like, specific break times to kind of scroll and see what your friends and family are up to. But I felt like anytime I just needed rest, I was just running to a social media app in order just to, like, find that. And so how I eliminated, or at least greatly reduced social media is I have this thing now where I delete social media every night at 830. So I have an alarm that goes off. So at 08:30 p.m.. I delete it and I don't add it back again until later afternoon, early evening of the next day. And so I know that my prime time and my time that can really get stuff done is the morning and early afternoon. So I don't want to be distracted during those times where I know those are my most effective time. So after that, when I kind of am letting down a little bit and just not having as much scheduled things, I can take that time to look at social media. And I realized just doing that, one, I don't look at it as often, obviously, because it's off my phone. But two, during those times where I am looking at it is not as much of like a dopamine hit type of thing.
[00:21:32] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: Because I'm not using it as my rest. I'm like now just seeing, oh, what's my sister doing on social media? What's my brother, what's, what are people posting? And it's just a lot healthier of a space to be in.
[00:21:46] Speaker A: Isn't it crazy when you get that dopamine hit when you're scrolling through social media, it's like you don't want to put your phone down. Yes. You want to just keep scrolling and just keep switching from Instagram to Facebook to all the different, like spending an.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: Hour looking at reels and sending them.
[00:22:01] Speaker A: And so it's so crazy how the time just escapes because of that dopamine rush.
[00:22:06] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: But once you get used to, like, segregate segmenting your time and getting rid of it, it opens you up to being able to work out and to just step outside and go for longer walks.
[00:22:17] Speaker B: Yes.
Allowing me to do things that I wasn't doing. So I wasn't working out anymore.
A lot of times, instead of listening to, like, a good podcast that would help me, I was just scrolling through social media, looking at reels. And so with having it deleted off my phone, I am using my time a lot more productively. So when I have those low moments in the day, I'm not using those low moments just to scroll, but instead I might use it to listen to a podcast or check off my to do list or anything like that. And the other thing that we eliminated or greatly reduced was screen time for our oldest son.
[00:22:57] Speaker A: Yeah, that was one of the best decisions. Yes.
[00:22:59] Speaker B: Because as we said in March and April, we were just kind of heavily reliant on it because we were just kind of running on empty.
[00:23:08] Speaker A: I want to share something on that. Yeah, let me clarify this. So there's been multiple, like, screen time stages for our oldest son. And so the big first thing that we did to improve his behavior and, like, just his reliance on the screen was getting rid of Cocomelon.
[00:23:28] Speaker B: I don't know if anyone watches it, but, yes, that was, it was just negatively affecting a zombie watching it. And so with this one right now, it's not the he's watching anything bad or anything that makes him a zombie. He loves toy story, and he always jumps around and, yeah, you can tell he thinks he's part of.
He also loves Maverick City songs.
And so we still do it every once in a while. So we can, like, listen to his favorite songs or I could watch a toy story here or there, but we just have a lot more scheduled with it. And it's not just, oh, I just need to get this done. So let's put, put this show on so that he can watch it and I can focus.
[00:24:08] Speaker A: I know. And now looking back, I'm like, why did I do that so often? Like, it's not helping him at all. Even, like, with Miss Rachel, you know, I don't know.
[00:24:17] Speaker B: All of it is screens. And what's more important is us spending that time with him versus the screens. Obviously, sometimes screens help get things done, but we were just abusing it, and so we wanted to greatly reduce that as well. So then our next one we wanted to do, or the next thing that we did or are doing, kind of in the process of doing, is communicate.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: The important, oh, this is a good one.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: So with that one, essentially, we, instead of just kind of keeping everything in our minds, like, okay, this is important to me. This is important to me. We are a team, and so we can't read each other's minds. So what may be important to me, he might not understand. What's important to him, I might not understand. And so we have to talk to each other to make sure that we're on the same page before we even get to scheduling or routines, he has to know, okay, this is what's, like, top priority for me, that if our day is going crazy, if these things are done, I feel good, and then the same for him.
[00:25:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I have some examples of that. So, for example, Shailen is one who always really likes to take care of her skin and her hygiene and stuff. So, and especially post pregnancy and all of that, she feels like she wants to get a morning and an evening shower in or a face wash or, you know, stuff like that.
For me, it's like, because we both work from home, and I no longer commute or go anywhere. I don't sweat as much. I don't have as much body odor. You know, I don't have, like, he still showers.
[00:25:48] Speaker C: I do. Yeah.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: He's not saying all that. And so I do not shower.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: No, no, no. But, you know, it's not like, it's not higher up. Like, I could get away maybe just, like, a quick shower once a morning, but I don't have to, like, do another thing at night or whatever. Yes.
[00:26:01] Speaker B: And this little things like that. Or, you know, with the house. I personally like the house to be just at a certain baseline when I wake up in the morning. I don't like to see, like, anything, like, leftover from the day before. It doesn't have to be immaculate. Neither one of us are people who need it to be immaculate, but I just like it to be kind of picked up when I start my morning. It's kind of puts me in the right head space. And so for him, he's not exactly like that all the time. He doesn't have to have it that way. He can kind of just wake up and tend to. If I had to communicate that, for me, that really helps my morning out by seeing it a little bit more organized and clean. So it was kind of just a process of talking it through and hearing each other out on what's important, what's not important for each person.
[00:26:43] Speaker A: I think one other big one for that was, like, our social life. So for me, I have to get out of the house. I feel like I feel the urge for that a lot more frequently than Shailene.
[00:26:54] Speaker B: Oh, yes. I could stay in the house forever and ever or just, like, say, my little circle. So I go to the library with the boys, I can go to, like, a park. But, like, leaving this little circle, everything is about probably, like, five to ten minutes from us. Like, our nearest park.
[00:27:10] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:27:11] Speaker B: Our nearest library is, like, two minutes from us.
[00:27:13] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:27:14] Speaker B: Even less is you could literally walk to the library. That's how close it is.
[00:27:17] Speaker A: Restaurants within a walk.
[00:27:18] Speaker B: Oh, yes. So I am very, very comfortable staying in my little bubble. But he likes to explore more and, like, be more social, and so that's important for him that we at least, like, get out, like, with our date nights, getting out and about. And not just kind of sticking at home. Yeah, getting out there.
[00:27:36] Speaker A: But before we communicated that with each other, like, even before this, like, way earlier in our marriage, she had no idea that when I was just cooped up for too long and I wasn't saying anything. I was just trying to please you, but I was like, you're holding all that in, and it leads to stuff like not wanting to do the other stuff on this list, for example. So you have to communicate with each other and communicate the importance of the stuff that you're needing for yourself as an individual.
[00:28:02] Speaker B: Yes. And one thing I want to add before we move on to the next one is even if you're single, important to communicate the important. So even if it's just writing it down for yourself so you can see what's important to you, because sometimes you might just think in your head, oh, I want to do this, or I need to do this, but communicate it with yourself. Write it down, put use the notes app on your phone, whatever you need to do to make sure you know in your face what's important to you.
[00:28:27] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:29] Speaker A: The next one is schedule the importance. Yes.
[00:28:32] Speaker B: So sorry, I'm looking at my notes.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: You're fine. So some things are scheduled, and some things are part of our daily. Our weekly or monthly routines. Yes.
[00:28:42] Speaker B: So, for us, when I think of scheduled, I kind of think of things that have an actual time and date. So, like, for this weekend, you have a speaking engagement. You have to be at three. That's something that we would schedule.
[00:28:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Other things, like when we're recording the podcast, we have a lot of hands on deck. When we record the podcast, we have people coming over. We're ordering stuff. We have to do a lot of things to make sure it's prepped. And so that's something that we schedule. And so one of the routines we're getting back to is planning out our month for April. We neglected to do our monthly meeting, and so it's like, oh, yeah, I have this.
I have a baby shower to go.
[00:29:19] Speaker A: Wait, hold on. We forgot this.
[00:29:20] Speaker B: Oh, wait. Wasn't there something on Sunday that we had to do? And so it was a whole bunch of, again, living in that crisis quadrant, and we were not able to fully, or I guess we were able to do what we had to do, but we were, like, running on empty to do it. And so it was just a lot of going here, going there, and so it was really crazy. And so we're going back for this month, I guess, in a few days to schedule out this month, at least put on the calendar those dates that. Okay, dates and times we have to be somewhere or days and times that are important. Another thing that we like to schedule is date night, because that's another thing that requires all hands on deck and so we want to make sure we have that scheduled out as well.
[00:30:03] Speaker A: I can't wait till we get to the stage of life where we don't need to schedule it so orderly because we could either take the kids with us and we know that they don't need a nap in the middle of.
[00:30:12] Speaker B: It or just right now because their kids have such different needs. Our moms are more comfortable kind of doing one on one. So whenever we do something, we have to have both moms here. So it's like, okay, we have to work with their schedules and our schedules, and so times, it just makes it a little more difficult. But it'll be nice when both boys kind of are both, like, eating lunch, both, taking a nap, both. And so it's kind of more one person can watch them versus having everyone all hands on deck every single time we want to just go on a date night or something.
[00:30:44] Speaker A: Hey, don't you use that app? That to do app?
[00:30:47] Speaker B: Yes. That's what I was going to talk about with the rest of the.
[00:30:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I was like, I remember that.
[00:30:49] Speaker B: Yes. So the next thing we'll talk about is with our kind of routines and rhythms. And so these are kind of things that we want to get done either weekly or daily or monthly, but we don't exactly have, like, a time and date for it, but we know needs to get done. And so certain things are like rhythms. Like every night, these certain. At a certain point in the night, we need to, you know, put the dishes in the dishwasher, wipe down the counters, vacuum and sweep. And those are kind of like our nightly routines. Our daily routines. Things we have to get done. In addition to that, I have kind of a to do list that I have, that these are the things that help me feel like an actual human. And I won't go through the whole to do list because it's a little bit embarrassing with the stuff that I have to have my list to do.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: It's baseline stuff.
[00:31:33] Speaker B: It's baseline. But I've learned, as a parent, especially as a mom, I think it's very, very easy to neglect yourself as a mom. And so your kids needs are. A lot of times it feels like your kids needs are always in that crisis zone. So it's like, oh, I need to feed him, I need to do this, I need to do that. And because I'm always just jumping from their need to their need, I forget about myself. And I felt like in March and April, I was essentially becoming like a shell of myself because every part of me was focused on someone else, whether it was getting stuff for the podcast, getting stuff for the clients, getting stuff for the boys, getting stuff for you. And it was just like everyone else to get taken care of, but I wasn't. And so part of my daily routine is I use the to do Apple, a Microsoft app. And basically it has a kind of a rescheduling of things you want to do every day. And so a couple of, like, really baseline stuff is like doing my face routine in the morning and night, getting 20 minutes of intentional movement, whether that's doing an exercise video or going on a walk, but just little things that help me feel like me getting enough water in because I'm nursing right now, as well as just staying hydrated, taking my vitamin D. So there's certain things on there that I just was neglecting for the last few months. And if I'm not functioning, then how can I take care of other people? If I'm on empty, how can I give to others? And so I had to look at kind of what I was doing with the review part of our review, part of our steps that we did. I had to look at what I was doing and see, okay, what do I need to do in order to feel fully human?
[00:33:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:33:14] Speaker A: Whenever you see the shell of someone, how they usually are, it's quite sad because it's like, oh, man. Like, they're really going through it. But the thing I always tell Shailen is like, oh, I'm trying to remind y'all too, is you have to check in on your spouse. Because I feel like oftentimes mothers will. I always say that you're like putting on superwoman.
[00:33:36] Speaker B: Yes. And I think we sometimes. I didn't mean to dress.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: No, you're fine.
[00:33:40] Speaker B: I think we sometimes do, and we sometimes make it look easier than it is.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: Yes, that's what it is.
[00:33:46] Speaker B: And if we're, like, going through a hard time, we kind of just, like, grin and bear it and just go through it. And so that argument we had, the beginning that we talked about, the beginning that we had, just because I was running on empty and you were kind of just running on empty, too, it was necessary because we had to reconnect and talk with it, then say, okay, what needs of mine are not being met? What needs of yours are not being met? How can we have routines and rhythms that allow these things to get met?
[00:34:12] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:34:12] Speaker B: So that's, I think for each person they to figure out what works for them. We have very flexible schedules, which is like a blessing and a curse as in. It's a blessing because we can pretty much schedule our days however we want to schedule them in most cases. But if we kind of lose track of things or we save too many things the last minute, it can be a very, very, very overwhelming day. And so we have to be so intentional with scheduling, like, what work is going to be done in each day and even, like, when work is going to be done, because if not, it could really kind of get out of hand.
[00:34:51] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:34:52] Speaker A: Despite how easy your spouse makes it look. Yeah, I'm really glad we had that scuffle because she makes even the hardest scheduling for work and all the tasks she has to do, she makes it look quite easy, like, she's always put together and she's not losing it. But, yeah, so when, when you admitted, oh, my gosh, I'm worrying about all these things, and you don't see any of this stuff I'm doing behind the scenes. And I think that's very dangerous for the other spouse to not realize and to not know that. And so just check in on your.
[00:35:29] Speaker B: Spouse that's back with communicating. The employee also communicate what's going on. Like, communication is important. So before you even schedule, talk about what's going on, make sure you do that first step and review, and then communicate the important. Then after that, once you do that, then you can start scheduling stuff. And so one other thing we did with the scheduling is working with our natural energies because we are able to kind of schedule out our time. James has a much easier time staying up. I have a much easier time waking up early. And so in order to balance that out, to make sure we get stuff done, if James has something that he has to get done, then it's like, okay, you go ahead and stay up, and then you can go ahead and sleep in a bit, and I'll take care of the boys in the morning, or I will wake up early, but I will go to bed early, and James will take care of, like, making sure the house is picked up and back to baseline. So the communication stage is not just a one time thing, but it's kind of a constant back and forth.
[00:36:27] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:36:28] Speaker B: So then the next thing is to, once you schedule out everything to just do it. So just be disciplined and actually do what you set out to do. So if you have a routine that you're setting up to do, just do that routine. If you have a something you're scheduled to do, just gotta do it. As you see, both of us are not 100%. We're both kind of sickly. But we have on the schedule that we're doing the podcast today. If we were like on our deathbed, obviously we wouldn't do it, but, okay. But since we're a little bit, just a little bit stuffy, we're like, you know what? The moms are already scheduled. We're gonna go ahead and do it. So whatever you have on your list, make that a non negotiable, make that something that, okay. My little to do thing, which is like my skincare, my 20 minutes of intentional movement, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to fit this in in the day, and I'm not going to let this day in until I get these things done.
[00:37:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:37:22] Speaker A: And truly let non negotiables be truly that. Do not make any exceptions, do not make excuses. Because then you're going to start to just meander your way out. So you have to, like, truly treat it as a non negotiable. This has to be done or it's going to start to throw off the schedule. It's going to start to throw off the rhythm, the routine. So stick to it and label it as such. If it truly is that for you. Yes.
[00:37:44] Speaker B: And another line that I heard from someone on a podcast is hard is not the same thing as bad. And so just because what you have to do is hard, this is a hard season. We are both kind of working multiple jobs. We have the podcast, we have the boys. We're kind of, it's easy to be all over the place, or it's easy to feel overwhelmed with all we have to do. But just because God is calling us to hard things doesn't mean it's a bad thing. Doesn't mean it's anything that we shouldn't be doing. And so in this season, or if you're in a busy season and you're just trying to make sure you get everything done, you're feeling slightly overwhelmed, sometimes you're just in an overwhelming season. Doesn't mean sometimes we do need to eliminate stuff. Sometimes we can't eliminate certain things. And so we need to make sure that we don't just neglect things because it's hard. We need to still go through it because hard is not the same thing as bad.
[00:38:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I think to your point, it's. You're constantly reevaluating, like, what can be tweaked, what can be eliminated, what can be added now, because there is a little bit more leeway. So it's. Yeah, I think it's not every season is going to be as hard. Not every season is going to be as easy, but it's just kind of assessing where you're at and what's going on in your life, your spouse's life, your family's life. Yeah.
[00:39:05] Speaker B: So that was like, our last step is to evaluate. And so when you first start doing this, you review, you communicate, you schedule, you do it, and you actually are disciplined in doing it. Evaluate what's going on. Is this sustainable? Is there anything I need to outsource? Like, for us, we realized that every week we just were not getting to the deep cleaning, and we might be able to get our house back to a certain baseline. But, you know, we need help with making sure everything is certain things are more deeply clean. We want to get into the details, but, you know, certain areas, you need to be more deeply clean than others. And so we looked at our budget, we looked at kind of what we were doing. We saw that at least maybe once a quarter, maybe even once a month, having someone come in and just do the really good deep cleaning of our house, and we just kind of maintain what that is.
[00:39:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:39:54] Speaker B: And then with the evaluation, you can also see, what do I need to eliminate? Like, you're doing it, but if you're doing it and you're not able to accomplish all you want to accomplish, or you feel like at the end of the week, even though you're accomplishing your task, you're just feeling really drained, then there might be something that you're doing that you shouldn't be doing. And so if you need to eliminate, feel free to do that. But I would say first schedule, be disciplined, get it done. And then at the end, maybe at the end of your first week of, like, being disciplined and getting everything done, see if there's anything you can maybe outsource and have someone else do, if that makes more sense or something that you maybe just need to eliminate from your schedule and it's not really serving you, not serving your family, and so just kind of constantly being in that evaluation stage.
[00:40:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:40:43] Speaker A: You know what's interesting, babe, is when you do all these steps, it kind of prevents marriage but also prevents family life from becoming mundane because it opens you up to assessing. Is there an opportunity for improvement, for growth, for inserting something fun? But if you don't ever get to doing these steps, you do fall prey to just doing status quo over and over again. But kind of like in a crisis kind of way of doing it. Right.
[00:41:10] Speaker B: So it's like no one really feels fulfilled. Yeah. You're kind of just living in that quadrant one life, you're living in that crisis mode. And so if you're just kind of going from thing to thing. And sometimes when you do that, you end up neglecting some stuff that actually is important, but it's not urgent, so it gets neglected. And then also, you maybe don't have. You don't see where you can have that room for maybe a spontaneous.
[00:41:36] Speaker A: Yeah, because it's. Everything's too chaotic to see clearly.
[00:41:39] Speaker B: And so, like, if someone says, oh, do you guys want to, like, hang out this weekend? You like, I don't know. Because you don't have a schedule out. And so this, like, this week, we have a friend asks to hang out. We already talked about our schedule for this month. It's like, okay, yes, we have time during this time to do it so we can say yes and feel at peace with saying yes because the important stuff is schedule.
[00:41:59] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:42:00] Speaker B: But when the important stuff is not scheduled, that's when you don't know if you say yes or you say yes, start feeling like you regretting it, because I still need to do XYZ. And so it kind of gives you that freedom to say yes to new opportunities because the important is schedule, and you have a routine and rhythm to get the important done.
[00:42:17] Speaker A: That's beautiful. It's beautiful. Once you employ these steps, guys, it's going to change your life. It really is. I'm not exaggerating about that. It really is. Is gonna make your life clearer. And the way you approach each day a lot less stressful. And you'll approach each day with just a fun attitude, an optimistic attitude, and not, like, an attitude of dread. And what do I have to take care of? What's on my plate today or this week and stuff like that.
[00:42:43] Speaker B: And the reason why. The last thing I'll end within this segment, the f is for segment, is the reason why it's so important to be intentional about our dates is because I said this in the first episode. But our days make up our weeks. Our weeks make up our months. Our months make up our years, and our years make up our lives. And so if we want to live lives that have meaning or accomplish the things we want to accomplish in our lives, then we need to make sure our days have purpose, and our days are intentional.
[00:43:15] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:43:16] Speaker B: Which leads us to our final takeaway.
So our final takeaway for this episode is that we live days of purpose in order to live lives of purpose. And so, like I said just a bit ago, we. How we spend our days essentially shows how we spend our lives. And so, as christians, we don't want to be wasting our time. We want to be intentional about our time and so that we are able to accomplish all that God has us to accomplish.
[00:43:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's beautiful. I think when you really do realize that your life is finite, time is really a precious commodity. You reevaluate what is most important in your life, what is most important for you and your spouse, what is most important, important for your family. And it forces you to really prioritize, putting them first, getting everything in the proper rhythm, the proper routine, and that allows you to tackle the other stuff in life that you want to tackle. I think a lot of people, when they get into fatherhood, motherhood, or even just getting into a new relationship, you don't have to say goodbye to the goals that you had prior or the desires you had prior, but they can very easily stay on the back burner if you don't learn how to just have everything where it needs to be in your life.
[00:44:48] Speaker B: Being intentional scheduling those out. And so a quote that I really like, it's by Les Brown. I don't know who Les Brown is, but I found this quote a few years ago and I loved it, so I wanted to kind of end with this quote. So it talks about, essentially, the end of our lives. And it says, the graveyard is the richest place on earth because it is here that you find all the hopes and dreams that were never fulfilled, the books that were never written, the songs that were never sung, the inventions that were never shared, the cures that were never discovered, and all because someone was too afraid to take the first step, keep up with the problem, or determined to carry out their dream. And so when I read that quote, it just reminds me that I need to make sure I live days of purpose and so that I can essentially, metaphorically, die empty. I don't want. I don't want my graveyard to be rich. I don't want your graveyard to be rich. I don't want our family's graveyards to be rich. I want us to leave everything out there and make the most of this time that we have on earth.
[00:45:53] Speaker C: Yes. Yes.
[00:45:55] Speaker A: What I absolutely love about you, babe, is you allow us to really strive for that. You remind me daily that it's very easy to get distracted, and it's very easy to just fall prey to what the world says is all you need to be happy. But no, we are living a purposeful life. We are living a life for so much more than just short term happiness. And that is such a great, crazy good quote. I don't want to reach the end of life and have so many things I did not attempt or did not try. The same with you, the same with the boys. I want us to have expelled all of our energy and our efforts in a godly way.
[00:46:38] Speaker B: Of course. We're not going to run ourselves ragged, not have room for rest. Rest is part of the equation. Rest is part of the rhythm, part of the margin. But it's more of the ideas I have. Am I not accomplishing things because I am wasting time with social media? Am I not accomplishing things without trying to always watch my newest show? Not saying that those things are wrong, but if those things are hindering me from accomplishing those God given things, those God given dreams, then I need to look and I need to evaluate and figure out what needs to be eliminated or what needs to be greatly reduced.
[00:47:11] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:47:12] Speaker B: And so essentially, I want to end on for anyone who's watching this, like, where do I start? Just kind of look at the next right thing. We of our, we all have the same goal of living days of purpose so that we can live lives of purpose. Maybe you need to start at just reviewing. Maybe you're just like us and you were very chaotic and you need to figure out what's going on. Review and figure out where you are. Maybe you've already kind of reviewed and you need to communicate to your yourself and write a list of those important things. Wherever you are, take that next step and just have that goal of living an intentional day so that you can live an intentional life.
[00:47:49] Speaker A: Definitely. If you guys have any ideas or if you need help with any ideas on how to get started with any of these next steps, drop a comment, shoot us a DM on any of our socials, and we'd be more than happy to kind of just work with you. One thing that I find cool, and I always tell Shailen, this, is every time I get a, every time we get our joint account, a DM, a word of encouragement, or just something like, y'all are really changing my life in this regard. It's the craziest thing because you don't think that just doing this little podcast can make such a difference. But we get those things more frequently now, and it's like, oh, my goodness. And whether it's from a colleague or a student or some random person, there's some random people that I don't know, like who they are, but I'm like, if it's reaching them and they got something out of it. It's truly becoming what our prayer was for this podcast, which is a ministry. Yes.
[00:48:43] Speaker B: That is our ultimate goal here is, one, to be a ministry to other people. And then two, we want to help you guys. So, like you said, don't be afraid to connect with us. Let us know what parts are blessing you and really are encouraging you. And we want to give you more of what helps you and what encourages you in your journey, because we're all in this together.
[00:49:05] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:49:06] Speaker A: And with that, I think we're going to wrap up this episode. Another beautiful episode. I can't wait for next month.
[00:49:11] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:49:12] Speaker A: And until next month, you guys be blessed and have a wonderful, wonderful month ahead. Take care. Bye, guys.
