Walk Diva Walk
Walk Diva Walk
EP 27: Getting Your Time Back! A Single Mom's Guide
As a single mom, I've often felt like a juggler, balancing a dozen balls in the air, hoping none of them would drop. Time was always my enemy, until I learned the art of mastering it. I'm sharing my secrets to meal prepping, building a schedule, and operating with the strength of a good support system . With these tools, you'll soon find more time for your family, your purpose, and for living life to the fullest. It's more than just time management, it's about shaping your life. We'll explore how to take control of your time, how to shift your mindset, and how to design the life you've been yearning for. Get ready to redefine your relationship with time, to pursue your dreams, and to live an abundant life!
Hey y'all. Hey, it's your girl, dr Mary L Boy, the reposition specialist. You are listening to the Walk Deva Walk podcast. This podcast is for you, the woman, specifically the black woman, who's had enough. Enough of saying no to your kids because you can't afford it. How about robbing Peter to pay Paul, working two or three jobs just to make ends meet? Enough of running from your God-given purpose and enough of just being sick and tired of being sick and tired. On this journey. With the Walk Deva Walk podcast, I will help you overcome your past, face your present and walk into your God-given, purposed future, so you can support your family the way that you desire, live in abundance and overflow. Live birth to that God-given purpose, giving birth to your dreams and desires. How about travel and experience the world in ways that you and your family will never forget? Have joy and peace so you can live. Are you ready? Let's walk. Hey Deva, hey girl, get your life. It is time for you to get your life in order. Okay, it is time for you to manage your time and do the things that you need to do.
Speaker 1:So listen, you know that you want better. You know you want more. You got something that you want to build, you want to make money. You got the size of a gig that you want to do, but you sitting up here saying, mary, how are I supposed to do all of that? I work. I got two, three, four kids. They got all the things that they have to do, the extracurricular stuff. I'm stuck in traffic for an hour going, an hour coming. It's only 24 hours a day. How am I supposed to do this? So, listen, I'm going to help you get your life today. Okay, that is what this is about. You're going to get your life, get it in order, so you can leave that excuse off the table and move into what you're supposed to do. Now. Time management is a big thing. You hear people talk about. Oh, my time management, my time management, I don't have enough time. I'm going to give you some tips that's going to help you with that. So, for those of you that have children, okay, it's all about planning and it's real simple stuff. It really is. If you think about it, you be like, oh, when I tell you, it's going to say that makes sense.
Speaker 1:So I remember being a single mom and I had moved away. I moved to Atlanta and I was going through the same thing, y'all. I was late to everything. Okay, my girlfriend calls me the mad dasher because I was late and I remember I started working and the job was good. We had to be to work at eight o'clock. I swear I would get there like at 8.15. All the time I just I felt like I couldn't get it together, and so this job kind of had a strict time in attendance policy, and so the supervisor, he really liked me and he said okay, mary, it says, you can't seem to get here at eight o'clock, I'm going to push your start time back to 8.30. Now I was grateful for that, but that meant I got off a half an hour later. Well, I had to pick my son up by six o'clock and the distance with the traffic in Atlanta from my job to where I lived at that time, it could take me an hour to an hour and a half to get home. So I said, oh my God, how is that going to work? What am I going to do? So fortunately, I'm telling you, god is so good. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:The daycare was right on these apartments that I lived in and the gate the daycare was on the backside of the apartment, so they had two entrances. It was a front entrance and a back entrance and if you went out the back entrance, the daycare literally it felt like it was connected to the apartment complex. It was right there and one of actually his teacher that kept him because at this time he was a little over one that kept him lived in my subdivision. So I asked her and the funny part is her name was Mary too and I asked her. I said, listen, is there a way for you to keep him until I get here? Because the daycare charged $5 for every five minutes that you were late. I'm like, okay, I know I'm not going to get here until 6.30, 6.45. It was no way. It was no way and I'm like I'm not paying $35, $40 every single day. That was ridiculous. And she agreed so when it was time for release she would just keep him. And even when he moved to the toddler room when he became a toddler, she still did that. So it took a village.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, I was called the mad dasher, okay, and I'll say something has to give. And I called my mom. Yeah, I would say I came up with all of this on my own, but I'm telling you my mama had a lot to do with it. And I said listen? I said I don't know. I don't know how I'm going to keep this job because I'm always late. Traffic I just feel like I'm running behind trying to get my son ready, and so one of the things. And then getting home, let me say this other thing too getting home, having to get him and get dinner and do all the things that I had to do, it was just a lot. And especially when he became school age like school, elementary school, and I had to do homework and all of that I said, oh, this was crazy.
Speaker 1:So my mom said first of all, you need to cook for the week. So that's tip number one cook for the week. So on Sunday I made two meals I made an oven meal and I made a stove top meal. So for example, let's say, I made a pot of spaghetti, which is what you cook on the stove, but then I threw some chicken in the oven so that it cooked itself. Or I did a stove top meal and a crock pot meal, something that cooked itself. I did that on Sunday and that is what we ate through the week. Now some of y'all are going to have to get over.
Speaker 1:I don't eat leftovers because I think that's just utterly ridiculous. Who's cooking every day? Who has time? You, a single mama, you got time to cook every single day. Nah, that don't work. And so and I found that it's worked because when I got home I can just warm up and it was better and healthier instead of running through drive-thrus number one unhealthy and not cost effective if you're doing it all the time. So cook at least two meals. So then, what we ate Monday, we ate Tuesday. So we ate a meal or anything you wanted. I would mix and match. But Monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday and typically the weekend, you know we ate out or picked up something to go, or I had little little stuff in the house. You know that we would eat on. But dinner, dinner. I cooked two meals on Sunday. That saved me so much time and stress. The other thing I had to start doing, and this was a muscle that I had to work on. Okay, I had to strengthen this muscle because it's not naturally me Getting your clothes and everything ready the night before.
Speaker 1:And for your children, you can take it a step further and get their clothes ready for the week. So you have washed if you needed to, you earn five outfits for the week. If they're in like kindergarten or preschool and they still need change of clothes, you've gotten all of that, everything ready for them for the week. You know what they're wearing Monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday Okay, easy peasy. So then, when you're getting them up because you know how they do, sometimes you got to fight with the kids to get them out of bed, because sometimes you got to fight yourself to get out of bed, right, and so if you overslept you jumped up. It was still like, oh my God, I'm overslept, but a little less stressful because you already know what the kids are wearing. But then you have to add that to your process. And, ladies, I know that can be hard because some of y'all get up, say you're going to wear one thing, put it on, change your mind, take it off, and then you change clothes five times to figure out what you're wearing. You got to get over that too.
Speaker 1:Okay, if you put yourself together, you get everything together the night before. If you have an idea of what you want to wear for the week, then get five outfits ready and then pick and choose between the five outfits. But at least you have five outfits ready. You have everything done that night. I don't care bra, panties, stockings, slip, girdle, reshaper, whatever it is, everything, shoes laid out. You aren't trying to guess, you aren't trying to figure it out, okay, because you know if you do your makeup. Lay your makeup out, because you already know what outfit you're going to wear. So you already know your makeup choices that you have. It's just little things like that. So when you get up in the morning, it's, it's you, you're good, and then when you get home in the evening, you don't have to worry about it, right, you don't have to worry about it at all, and that has saved you hours. It has saved you hours of your time.
Speaker 1:The other thing is try to have a schedule, right. You have to know how much time that you are going to dedicate to you, whether it's an hour a night, whether it's two hours a night of going and and figuring things out of the things that you want to do. You have to have a schedule and you have to stick to the schedule, and you also have to share your schedule with those that affect your schedule, okay. So tip number four, outside of just having a schedule, is share it, because there are people that affect your time, whether it's a spouse, a sister, a bestie, somebody that called you every night between seven and eight Some you know. I talk to my mom every night at nine o'clock, whatever it is.
Speaker 1:You have to share your schedule because if you are supposed to be working on you, then you need to focus on you, so you can't talk about the latest show on TV and what the housewives are doing or the rappers are doing or the models are doing or the next latest and greatest series that's going on during the time that you supposed to be working on you. See the people you talking about making their money. They live in their dream. Why you still trying to figure it out. So Tina can't call you at seven, because at seven o'clock, from seven to nine, is your time. So you have to let Tina. Tina, girl, I know we be talking. I know you normally call me about seven, 30, but I'm changing my schedule from seven to nine. I am not available. If I won't even answer the phone, my phone going to be on silent. I probably won't even know that you call. So, unless the house is on fire, somebody to die. I'll figure it out after nine o'clock, okay, but you have to let those that affect you know.
Speaker 1:The other thing is get some help. I had help and there's somebody that you can rely on. Find somebody If you have to have somebody to take Johnny to football practice for you because you have something else that you have to do, or you have to take on the football practice, but while you're there, you're working on some things for you and not just sitting and watching. It's so many different time management tricks and tips that I will give you and I'll continue to give you as we go down this journey. But you got to get your life and stop making excuses.
Speaker 1:Get your time in order. Your time management has to get better in order for you to do all the things that you want to do. It doesn't have to be stressful Sometimes. Yes, it's going to be overwhelming, but you're going to get through it. Yes, sometimes you may have some sleepless nights, but you're going to get through that too. But if you put little things in place, it won't be as much and you will be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 1:So I just came here to tell you, girl, get your life, get it together, get it in order. We got things to do, people to see, places to go and money to make. So get your time management together. I'm going to put a resource. Click the link in the description. There will be a resource link to a time management book called Time Management Becoming the Best you and yes, it's by yours truly. It's going to give you more tips and tricks to be able to manage it all. So start by doing the little things, thinking about them, making your tasks list, all of that. You will start to see a difference. So I love you, girl. Ain't nothing you can do about it? Be blessed, live all purpose and let's walk All right.
Speaker 1:Divas, what an episode. Did I hit you in the head with one of those bricks? Did you go out? Did you have the ducking cover? I know you went running around the house checking for cameras, looking under the bed, looking out the window to see if I was watching, because I was all in your business. I was on your street and in your lane. It's okay, though. It lets you know that you're not alone. I hope that something that you heard resonated with you and, as a result, you are starting to reposition your mind so you can have the life that you want to live. Now, that's not all I have for you guys. Not just what was in the podcast, but now I want to give you a gift. Go to wwwStopDrowningAndWincom To receive the seven steps every Black woman must take this year to break free and live her dreams once and for all. You will also have an opportunity to connect with our community Again. You are not alone. The work is just beginning. Are you ready? Let's walk.