I don’t know about you, but summer ended hard and fast this year. I was nowhere near ready to go back to work. We had the most fun summer traveling all over to see family.  My brain still hasn’t quite registered that I am back to work and that school starts today!

Being a working mom feels like running on a hamster wheel and only getting off to sleep {if your kid lets you} I’m sure being a stay at home mom feels that way too. This isn’t a comparison or judgement post. It’s just me talkin’ about my life. Add to working full time, a toddler, a hubby who is busting his butt coaching baseball and not home a ton, and my side hustle that’s growing into a main hustle pretty quickly, I look at my to do list and my calendar and just…shake my head.

I used to react to this in two different ways:

1) Put on my “Super Mom” cape and try to tackle it all. You know, roll up your sleeves and get dirty, Nicole. You can totally do it all AND make it Pinterest-worthy if you just try a little harder…if you were just a little better at… everything

Or

2) Curl up in an overwhelmed, anxious ball on the couch and let my kid binge watch Daniel Tiger…then give myself a guilt trip about said binge-watching sesh later that night.

UGH!  I drove myself crazy trying option 1 and honestly, I don’t believe there is a woman out there who can do it all, every day, all the time. And option 2 was just … bleh.

So, as I enter into this next school year and season of chaos, I am trying something new. I am really looking at ways I can simplify and streamline my life. I refuse to hustle for some standard of perfection that only exists in my head and on some stupid Pinterest board. I am practicing having grace with myself, and my family.

Without further ado, here is part 1 of Simplifying Back To School: Outsourcing

Yes, I’m starting with outsourcing. Because why not get rid of things on your plate before you try and figure out how to accomplish all the things on said plate?

DO LESS! I REPEAT, DO LESS, MAMA.

1. A big piece of this is asking for help. Every night since I’ve been back to work I  have sent a text to my husband before he comes home with the things I need him to help out with when he gets home. It’s not a long “honey do list” but a short list of the things that would be most helpful to me that night. It normally looks like this:

“Hey babe. Excited to see you tonight! When you get home it would be really helpful for me if you could do bath time, make Austin’s lunch and do the dishes.”

I have learned that my dear husband cannot read my mind, so when I am hoping he will come home, scan the house for all the things that need to get done and get to work.. I am setting myself up for disappointment and our relationship up for…a fight. AND, he is much more receptive to my text than to me bombarding him as he walks through the door.

2) I bought a {faux} Roomba. You know the robot vacuum. IT IS LIFE CHANGING! For real. Not once since I bought it have a looked at the floors and thought, Ugh! I need to vacuum. It handles Sadie’s dog hair and my toddler like a CHAMP. You can find the version is got here . It  is an ECOVACS  DEEBOT and it was 100000000% worth the investment.

3) Let someone else grocery shop for you. If you have Instacart in your area, do yourself a favor and sign up for the membership. The $15 a month pays for itself from the impulse buys I’m NOT spending on. I’m also able to see the total in my cart before getting to the checkout line so there are no surprises and I can take out the bag of chips if I’m over budget. This weekend, I ordered and received my groceries while wearing my most comfortable robe and for a second I felt like a sloth. And then I felt, BRILLIANT. There are some drawbacks; the shoppers don’t always get it right. But you can leave notes so I’m learning to be more specific. Grocery shopping takes so much time out of my weekend and while I actually enjoy it most of the time, I’d rather spend that time on other things at this stage of my life. If you want to try, use this code for $10 off! NTWOHIG178

(*if you don’t have instacart, many other stores deliver or do pick up service so look!)

4) Find things that little man can do by himself! He is old enough now and eager to “do it myself”, so I’m looking for ways to have him help out. This morning, he opened the back door to let the dog out to pee. He grabbed his yogurt tube from the fridge himself; and he opened the front door for me on our way out. {He also insisted on being held the entire time I was doing my makeup, so don’t think I’ve got it all figured out} Having him do for himself saves a few minutes here and there that add up to a lot of time. It also teaches him to be responsible and self-sufficient so it’s a win-win.

5) WE HIRED A HOUSE CLEANER! Hubs and I sat down and figured out where in the budget we could make it work and it is soooooo worth it. Do not feel ashamed about hiring someone to clean your toilets, girl. It is freedom.

6) If I had the budget, I would order Freshly  every week for my lunches. Delicious, healthy and NO PREP. I might still splurge on crazy busy weeks and I’m definitely keeping it in my back pocket for when I start making the big bucks. I’m lucky enough to work at a high school that serves amazing food in the cafeteria, so I am allowing myself to buy 2 meals a week just to relieve some of the stress of making lunches (more on that in Part 2 coming soon!) Click the link above for $40 off your first 2 weeks of Freshly.

**Bonus: Did you know a lot of thrift stores will PICK UP YOUR DONATIONS!? I just scheduled a pick up for the PILE of stuff I just keep “forgetting” to donate. They are gonna do it for me. Check that off the list!

Seriously ladies, what can you outsource? What tasks give you the biggest headache, or do you just dread the most? What is the thing that has been on your to do list for like…over a year… who can do it for you? There is no shame in letting someone else do it for you. Let go of the idea that you have to do it all. Asking for help was excruciating for me for a long time. I felt incompetent and lazy and definitely like a terrible wife/mom if I couldn’t do it all by myself. But that’s just plain ridiculous and I’m here to tell you there is light at the end of that tunnel.

So when you find yourself shaking your head at your to do list, before you try and fit it all in, try and get rid of some of it first.

Oh, and also, maybe some of those “to do’s” just don’t need to be on the list at all. They take up mental space and energy. Only put the really necessary stuff on the “list”!