My Recent Life Raft

We hosted a clothing swap for moms who participated in the Sugar Hill New Mom’s Group that I started six years ago. Towards the end of the event, I was chatting with some of the moms and I said for a while my life felt like it was being run like an under-resourced non-profit; I was serving as the CEO, COO, snack maker, meal prepper, mom, wife, and more. Then I said, “Well until like six months ago.”

Turns out, it was only three months ago that my quality of life significantly increased. I’ve written about the best $7500 I spend every year, but this next decision has been a game changer in a very short period of time. It has allowed me to get more done across every channel of my life…and I’ve got a lot of channels. 😌 It’s also given me the opportunity to build new systems and standard operating procedures for my life so that I can delegate more and do less for routine and redundant tasks.

Can you guess the decision that I made?

Zadie and I at the Balloon Museum earlier this month

I hired an Executive Assistant (EA).

So much of our existence as mothers centers on our supernatural ability to parent and be logistics wizards among all of the other identities that we hold. The weight of birthday party planning, meal planning, extracurricular activity coordinating, managing our personal finances, our jobs, and family relationships can be a very heavy load.

Bringing on my EA  has allowed me to share the weight so that I can focus on high ROI (return on investment) activities with my family and within my businesses.

This is a screen grab of what my EA took off my plate one day in December

Here is a snippet of my user manual that the firm wrote for me based on what I shared with them. I now get to share the manual with anyone that works with me so that they can get better acquainted with how I work. It also helped the firm identify a great match in my EA.

I know you might be thinking, “Love that for you, Petrushka. I’m not getting an Executive Assistant because these childcare prices are enough.”

Trust me, I overstand.

BUT, what I will say is if you are self-employed, running a company (yours or someone else’s), or you work in a leadership role at your job where you are constantly making sure everyone is performing so the company goals get met, you need an executive assistant.

I ended up working with a firm called Athena to find my EA and I have been very pleased with their matching process and onboarding. My EA works virtually, but that has not prevented us from making great strides towards the goals I have for the year. 

So, I’m shooting you this hump day message to encourage you to delegate more in your life and if you are in a position to bring on an EA, do it.

We get one life. Our job is to make it great. Waste less time being maxed out by things that you can delegate. Increase the quality of your life by employing the help of an Executive Assistant.

Have a great rest of the week! See you on Sunday.

With love,

Petrushka
Your Local Ice Cream Lady & Life/Business Coach

P.S. Save the date for the SHMOM Spring picnic. We will send a new link closer to the time to get a more accurate RSVP. Our next round of SHMOMS starts on March 14th. Tell a neighbor or a friend.