“I hate housework. You make the beds, you wash the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again.”
—Joan Rivers
Comedian, actress, writer, producer,
and television host
If there’s one thing that impresses us about women, it’s how good they are at juggling the fifty-seven things they have to think about in a day. Not only does this make you a natural multitasker, it makes you a born prioritizer, too.
So why do some priorities rise to the top of your list while more important ones get pushed down to oblivion?
Values.
Everyone has two or three very high-value systems they focus on. For example, if you naturally think about and spend energy on your family and your field (career), those are your two highest value systems. If you find it difficult completing tasks related to finance and fitness, these are likely your two lowest value systems.
Luckily for the world, everybody’s high and low value systems are different. It’s why some women feel called to be home with the kids, while others feel an inner pull to crush it in the workplace. This uniqueness and authenticity keeps the world from being a boring place.
However, values are still the major drivers of our actions.
While you might never slack off where it matters most, you can get really lazy when it comes to lower valued activities. Are we right? You don’t procrastinate with things you value, but you do procrastinate with the stuff you don’t care about.
This is basic human nature, of course, but living Oola means you have to pay attention to it all. You have to find a way to overcome laziness so that a failure in a low-value area of your life (for example, poor finances or a loss of health), doesn’t affect your high-value areas like Family and Field, along with the rest of the 7 F’s.
NO ONE CAN DO YOUR PUSH-UPS FOR YOU
Lots of Oola Women delegate the parts of their life they’re not good at or that they don’t care about. You don’t have to be awesome at everything.
Most business owners, for example, delegate accounting, marketing, social media, and more—so the owner can focus on building the business. Sometimes, stay-at-home moms hire a housecleaner so they can focus on homeschooling or childcare.
What low-value priorities can you delegate, outsource, or assign to someone else?
Of course, there are some things you just can’t delegate: family relationships, time with your spouse, your own fitness, faith-based activities, time with friends, and time spent developing your career. Decide which parts of your life you can hand off . . . and those you can’t. Unfortunately, you can’t pay someone else to do your push-ups for you.
• • • •
SEEKING OOLA
IT STARTED WITH A CHRISTMAS CARD
by DeAnn Barth
Martha Stewart was my role model when I first started having kids and was thrown into this world of being a “stay-at-home mom.” Like Martha, my house was always spotless. My children left the house with their pacifiers always matching their outfits, and I didn’t walk out the door until my hair was perfect and I had a smile on my face. I didn’t take a single nap when I was on maternity leave. Ladies, may I repeat that again . . . not a single nap. Super mom!
On the outside, you would’ve been impressed. You would have said, “Wow! That lady has it together.” The reality was, I didn’t. As I left Martha for constantly scrolling Pinterest to find my next super-mom idea, I lost my grip on reality. I would yell at my kids if they messed up the perfectly folded laundry, and I would give my husband the evil eye if I saw his dirty clothes in a pile on the floor—actually I would just “cut him off” for a couple of weeks.
By kid number five, I couldn’t keep up anymore and I was feeling depressed. The Pinterest-perfect life had gotten the best of me and I decided to prioritize; actually, I made a conscious decision to become lazy.
It started with our Christmas card. I was running out of time. I didn’t have the kids’ outfits picked out or a photographer booked—no theme, and I had no idea about the perfect location. So, I did what I thought was best: I got lazy. I posted a picture of last year’s Christmas card on Facebook and said, “Here you go everybody: Merry Christmas, here we are from last year. We basically look the same. Feel free to print this bad boy and hang it on your fridge.” I was waiting for backlash from friends and family, but the reaction was quite the opposite and it opened the possibilities of what if.
What if lazy wasn’t all that bad. What if I cashed in the Pinterest perfect life for a life of lazy?
The next thing that fell victim to my lazy ways were leftovers and food storage. I opened the fridge to start making dinner, and way in the back I found a long-lost Tupperware container from last week. I think it was spaghetti and meatballs, but I was afraid to look. I walked over to the sink and I started to crack the patented tight seal when I remembered my Christmas card. I immediately walked over to the garbage, thought about it for a minute, hesitated, and then threw it in the trash can. Liberating. This has now become status quo. The funny thing is that this past Christmas, I got all new Tupperware; I give it six months, tops.
Laziness continued. I accidentally spilled a bag of chips in the pantry. I looked at the vacuum, smiled, and called over the dogs. Problem solved.
Folding clothes straight from the dryer, I discovered I had three unpaired socks. Rather than search for their mates, I threw them away. More lazy.
The dishwasher just finished running, but I have one dirty dish in the sink. I dropped it in and reran the entire load. Blasphemy!
At times, I would fall back to my old ways of perfection but it didn’t last long. On the first day of school in the fall, all five kids left the house with perfectly pressed clothes and their style was on point. Their lunches were magazine-worthy. Think whole wheat tortilla with cream cheese, spinach, and turkey cut into cute little pinwheels, accompanied by perfectly cored and pared apples with sun butter and raisin sprinkles—not peanut butter, sun butter. By week three, they were lucky to get Ziploc bags of dry cereal thrown at them as they headed out the door . . . fifteen minutes late.
Being lazy in some areas of life has given me the time to make my marriage and life better and more enjoyable. It’s okay if my pantry is unorganized and I leave dirty dishes in the sink overnight. The world isn’t going to end if I go to dinner and a movie with my husband instead of making sure the laundry is finished. I’m happy to sacrifice the perfect meal for the kids for a quality conversation.
However, I also learned that I must keep my laziness in check. It’s easy being lazy. I am totally fine never spending another minute on things that don’t matter, but I always need to be watchful that prioritizing doesn’t turn into an excuse to avoid the hard work necessary to reach my potential and be a good example for my five kids.
To my mentors, Martha and Pinterest, I bid you a fond farewell. I’ve outgrown you. I’m off to take a nap to prepare for the shit storm that is about to walk through the door at 3:30 pm.
• • • •
No one likes to be called or categorized as lazy, but if we’re honest, we all have our moments. Whether it’s procrastination or straight up avoidance, we all have things in our life that if we dig in and overcome, will add value and more balance to our life.
Sometimes we make a conscious choice that “this changes today.” Other times, life will deliver circumstances that offer very few options other than to dig in.
LIVING OOLA
TOGETHER
by DelRae Messer
I grew up watching sunrises and sunsets. I didn’t have insomnia or an infatuation with the sun. I had parents who believed in hard work; waking up early and going to bed late. It was a characteristic that was handed down from their parents to them, and they instilled it in me. I understood their point of view. We were a family of six growing up on a farm in the Midwest. If you weren’t working, you weren’t surviving.
I carried this work ethic throughout high school and into college; excelling at sports and always getting good grades. I held onto a very simple philosophy: follow your heart and work like crazy. If you do that, all things will work out.
My junior year of college, I unexpectedly got pregnant and shortly thereafter found out that I would be raising my baby as a single mom in a co-parenting situation. I was scared but wildly excited at the same time. My options were to quit school and move back to my parents’—or continue and go at this alone. I knew this would be a challenge, and I oddly loved a good challenge. This would certainly be more difficult and also more important than anything I’d done in my life up until this point, but I was up for it. So I put my head down and I forged on.
When my daughter was born, I kicked my hustle into high gear. In addition to the diaper changes, nighttime baths, regular feedings, cuddle time, and checkups at the pediatrician’s office, I was working part time and going to college full time. I was absolutely exhausted, and when she cried at night, it took all I had just to get out of bed. But this was my life; busy became my normal.
My daughter and I were inseparable. We became a team. Wherever I went, she was right by my side. We graduated college together. We got our doctorate together. We opened a clinic together and sometimes, we even saw patients . . . together! We worked out five to six days a week together and cooked healthy meals together. We frantically hustled through life, together.
A couple years after getting my doctorate and launching myself into the real world, I found out I was pregnant with my second daughter. I started to feel the stress of my reality mount. I started feeling the crushing weight of student loan payments and the cost of raising two girls alone and on one income. The financial stress was tearing me apart. I felt that the only answer was to work harder. I continued to revert to my childhood ways of working like crazy. I went from working hard, to working harder. I went from being busy, to being busier. I thought that this was the way to our salvation.
Before I knew what happened, I found myself working eighty hours a week and becoming what I never thought I would be: an overwhelmed shell of a mom. I was completely unfulfilled and slipping further and further away from my purpose—my “why.” I was unhappy and my relationships suffered.
Soon, my girls and I found ourselves at the bottom . . . together.
I was emotionally, physically, and financially exhausted.
How could this have happened to me? I put in the work. I put in the time. I can’t even think about how many times I wanted to just lay on the couch and be lazy, just to take a break from life, but I never did and this is what I got? Life felt unfair. I wanted to give up. What was I missing?
Instead of giving up, I had one more ounce of hustle in me, and so I stepped outside of my life to look at it objectively and see what I was missing. As I examined my life down to the details, I found my answer: I was lazy!
I wasn’t lazy showing up. I wasn’t lazy with my workouts. I wasn’t lazy with taking care of my patients. I wasn’t lazy being a mom. I was lazy with my time.
While I “frantically” went through life, I was spinning my wheels and going nowhere. I was taking the work ethic that my parents had instilled in me and scattering it everywhere without a plan or a purpose. Could being less lazy with my time and planning my day and my life really be the answer? Could it really be that simple?
I was on the verge of losing everything, so it was worth a shot. I started with organizing every room in my house to at least clear the clutter around me. I wanted to see clearly again. I learned how to efficiently delegate and time-block. I started to organize my day, my week, my quarter, and my year. I had a planner and it was color coordinated and filled out perfectly . . . and I followed it. Every day, I put my time and energy on the important things in my life and removed all the “time sucks” from my life. The hustle was always there, but I was being lazy in planning where to focus it.
I felt empowered by the momentum and the growth in my business so I decided to take everything to the next level and reclaim my life with my daughters. I hired an assistant and delegated everything that was not income producing: cleaning the house, doing the laundry, running errands, planning events, and even getting groceries.
My whole life, I had thought I was a hard worker and there was no way that I was lazy. What I realized was that I was lazy about the most precious gift of all . . . my time.
Today, with a teenager and a toddler, the financial stress has lifted, and I run my day effortlessly and rarely with stress or anxiety. I am blessed that I am finding the time to do life again with my daughters . . . TOGETHER.
• • • •
If you, too, need to overcome laziness and procrastination, recognize that your dream life is waiting for you just on the other side of that procrastination. So what’s the proven formula for getting past it and into action?
READ YOUR GOALS DAILY TO STAY CONNECTED TO YOUR LARGER PURPOSE. Where are you being lazy? What priorities are being pushed down on your list? If your goals are not being met because you keep putting off those tasks that will get you there, re-read your goals every day to stay inspired and proactive.
BE TACTICAL BY BREAKING DOWN LARGER GOALS INTO SMALL STEPS. Sometimes laziness stems from sheer overwhelm. You don’t even try to tackle your goals because the amount of work you need to do feels virtually impossible.
We get that.
But why not break down your big goals into baby steps that are doable and that provide frequent wins for you? If you want to buy your first home, for example, but don’t have the down payment, start by saving just the first $1,000. Next, get pre-qualified for a mortgage. Then research lower-qualifying homes or special programs for first-time buyers. Investigate how you can make or save more money.
Small steps will keep you motivated, focused, and proactive—instead of lazy, overwhelmed, and idle. And the positive traction and momentum will get you believing in you again.
DO THE WORST FIRST. Do what you don’t like before moving on to the fun stuff. If you show up for work appointments on time but can’t get to the gym—if you go to the gym but can’t balance your budget—recognize that we’re all disciplined in some areas but lazy in others.
Tackling the unpleasant tasks first in your day will free your mind to pursue enjoyable tasks with passion. Trying to move forward with other deadlines, projects, and incompletes hanging over your head, on the other hand, is downright miserable. Do the worst first.