Being On Top of It: First Edition

Dear Readers,

Thank you for your submissions about areas in your own life you’d like to be more “on top of.” This week’s blog post is in response to a submission for wellness/boundaries, “health” in all forms for physical health and family. Another submission was groceries/cooking for their family so I think we can address both here. Work smarter, not harder, right?

While I am not a wellness coach, nutritionist, or chef, I do “do” boundaries, and I have quite a few of them, especially around protecting my time and mental peace. One of my more recent favorite shows included this in their finale and gosh, did it resonate:

“I want a big life; I want to experience everything. I want to break every single rule there is. They say ambition is an unattractive trait in a woman — maybe. But you know what’s really unattractive? Waiting around for something to happen. Staring out a window, thinking the life you should be living is out there somewhere, but not being willing to open the door and go out there and get it, even if someone tells you you can’t.

Being a coward is only cute in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’”

- Miriam Maisel, Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon Prime, Season 5, Episode 9, June 2023).

Let’s address our stressors, head on - no cowardly lions here, just tigers - and get to flexing our boundary-establishing muscles.

Boundaries are hard to make and even harder to keep.

In law school, they teach case law using an analysis method called IRAC. This stands for Issue, Rule, Application and Conclusion. Welcome to Law 101, no tuition payment due! This method applies to almost any area that’s first, causing you stress and second, could benefit from introspection, some analysis, and a solution -- or at least needs baby steps toward a solution. The result should be a smoother running household, work-life balance, and/or getting you closer to living your life the way you want.

Think of your issue.

Let’s take boundaries and work backwards because setting a boundary is actually a solution! So, we need to identify the issue, the stressor, the thing that is not working well for you and start there.

If it’s wellness, maybe the issue is making time to focus on wellness, whatever that means for you. I say this with all the love and caring: showering, grocery shopping, errand running is not wellness. It is nice to do those things alone (I concur 100%), but make sure you’re then incorporating something that you want to do while accomplishing your to-do task – put on a true crime podcast that you can’t listen to with kids around, stop at your favorite garden center, schedule a facial before swinging to pick up the bread, eggs and milk. 

If the issue is time, we may need to get even more granular to name the actual issue. If you’re communicating but you’re not feeling like you were listened to when communicating that you need time for wellness? Maybe it’s scheduling your wellness that’s tricky due to an out of town spouse, no family nearby, or no reliable childcare so you’re looking at preparation, communication and the stars to align before you can even put the time for wellness on your calendar.

If it’s food/groceries, that’s the category but the issue may be that your lists are incomplete, you always forget something or you’re tired from carrying the mental load of tracking supplies for purchase, making a list of those items, making the purchases, and then determining the timing to complete the purchase.

The issue can also be an emotional issue that could benefit from a boundary or that you’ve been practicing avoidance. Under the Family Category, are you’re overwhelmed by too many weekend events with one side of your family but regret that you don’t see the other side as often? Maybe it’s when family visits they parent or discipline your children in ways you don’t like or agree with, or maybe they say things you wouldn’t want your children to hear.

So, sit with this for a minute – and name your issue with specificity.

Make Up the Rule(s)

Once you have named your issue, how would you like it to be followed? Here, you get to make up your rules and the ideal boundary and solution that works best for you. The rule may be a boundary!

If it’s that you overextend yourself in volunteer positions, soccer leagues, at the dance studio or Parent/School Association events and are feeling overwhelmed, the rule may be that you only saying yes to volunteer tasks you enjoy participating in and it’s limited to no more than an hour a month.

If the issue was work-life balance and you find that you get distracted in the mornings by quickly checking your work email which causes the morning rush to turn into a mad dash, the rule may be that work stays at work and is checked at whatever time period you can devote to work that day, and not a minute before.

If it’s that you never get a complete list and end up going grocery shopping (unintentionally) multiple times a week, the rule may be that any items need to go on the grocery list by 8am Saturday so you can grocery shop on the way back from soccer. For this rule to work, though, the grocery list should then be in a place your family can view, add their input, and refer to during the week.

If you want involvement on meals your family would like you to prepare that week, the rule could be a weekly family input session over Sunday breakfast where you look at the upcoming week’s schedule and realistically assess when you have time to prepare a meal, schedule certain nights where you can’t prepare a mail as take out or fast food, and give 3 or 4 meals the kids pick from. The week’s meal schedule is then calendared and will guide your grocery list-making.

I use this planner to help with meal organizing- literally on my last sheet (pic taken today, 4/28) so it’s a re-order for me! Because cooking is a stressor for our family, we’ve outsourced two adult dinners a week to a local fresh food delivery company and even with just 2 of 7 dinners off my to-do-list, that feels like a big lift!

You get to make the rules so write them so they work for you – and that they become something you can stick with and implement.

Application of the Rules

 This is where the system creation and quality control come into play, the “how” do you actually get your friends, family, colleagues following your rules?

Communicate them! I know, so obvious, but communication itself can be the issue so head back to “Go” and start there if communication is your pain point.

Set up a family meeting. Schedule a call with the colleague causing the most trouble and correct as often and as necessary as you need to. Send a text reminder to your co-parent/spouse/caregiver for a last call for groceries at the start of implementing a deadline for grocery requests. Calendar anything and everything so everyone always stays in the loop(s).

If the rule requires pre-planning or other systems to be in place, start again on the issue spotting, create and apply a rule, and implement. You may end up running a few issue analyses in tandem so that each rule works with another.

Rules are great, but you may need to break your own rules and rework them and that’s okay! It means you’re thinking about ways to quality control and check your rules and systems. If something isn’t working, identify what went wrong and update the rule, and find a new application route.

Conclusion

 If this were a case analysis, we’d wrap up with a bow and write “Because of such and such, so and so would be found guilty of such and such charge.” For our purposes, I’d love to hear issues you’ve identified, rules you’ve implemented, and how your quality control department would think you’re doing.

My DMs @chasinglittletigers on Instagram and email (chasinglittletigers@gmail.com) are always open if you want a second mind, helping you through your own IRAC.

Cheering you on as you tame an area of life and get more “on top of it”,

J.