Lately, I have been struggling with feeling so overwhelmed as a mom.
With homeschooling, moving, cleaning, cooking, and ALL the things a mother and wife does, it’s easy to completely lose sight of what’s really important.
We didn’t always homeschool. When our first child started school, I taught him at home.
For the first nine years of our marriage, we moved away temporarily every winter for my husbands’ job.
Every fall we would pack up the stuff we needed to move into a little cabin for the winter. I always enjoyed it, even if it was a lot of work.
When we had two children that needed schooling, we decided that they would go to the small public school in our area. A rural school, this one only had about 150 students, from K-9. Small, personal, and felt like home.
However, this meant that for five months out of the year, my husband worked six hours away from home. This meant that I was doing a lot of parenting our five kids on my own.
God’s plan was never for single parenting, and it was not easy. The whole family suffered because of this, but because of the lack of available jobs, this was our only answer.
Then Covid hit.
Already debating whether or not God wanted us to homeschool, we decided that we would take a step out in faith and move with my husband again.
This time I had three children to teach. Not an ‘unschooler’ by nature, I’ve had to learn how to let go of the unimportant and do well the important stuff.
Not only do I like to stick to a curriculum, but I also want to make sure that our children get good schooling. I want them to be able to live their lives to the fullest, according to God’s plan.
I want them to be able to take the opportunities God gives them, to have the confidence in themselves that they can do whatever they set their minds to.
Moms are known to have high standards when it comes to their kids, but we also fail because we are human.
Taking everything into my control does more harm than good, and this is something that I need to surrender to Christ as well.
With all the things that were on my plate, I started feeling so overwhelmed as a mom. So many things started falling behind.
When things start falling behind, the overwhelm starts getting out of control.
When I am overwhelmed, I am less productive and less efficient than when things are busy without feeling overwhelmed!
There is hope, however! By implementing some key strategies, things became more normal and less busy on my brain.
Life is still very busy.
My days of boredom are officially in the past for this season of my life. I do enjoy being busy, and productive. However, too much of a good thing is never a good thing.
God created a day of rest because he knew how we would run ourselves to utter exhaustion if we didn’t keep it.
Tips For Overwhelmed Moms
1.Do a brain dump
My favorite way to overcome an overwhelming day is to get out my notebook and start writing.
Don’t overthink this part.
Just write down everything that is in your brain.
Called a brain dump for good reason, this is for your own personal use.
Write down the tasks that need to be done, the things you feel you are failing in, and the things that are making you feel overwhelmed.
My last list included anything from training our children to all the food I need to make to feed them every week.
I was feeling so overwhelmed by the little things, by the earthly things.
Once I write everything down, I get clarity about what really is important in life.
2.Earthly vs Eternal
Take a moment to think about your list, and what is really important to you.
Then look at it in view of eternity.
Much more than I care to admit, my focus is too often things of earthly value.
Focus your eyes on heavenly things, on things that glorify God.
In my situation, this means doing well in caring and training our children comes to the top of the list.
As parents, we are accountable for their teaching and training. Failing at this has eternal consequences.
Our children’s salvation comes only from the Lord, yet we are given the commandment to train them up while they are young so that they will not depart from the truth when they are grown.
3.Work on Prioritizing
As you look over your notebook, start making a list of things that need to be a priority. Start with the things that are important.
Using the Eisenhower matrix helps prioritize things of importance and urgency, as well as non-important, non-urgent items on your to-do list.
4.Work in Time Blocks
Working in time blocks is a secret weapon for busy moms.
Sometimes your time blocks will be 15 minutes, while other times they will be 2 hours. This designated time is where you focus 100% of your attention on the task at hand.
Writing out your tasks and the amount of time that each one takes also helps to see where you can incorporate them.
For example, you know that you have 20 minutes before you need to pick up your son from soccer. You have a couple of tasks that need to get done. One will take at least an hour, another maybe 45 minutes.
But you also have a small task that takes 15 minutes.
Choose to do that one while you wait, instead of wasting the time. I also encourage you to use that time to read your youngest a story.
That’s a favorite with my daughters! While nothing in the house gets done, their brain is growing every time you do that.
5.Delegate and train
My biggest area of weakness is my lack of delegating and training my kids to help. Yes, we have five children and it is busy.
However, with proper training, every child over the age of 7 should be more helpful than a hindrance in your home!
Train your children to help you.
This makes them feel more valuable in your family, and also helps you feel less overwhelmed. I am someone that will just do the chore myself, instead of going to the trouble of training them.
This does no one any favors, especially not the children themselves.
Final Thoughts
Feeling overwhelmed as a mom is incredibly common, especially when you have three children under the age of three.
It can feel stifling when your life is consumed by the care of little people. Yet, it is so important for God’s kingdom, to train them, teach them, and care for them while they are still little.
Children grow fast. These busy days will not always be.
Learning to thrive instead of feeling overwhelmed as a mom will make your home a more joyful place.
Let’s seek to focus our energy on things that matter in eternity, instead of things of this earth.
