Systematic
New life season, new life system
Our little family has recently gone through a big transition with me going back to work and Saphira starting daycare. While the change has been scary and new, it has also brought about the opportunity for the creation of new systems as our routines are changing. The ballet of getting everyone out of the house on time and with what they need does not occur by chance, but by the development of systems.
I have always loved creating systems, schedules, and plans to help optimize life. Another word for this could be a rhythm if the word ‘system’ sounds too rigid! The keys of a system/rhythm are some sort of prioritization of what is important, a rough schedule, and points of evaluation to determine if the system/rhythm is working.
In college, I loved working backward from when my classes would start to ensure that I had time to park, walk to class, and account for traffic. Pursuing my PhD gave me immense training in time management and prioritization as I would often have 3-5 multi-day experiments going on at one time and would have to plan out my day by 30 minute increments to maximize my time in the lab. In general, I have prided myself on maximizing my schedule in a way where all my time would fit together like a puzzle with few minutes wasted. With having a child, more margin needs to be built into a schedule and slowing down has become a priority so we can savor time with our little one. So this has been a fun opportunity to revaluate our previous system and create a new one for our current season.
As I have skills and find joy in creating new systems, I thought to share my process as people are often surprised by what we can fit into our life even while working full time and having a little one. I do want to acknowledge that we have an easy baby, my husband is an equal partner in parenting and house management with me, and we do some outsourcing of tasks which greatly contributes to our system working and us having time to do hobbies.
Currently, we are two weeks into the daycare and back to work period and I have been pleasantly surprised by how the system has worked so far! But as I dive into more later, this system will have to iterate over time to meet our needs.
There were a lot of factors involved in this transition for me to go back to work. For Saphira, she would need to be woken up, dressed, and fed ahead of daycare drop off. We also needed bottles prepped and ready to send with her. For my husband, he would have to leave earlier in the morning to drop Saphira off and have a lunch to just grab and go. For me, thankfully I work from home, but I still need lunch and since I pump when away from Saphira pumping would have to occur three times during the work day. I considered these our non-negotiables that we had to ensure we addressed in our new rhythm.
Beyond these non-negotiables, we also have events and hobbies we would like to incorporate into our weekly schedule. For me, my goal is to work out 4x a week and attend biblestudy on Tuesday nights (though it does not start until September). If we can swing it, I would also like to go to the pottery studio an evening a week after Saphira goes to bed since the studio is open until 9:45pm. For my husband, he would like to participate in a DND group that will probably start back up in September. Saphira does not have any extracurriculars, but we expect her bedtime post-daycare to be at ~6:30 so from ~5-6:30 every week night we make sure we spend time with her.
My process for developing this system first involved categorizing what would need to be systematized. In our case it was bottles/pumping/formula, food for the week, and events.
Thinking about what bottles to send to daycare is still a little bit of trial and error as we are figuring out what Saphira will eat when she is there. But I know the amount of breastmilk I pump during the day and we can scale up the formula from there. My husband makes Saphira’s bottles in the morning while I nurse her before daycare. I pump three times per day during the work day at mostly consistent times ( 9ish, 12ish, and 3ish). Since I work from home, I have a little cart setup next to my standing desk that has my pump ready to go. To avoid having to wash pump parts after every pump, I utilize the fridge method. This is where I can take my pump parts and put them in a reusable ziploc bag and stick it in the fridge. Since breastmilk has some antibacterial properties this helps prevent any bacterial growth. This has made pumping during the work day pretty easy since I can pump while working and quickly store the parts in a bag and keep going with my day.
In terms of our food, I devise our weekly meal plan on Friday and then we do grocery pickup or delivery on Saturday to ensure that we have the food needed for the week. My criteria for recipes we will cook is that they take less than 30 minutes of active preparation time, have at least 30g of protein per serving, and produce at least six servings. Before having Saphira, we would cook three to four meals a week and those would be spread across the weekend and weekdays. With us having such little time with Saphira after she comes home from daycare and before she goes to bed we are trying to avoid cooking on weekdays so we can maximize the time spent with her. Or if we need to cook on a weekday I can throw something in the crockpot in the morning for it to cook all day or we can make food after she goes to bed.
For events, we do not have to have anything set in stone until September, but we have still thought through what it would look like for us to add some events in. My biblestudy starts after Saphira’s bedtime so I will hopefully be able to help put her down to bed and then leave. The church is literally a 5 minute walk from our house so that will help minimize the travel time required. For working out, I am planning to go to the gym on both Saturday and Sunday when my husband can be home with Saphira. Then I plan to do a home workout one of the days in the morning before work and either an early morning workout or a workout after Saphira goes to bed. We have trialed this schedule and it has worked out well so far. Pottery was one hobby that I was completely prepared to drop after having a baby. However, the pottery studio is open until almost 10pm on weekdays so I should be able to go once a week after Saphira goes to bed for an hour or two. My husband is planning to get back to his DND group that meets on Thursdays so I will be solo with Saphira those evenings. At the moment these events feel doable and even before having Saphira we did not do too much during the week because we typically wanted to rest after the workday.
This is our current rhythm and it has seemed to work well thus far. The time spent thinking about all the scenarios and devising a back to work system before going back to work was well worth it.
However, it is all good to have a system, but it cannot be rigid and unable to flex with changing priorities, unexpected events, and just life! In college and early grad school, I definitely struggled with wanting any system I created to work for the foreseeable future. If I was putting so much time and effort into creating something, it should last for a while right? I was definitely wrong here - if something I created did not serve me then it needed to be revamped and let go of. I have Kendra Adachi, the Lazy Genius, to thank for my shift of mindset here. She helped me understand the value of pivoting, letting go of something that was not working for me, and starting small.
If I am not willing to pivot my plans, then I will be constantly disappointed when things do not go to plan. A good example of this is working out this past week. I did not workout on Sunday because we spent time with family so if I still wanted to hit my goal of working out 4x/week I had to add in another weekday workout. While I really did not want to spend another evening at the gym, I opted to do a shorter workout before I went to the pottery studio since I would already be out that evening. I had to weigh my desire to stick to my goal with what was feasible and this past week I could make that goal happen. Other weeks I may drop a workout. Ultimately, I recognize that I may not be able to meet my goal of working out 4x/week every single week.
I think the important thing to understand is that pivoting is not failing. It is working with your frailty as a human and a broken world and trying to make the best of what you have. As Kendra says, ‘plans are intentions, not pass/fail.’ If my goal shifts one week I do not view that as me failing, but pivoting. The next week I do not throw out that goal since I shifted it once, I return to my original goal and go from there. If I notice a pattern of consistently being unable to meet my goal then I will take time to reevaluate if the goal needs to be adjusted for the season I am in. It is good and ok to acknowledge something that is not working for me.
To some, our system may seem like a huge endeavor especially as we are in a season of transition and figuring out what the heck parenthood looks like. However, since over the years I have spent an extensive amount of time starting small and building up from there I know my priorities and my capacity pre-baby which I can use to inform the creation of a system now. For me, starting small is considering all the factors above to how we run our lives. At this point, we are not layering in time spent with family, hanging out with friends, and other things we want to do with our time because that would be too much to try and figure out. Our priorities right now are work/daycare, minimal hobbies, ensuring we are being fed, and still feeling like a human in the process.
I find immense joy in creating systems and routines and rhythms that work, but also knowing when to revamp them or try something new. We have been blessed with an easy kiddo who thrives on a routine which does make this much easier overall. But I know that I will be humbled and have to keep revamping our routines as life ebbs and flows.