3 Takeaways from Productivity Coach and Mom of 5 Christina Garrett

In this month’s Deep Dive, we spoke to an amazing coach, speaker, and womens’ wellness advocate Christina Garrett. We dove right into parenting, performance, and pressure at work and at home.

It was enlightening to talk to someone who seems like she should be overwhelmed, stressed, and too busy, and see that she was talking about rest, intentionality with time, and delegating work.

Here are my three biggest takeaways from our talk, in case you missed it:

1. Self Care is Selfish. And that’s ok.

When we were first talking about self care, she said that “self care is for you, but something that other people benefit from.”

But beyond that, we started pushing against cultural norms and social scripts to get to a place where we could all be comfortable saying that I can be selfish and it’s ok.

Because as a parent and a business owner serving a community (she and I both), so much of our time is given to other people and serving their needs.

So if I need 30 minutes for some exercise? A 20 minute nap? A nice lunch? A morning to sleep in? A night away? That’s for me. It’s selfish and it’s ok.

We can and should own that.

2. Everything Is A Season

The idea here is that nothing is permanent and many of our experiences can be cyclical.

While she was talking about her 12 year-old cooking dinner, I’m struggling getting a 4 year-old and a 1 year-old to listen. While I was able to take a vacation last month, she’s in the busiest time of her year with clients.

Looking more broadly, we don’t all need to be thriving all the time. Not every season is meant for peak performance and being our best.

It’s no wonder we’re not thriving during the season of a pandemic. It’s no wonder we’re not thriving when we’re in a career or identity transition. It’s no wonder we’re not thriving the first year being a parent.

It’s a season. It comes and goes.

Nothing is permanent, everything is a phase.

3. The Four Pillars

Christina has a method of working with clients and helping women in leadership manage their time and tasks both at home and at work. It breaks down like this:

1. Create a family vision
   Think about what you want your family to be like. What do you as a parent want to be remembered for and how do you want to show up?

2. Communicate Your Needs (and listen to others’)
   Then, it’s important that you communicate your needs to others–partners, kids, and coworkers alike. What do you need to be your best self? What do you need others to do? And then listen to what they need as well.

3. Delegate
   There are certain things that ONLY you can do. For your family, for your partner, for your business. And not everything requires you to do them. But it feels like you are the only one who can, right? Laundry, remember the kids XYZ thing, buy groceries, cook, clean, whatever. What would it look like to unload some of those tasks? To a partner, family member, professional, etc?

4. Alleviate your stress and overwhelm
   Once these are done, you should be ready for boundary setting. Alleviating stress is about creating space for self care by establishing and reinforcing boundaries on your time and space.

Get more nuggets of wisdom and thoughtfulness in creating boundaries and how to “get more done by strategically doing less” by watching our conversation:

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Caveday is a company aimed at improving your relationship to work. We write regular posts here and send out monthly newsletters with productivity tips, life hacks, and recommendations. Sign up for the mailing list here.

A powerhouse speaker and community leader, Christina Garrett is a productivity and wellness coach for busy women with audacious goals who crave a healthier work/life + rest balance. You can find her on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or at home with her 5 kids and husband.

Jake Kahana is a cofounder of Caveday. Sign up for his personal emails, called “The Email Refrigerator” here.