Comedy Through The Chaos: Parenting Edition

Hi everybody. Happy Saturday to you. Always good to be able to check in with you here in the Cadresphere. Hello, Speak Wonder. Aren't you incredibly prompt, my good friend? I hope that the day is treating you well. I hope that your mom is feeling better. I didn't get a chance to check in with your replay yet, but good to see you, my friend. Good to see you, my friend. For everyone who does not know me, if you're checking in for the first time or haven't been here in a while, I am Miss Shannon. I am a variety of word related things by trade, including a comedian, a corporate speaker, a voice actor and vet MC and a benefit auctioneer.

I am also the proud parent of an adorable 18 year old kiddo. I'm so glad to hear that. I'm glad she's doing better. I'm the proud parent of an adorable 18 year old kiddo who also happens to be high supports on the autism spectrum. I like to share things with you from the perspective of comedy through the chaos because we do have a fairly chaotic life. I would be lying if I said that we didn't, but we do manage to find humor throughout the And I'm not telling you that you should laugh at everything.

Everything is not funny in the midst, but it can help you get through things and it also can help you anchor to the positive things that are going on in your life rather than just focusing on the negative. But we'll talk about that negativity bias somewhere down the road, if you'd like us to talk about that. What I thought we'd talk about today in this parenting edition of Comedy Through the Chaos on this happy Saturday is how do you handle your to-do list. So I wanted to share something that has been beneficial for me.

As a small business owner slash solopreneur, I was very good at having a to-do list of what I thought it needed to get done as far as work things go, things that had to get done as far as do I need to answer a bunch of emails or send out any contracts or prepare scripting or order new merch? All of those things that were business related, even the minutia. So what I would normally do is I would start a to-do list that I would look at in the morning. And then at the end of the evening, I do a to-dah list.

And so what I do is I go through and I check off the things that I've done and I give myself credit for things that may arise. And I realized that I was really good at doing that for work things. But then what would happen is that there was a bunch of things on that list that just didn't seem to get done efficiently and I would roll them from day-to-day. And it got to the point that I was feeling this sense of lack and going, wow, you just didn't accomplish enough or these things are just really rolling from day-to-day.

And yes, the Tada list. So I remember feeling this pit of you should be better than this. You should be able to get more of these things off your list. Why didn't you get these things done? And yes, Dominic. Yes, Dominic. Yes, Dominic. He's laughing. So which is a good example of why I wasn't getting things done, which is what I wanted to talk to you about today. So now you get to see it happen in real time. What I realized was that list did not take into full account all of the things that I did get done additionally that may have been non-work related.

Good to see you, Jules. It's been a bit. It's been a bit. I hope that you're well. So what I started doing is that I had to, because I would have a personal to-do list as well, things that I needed to get done that I considered personal, but those things got pushed too. So you have things on your business list that get pushed. You have things on your personal list that get pushed. And so if you look at each of those things individually, it really makes it feel like you're never getting anything completely done.

So what I started doing is that I now have a merged list. I call it a runway. just because that makes me feel good because I am a supermodel in my head. I call it a runway. So my runway is a merge list of work and life and putting it together actually gave me a more full picture of what I was getting done throughout the day. And it also helped me maintain the priorities because especially as a small business owner and a solopreneur, it's very easy to always prioritize what you're doing as far as the business because you are And I saw myself falling into that trap.

And then there were things that just to be able to keep us running as a family needed to get prioritized sometimes. And it was difficult to keep track of those separately. So in order to remove that guilt, that's where that merged runway came in. When I started just going, you know what the reality is that all of these things need to be prioritized in different ways. But if I try to take them into account without comparing them to each other, it really doesn't give them the proper weight on either side.

So I merged those two lists and so now I have a work and life runway that I look through every day because then I'm able to see, you know what, this thing that has something to do with your son needs to be a priority. So maybe one of these things that you were considering a priority because it was work actually does deserve to get a little farther down the list. And it's the thing that I can roll. Or going, you know what, this thing as far as work goes, it really won't take me that long and I've rolled it day and day and day and day and day and day and so too many days down the road.

Let's just knock that out, Shannon, and get it done. So being able to have the full picture of what I needed to get done and the full picture of what I have accomplished actually was a good mind shift for me because then when I did that Tada list at the end of the night, I could go, well, yeah, you didn't get the chapter of your book done the way that you wanted, but you ended up having to take Dominic to a doctor's appointment. You ended up having to clean the cap box. All these things that you did need to do because they deserve prioritization.

Or the reason why maybe I didn't get as far along on this particular And that was work related. And sometimes I'm like, you know what I really meant to have this be the day that, you know, we did all the things. So Dominic not only, you know, brushed his teeth, but also washed his face and his hair. But okay, maybe I had to just back off of there. You know what? We did the teeth today. They look good. We'll do that because I really had to get a deadline accomplished. So I encourage you maybe to do that.

I think that often as caregivers and parents, we spend a lot of time going, I need to figure out a way to get these things completely separate. But that's difficult. And it's hard to be able to go all right, I have everything fully listed that I can actually accomplish as the human being that I am today. And to give yourself credit for the amount of capacity that you have, both real time energy and emotional energy, being able to figure out your version of merging those runways may be something that may be of value to you.

So I encourage you to kind of go through your process right now. How do you keep track of your to do's? Are you still a paper person? I use There's certain things that I still like to put down on little notes. I have little notepads all over the house and then I have to remember sometimes where I wrote it down. But at least I know I can remember that I wrote it down so it didn't live in my brain. For me, it also helped. I have a running tally that I can voice memo. in my phone because that helped because sometimes when I'm rushing you can't tell on this particular thing when I am rushing my handwriting is not the best and can be quite illegible I actually I'll put a post in Here later, paperless.

I enjoy crossing things off too. And that worked for me until it didn't. So Jules and Kathy, check in later. What I'll do is I'll put in a screenshot of a list that I did a couple of years ago. And this one, I'm taking an aside as to why I started using voice memos. Especially those of us that are a certain age and have a very Oh, just the way that our cursive writing looks sometimes is quite illegible to me, the person who is also penning it. And I still go, what the heck was I writing if I was rushed?

So this happened a couple of years ago when I had started doing my dumps in the evening. So I woke up in the middle of the night and I had just been just laying here ruminating on a grocery list and things that I needed to get at the grocery store. So I got up and I got my paper and just decided to write out the grocery list that I needed to get done the next day so that hopefully I could go back to sleep and stay asleep because I didn't have this list of, like the old Sesame Street episode, a loaf of bread, a container of milk and a stick of butter.

I'm not trying to remind myself what I got to buy the next day. So I put it on this list. So I got up the next day and I'm looking at the list and two of the items were very illegible. So two of them were very illegible and the rest of them I could figure out. One of the two I was able through context clues to figure out what it was. But that final item, I was at a loss. I was like, I don't know what this is. It's my handwriting and ladies, I couldn't even read it. I couldn't figure out what it was.

I was like, mm. So I just grabbed the list, folded it up, put it in my pocket, went to the store. I was at the store, I got all of the items and then miraculously walked down the row, down the aisle to where the mystery item lived. I did not know I was on there, but once I got to the row and I saw the name I literally burst out laughing in the grocery store because I was like, oh, that's what you wrote. But there was no guessing. I would not have. And so I'll put that picture up later. So go ahead and check out later.

I'll do a little post and I'll make sure that I put that in there later. I'm not going to spoil it for you. I'll let you guess. So after I finish the live stream today, give me about 10 minutes. I'll post the photo from before and then I'll let you go ahead and do what you do and see if you were able to Sherlock Holmes what the item was on my list and I will take all guesses and then I will reveal what it is later. So, but once you see that, you'll understand why I no longer do paperless of some things because I'm like, okay, if I say it, I probably said it more clearly than my sleepy hands can write and later decipher.

But there are certain things that I do know when I'm fully present. No, when I'm fully present. I do write them because I will sit down and make sure that they are fully level. I do have some reminder notes throughout the house. I have some goals that I think are very, they become more present if you write them out tangibly. So there I have some some career goals, I have some monetary goals, some things that I'm manifesting and bringing into reality. And so I have those notes around my house to remind me.

I'm going to move into a, for me, a fairly big project in July. And so I am actually writing out some words on my name because I will feel better if I bring some of that spirituality into this process. So I do think that all of these things make sense. So I'm glad that your paperless work for you and checking them off. On my little runaway, what I enjoy being able to do is just delete them, you know, kind of thing to tangibly see on my screen when I when I mark something off. I can go ahead and just delete it off of this one list, or sometimes I move it to the tada pile.

So to be able to see the list get shorter gives me that satisfaction of going, oh, look, that thing that you had that had all those items in it, now it only has a couple of things that you have to move over to the list tomorrow. And so being in a digital list has helped me feel that sense of accomplishment. So I encourage you to do a little mini audit of your to-do list process. this week and see how that might be able to serve you better. Sometimes I also think it's good just to freshen up that process because we get stuck in patterns.

And if we've been doing it year after year, your brain can get a little numb to the way that you were doing it before. So things that should feel like a priority don't. Things that you should actually tangibly put down on your list, you don't because you just get so used to, well, I write a list, but it's just a thing and it's a reflex instead of an actual, how can I help process all of this? and put it in a place where it becomes something that can get accomplished. Speaking of, in case you were both wondering, which you don't, I have affected-- I have gotten all of the wood chips.

The entire wood chip pile, as of a week ago, is all gone. So I have a driveway, a clear driveway, again, for the first time in multitudes of months. So that felt lovely. And it does look good throughout the yard. My kiddo has one less thing to go stand up and be tall on, but he's got a playground. He can go stand at the top of that. So that was the windy version of today's comedy through the chaos and encouraging you to possibly consider merging your. work to dos and your life to dos because that's what makes you who you are.

That's a fully for fully formed version of yourself. And it might be a value to blend those two things together so that you actually give yourself credit for all the things you accomplish throughout the day, the week, the year, all of those things. I do want to encourage you. Hello. Oh, yes. The wood chip update there. The wood chips are fully distributed. throughout my yard. They also went to a few neighbors' yards, and I'll close on this just to let you know how something that seems wild can actually help out multiple people.

So when I got the wood chip pile last fall, I knew that I could technically get through them myself, but of course I went to some neighbors and said, if you're interested in it, feel free. So I ended up having one, two, three, 4, Five neighbors come by and partake in the wood chip pile. Some of them came by multiple times. Oh, six, I forgot, the neighbor up the street. Six neighbors came by and partook of the, I don't know if partook, but I like it. I'm gonna use it again. They partook of the wood chips.

Some of them took more than others. Some took just a few. Some took more multiple trips of wood chips. And the last one was this. Once the pile got down to, hey, we can definitely see that all of these are gonna be gone in a few days. One of my new neighbors across the street, they're actually in one of the rentals. And my neighborhood is very blessed to have a lot of little kids, a lot of kids. And I think that there's toddlers through teenagers here. And I am quite outnumbered with only having my one kid.

So I'll do the efficient version of the story. Yes, buddy, I'm coming. I gotta go make pancakes. And so this final little round of wood chips, I'm like, okay, they'll get distributed later this week. I had a neighbor that was helping me move them around. And we were like, okay, we're gonna be done. And then one of my neighbors in one of the rentals nearby came by and said, hey, I saw you outside with that wagon a lot. I wanted to know if I could borrow it. And I'm like, Yeah, why? Because it's my wheelbarrow wagon.

And so she said that some of the kids had been throwing the decorative rocks. And by decorative rocks, they're like about this big. There's some big ones. And so they had been tossing them around, not necessarily attempting to be destructive, but hey, you can't just throw rocks. And so they were throwing them around. They broke one of the neighbor's car windows, just stuff. So what she wanted to do was move the rocks from the rock beds in the front of the house to the back so that hopefully the kids would play with them less.

And I'm like, well, yeah, you can borrow my wagon, but moving rocks, especially this size rocks, that's a lot more difficult than you think? Because it's not like just my, I can just grab a shovel with wood chips and that's hard enough. You can't do that with rocks and especially rocks this side. Maybe you can do with pea gravel. Can you tell that I know a lot about landscaping tools and rocks, things like that, but we're like, that's not going to work the way that you think. But I said, you know what?

I have some of these wood chips. This is our last couple of piles. Do you want to just cover them up? Do you want to do that? And she's like, could I? I said, that's going to be much easier than trying to do the rocks. And so the owner of the rental property actually kind of came by and I talked to him about it. He's like, are you sure? I know I'm coming. Go get the pancake mix. So I told him, yeah, we'll be happy to do that. So we actually moved the final a few of the last wood chips for them and covered up these rocks so that they would be less enticing for the kids.

You gonna say hi? Thank you for coming to hang out with me. I appreciate you. So it actually was a wonderful thing for me. My plants are really excited that they have all of the additional moisture that is helping because they're not evacuating. Thank you, Andy. Could you give me some space? You are in my space too much. Come on, go in the kitchen. We're going to take a walk. Oh, wow. I'm coming. I'm coming. Hold on. Go away. So I am very happy that they ended up being very communal in nature. And still I had more than enough to accomplish what I wanted to do.

Now, would I do this again? I know. He's my big guy. So time flies, time flies. I look back at his baby pictures and it does feel like yesterday, but I'm very proud of him. So I'm gonna go help him do his chores that he is now responsible for, like taking out the garbage and doing some stuff. And I told him I'd make him pancakes today because it's a good day for me to be able to do that. So hopefully you have some good things on your agenda. Hopefully that agenda maybe something that you need to merge so that you can go, what, I do a lot throughout the day.

And whether it's specifically, I know, he is a man. We also work on his little chin whiskers. We always like, he's very good at using his electric shaver as well. I'm proud of him. So I promised Andy that I was going to put in a screenshot of a grocery list that I wrote a couple of years ago. So I'll put that in once we get off the live and then you guys are all welcome to sit there and see if you can decipher what it is. that I was writing and I will reveal the correct answer later. Please check in with all of us here at the Cadres Fair.

If there is some specific information that you would like us to add, if there's particular stories, if there's particular content that will support you, please let us know. There are a variety of ways for you to connect with all of us and we want to do that. Okay, we'll see. Challenge accepted, Andy. I'm gonna put it in the list. Don't worry. You'll have a little, you'll have a thing. I'll put it out there today you have all day I will reveal tomorrow what the actual items were so that's it if I if you need hints just ping me so everybody I hope that the day treats you well oh okay Good, I'll look at that.

So I needed to die at the close. Yes, do that, speak wonder. And if you need reminders on how I merged the process and how I called mine my runway, I also kind of encourage you to, calling it your to-do list is just kind of boring sometimes. If there's a way you can personalize it so you feel a little bit more spicy, like when you're like, look at all the stuff I'm doing because the name is actually your name, like calling it your runway, I encourage you to do that as well. Anything we can do to make some of the daily tasks and humdrum things that we do a little bit more joyful and full of whimsy.

I'm a big fan of that as well. So I hope that the day treats you well. If it doesn't, shame on it, not shame on you. I will see you back here on Thursday. Bye everybody.