The Brainy Moms
The Brainy Moms is a parenting podcast with smart ideas to help moms and kids thrive! Hosted by cognitive psychologist Dr. Amy Moore along with rotating co-hosts Sandy Zamalis, Teri Miller, and Dr. Jody Jedlicka, this weekly show features conversations about parenting, psychology, child development, education, and medicine with practical tips to help moms navigate the ups and downs of parenthood. We're smart moms helping make moms smarter...one episode at a time!
The Brainy Moms
Balancing Busy: Time Management Secrets for Working Moms
Ever feel like you're failing at work if you don't give 110%, and failing at home if you try? You're not alone in this impossible balancing act.
In this conversation between Dr. Amy and returning guest Leah Remillet, balance strategist and host of the Balancing Busy podcast, they tackle the myth of perfect balance head-on. Leah redefines balance not as equal attention to everything, but as "being true to what actually matters to us—not what we're being told matters." This perspective shift alone can liberate working moms from unnecessary guilt and perfectionism.
What makes this episode particularly powerful are the personal stories Leah and Dr. Amy share about their perceived "failures" that unexpectedly became their children's greatest lessons. Leah worried about delegating household tasks to her kids, only to discover years later that her daughter was grateful for the confidence these responsibilities built. Similarly, Dr. Amy's health limitations meant her husband handled most household duties—inadvertently teaching their sons that household work isn't gender-based, but determined by capacity.
We dive deep into Leah's practical "10 Simple Tweaks" for busy moms, exploring everything from limiting screen time and batching similar tasks to outsourcing what drains you and scheduling actual "recess" time for yourself. The science is clear: those intentional breaks make you more productive, not less, by reducing cortisol and preventing mental fatigue.
Whether you're drowning in to-dos or simply tired of feeling pulled in too many directions, this conversation offers both permission to simplify and practical strategies to reclaim your time and energy. Your worth isn't measured by how busy you are—and this might be the most important lesson you model for your children.
Ready to do less but better? Listen now and discover how true balance starts with being unapologetic about what matters most to you.
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Hi smart moms and dads. I'm Dr Amy and this is the Brandy Moms podcast. I am super excited to welcome back my guest, leah Rimelay. Leah is the host of the Balancing Busy podcast. She's an international speaker and a balance strategist. She helps women do less but better. Simply put, if you're a woman with a mission but worried that your growing dreams means failing at home, then Leah can show you how to spread the message, make an incredible income and do it all in less time. And, by the way, she looks amazing in yellow. Welcome back For the third time, leah.
Leah Remillet:Thank you. I love every time I'm with you. I always have so much fun, so thank you for having me.
Dr. Amy Moore:Absolutely. You have so much energy and it's contagious and I love it too. So, yeah, I was looking at your website recently and I thought who looks good in yellow? Very few people look good in yellow. Typically, you have to have dark skin and dark hair. You know, for yellow to really pop. I look like I'm, you know, four days into the flu if I try to wear yellow. In fact, I don't own anything yellow, but you look amazing in yellow and I just wanted to give you props for that in your intro.
Leah Remillet:That is so sweet of you because, okay, full confession, I don't think I look good in yellow either. But when I was thinking about my brand, I wanted to convey that I'm like, okay, I'm professional, but like with spunk, like there's like this spunky, like very energetic side of me, and so I chose chartreuse to be one of my colors, which is like I mean, it's like neon yellow, lime-ish, right, yeah, and no, I don't think it actually looks good on me either. I wear extra blush and extra lipstick when I wear it to try to offset, but like the color does make me very happy, I'm very drawn to it, and so there you go.
Dr. Amy Moore:Yeah, and I think that, as women, when we feel comfortable in our own skin which includes our wardrobe at times it brings out our energy and our you know sassiness and our pep. And so I, when I turned 50, I got rid of all of my heels and replaced them with Converse. So I own 41 pairs of Converse.
Leah Remillet:Oh, my gosh, that's amazing.
Dr. Amy Moore:All different colors, all different styles, and I speak in my Converse. I mean, I'm on stage in my Converse because what I would do is I would wear flats or flip flops and then throw my heels on right before I would go on stage and then take my heels off right when I left the stage and I felt like why am I? No woman should have to suffer her beauty. Really, come on. And I feel like my hot pink converse represent who I am, much better than the Black Heels ever did.
Leah Remillet:Yes, you know, I will make a confession. I have times where I have, you know, had the really big stilettos walking on the stage and I literally kicked him off while on stage and was like we're just going to get more comfortable.
Dr. Amy Moore:So that's that personality at its best.
Leah Remillet:I am seeing. I am seeing that the wisdom to your plan. Yeah, I'm so glad.
Dr. Amy Moore:I did it.
Leah Remillet:Yeah, that's amazing.
Dr. Amy Moore:Yeah, Okay. Well, the last two times you were here, we spent our entire episodes just talking about the plight of the working mom and how. It's just that constant wrestling with okay, if I don't give 110% to my career, then I'm a failure at work, and if I don't give 110% to my kids at home, then I'm a failure as a mom. And so where do we find?
Leah Remillet:I hate the word balance. It's so hard to achieve and I think it sets up an expectation that we should be able to achieve it. But there has to be some sort of I don't know define what balance is, because balance is certainly not equal parts to everything. That would be ridiculous. I mean, you're not going to spend eight hours on working out and eight hours on quality time with your spouse and eight hours with your kids and eight hours at work. I mean that's impossible.
Leah Remillet:So to me, it's about being present in each of those areas, each of your primary areas. That are the things that matter to you, that you know. We each have these areas where we're like I need to show up as my best self here. I will have regrets if I don't. And so I look at those different areas and I say, OK, well then, what would that look like? How can I show up as my best self? And I say, okay, well then, what would that look like? How can I show up as my best self? And I want to just be clear my best self is different from day to day. Okay, so my best self on Friday might be gung-ho and killing it, and my best self on Monday could be barely getting along, but she's still there, right.
Leah Remillet:So, even that, we have to give ourselves grace, and so, to me, balance is a balance of giving grace, of pushing when we need to push but also pulling back when we need to pull back. It's being able to look at the different areas of our life and say when we should push forward but also when we should pause. It's being able to say I want to show up as my best self, but am I being fair in what best self is? Does it really have to be homemade sourdough bread and homemade cupcakes at the bake sale, right? Could it be a different version? So, to me, balance is getting very true to what actually matters to each of us individually, not what we're being told matters, not what our feeds are representing or what's trendy is representing. It's what actually matters to us, and then being unapologetic about that and then setting those boundaries so that we really can show up and feel good in the areas of our life that truly matter to us show up and feel good in the areas of our life that truly matter to us.
Dr. Amy Moore:Yeah, I love that. I. You know I talk a lot about. When we make parenting decisions, they need to be aligned with what we value for families or what we value for our family. And when we make a parenting decision that is misaligned with those values, then we suffer cognitive dissonance. Right? We think there isn't something right about what's happening right now that does not fit with what I think family life should look like or what I want for my children. But we have to clearly define those values before we can move towards them in our decisions, so we can apply that same idea, you know, to momming and womaning.
Leah Remillet:And sure, just one of those words. So every single one of us was like yes.
Dr. Amy Moore:And that, if we, what is it that we actually value about having a career? What is it that we actually value about being a working mom? Because I think then that puts things in perspective and it's our roadmap.
Leah Remillet:Yes, even taking that to parenting. What is it about family time that I value versus maybe? What constructs am I putting on different activities? Because I think they should look a certain way For me, dinner at different seasons, depending, I mean that's. The other thing is everything is going to always be evolving and shifting and moving and we have to be completely OK with that, or we're going to get out of bounds. The same way, if I'm riding a bike and I refuse to turn, I'm going to eventually run into something. It's going to be painful, right. We're always shifting our weight, going faster and then slowing down, hitting the brakes and then speeding up. Sometimes you get to have that beautiful moment on a bike where you don't have to pedal and you just get to coast, right. It's this fluid, constantly shifting thing, and that's actually what balance is. And so just thinking about for me, family dinner is very important as part of my values around family time that we have dinner as a family.
Leah Remillet:I checked in with myself once long, long ago and was like OK, the priority is family dinner, but am I adding parts to this that don't need to be there? And I was. I was overcomplicating it so much because I needed to make the whole dinner from scratch and it needed to come with like a pan sauce and some like garnish and just be stunning and beautiful and everything set and I realized this is ridiculous. It does not need to look like this. I don't know where that even came from, but somewhere I had taken on this idea that it had to look a certain way. Or bringing treats to my kids classes when they were little, I felt like I was supposed to make things.
Leah Remillet:I also happened to be terrible at baking, so that was like a serious problem. Ok, I'm not good at baking, I don't have the time. Because I don't have the time, but also because I'm probably going to have to try two or three times because I'm not good at it to begin with. But I also had this really big struggle with oh, but I don't want to buy store-bought Like. It just makes me feel bad, like I'm not doing enough.
Leah Remillet:And I found my own compromise. And this would not be everybody's situation, but for me. I just decided I am going to like the most expensive bakery in our area and I am buying the most gorgeous desserts that are already made and then I bring those and I feel great and I didn't have to make that and the trade-off worked perfectly for me. So there's, whether we're talking about our career or we're just talking about mommy, we have to check in and say what stories am I telling myself and do I actually agree with them? And sometimes, all of a sudden, you catch yourself realizing no, I totally don't. This is not necessary.
Dr. Amy Moore:Yeah, yeah. And I think that what, what are we modeling for our own kids when we set a standard that's unrealistic to right, when we are killing ourselves to live up to this unrealistic expectation that we've created? Right Like this, is not somebody putting this on us, right? I mean, it could be a message from our own childhood, right Like, did our own mom's mom like that? Yeah, but what are we modeling for our own kids? And so, you know, we inadvertently say this is our expectation for what family life should look like, when we're trying to live up to perfectionistic you know ideals, and then our kids grow up and think that they have to be that way because that's what we modeled, even though it was killing us to do it that's what we modeled, even though it was killing us to do it.
Leah Remillet:Yes, so I had my 19 year old daughter on my podcast a couple of months ago and I wanted her to talk very openly, like before we sat down, she was home from college for the summer and I was like I want you to truly share what you think I did wrong and we can talk about what I did right too but I want you to just share, like you have had a working mom your whole life and I tried to hide it for a long part of their life, like I didn't want them to feel it, and I was like I want you to say like where, where should you see the gaps? And and all these things. And it was so amazing getting to have this recorded and have this moment with her. But one of the things that shocked me the most, that I did not expect, is she said you showed me that we can't do everything. And I'm gonna be honest, I was thinking I was trying to show you what I was doing. I didn't think that she was saying, look, I was doing everything. I was so grateful because I look at my girls, who are both now young adults. Right. They're both in college. Their next step is going to be starting their own life, finding their person marriage, family, these things and I do not want my girls to think that they have to do everything.
Leah Remillet:I really do believe that I think we can be everything, and when I say everything, I don't mean everything. I really do believe that I think we can be everything, and when I say everything, I don't mean everything. I mean the things that matter to us. But we can't do it all. You just can't. So you have to figure out what you're going to let people help you with, what you're going to let go of where there might be expectations you wish you could uphold, but you're just going to be like you know what the house is messy or the thing is store-bought or everybody has to help with the chores.
Leah Remillet:I don't know why I had the idea for so long that, as a really good mom, I should be doing all the things for everyone. Like it wasn't as good of a mom if they came home from school and sports and I was like and you got to do your laundry and I'm going to need you to help with whatever else. And I'm so glad that I untangled that because and it was hard, I mean, when I first started saying each of you cook one night a week, you all do your own laundry, and really giving them more responsibilities, I felt like a bad mom I did. I felt like if I, if I didn't work, I would be able to be more available and I would be able to do these things for them. But I, I needed them.
Leah Remillet:And yet, when her and I were having our conversation, one of the things that she said she was most grateful for was the confidence she has in all of these tasks that she knows how to do so well, because, in her mind, because you were teaching me how to be resilient, and in my mind in the early, because I was drowning and I couldn't do it all. And so, yeah, there's something just so beautiful about us Again coming back to what you were sharing, figuring out what truly matters and then working on a plan that actually works for us and our values and our goals and our family.
Dr. Amy Moore:Yeah, absolutely so. I think I share this a lot, but I struggle with multiple chronic illnesses and so I have a limited amount of energy. That needs it's this much energy and it needs to go this far every day and unfortunately I'm a classic overachiever. So that is not a great combination, right? Not a great combination when you know you do struggle with your health but you still want to accomplish all of this. You know I'm a three on the Enneagram.
Dr. Amy Moore:I was talking about how I have limited energy, and so my husband had to do a lot of the cooking and a lot of the housework, and my boys I have three boys my boys saw him having all of those responsibilities the whole time they were growing up.
Dr. Amy Moore:Because I just I had a limited capacity because I'm a classic overachiever, because I'm a classic overachiever, I have always worked and worked a lot, so all of my energy was going in that direction, and then there was nothing left physically for me to cook at the end of the day most days.
Dr. Amy Moore:I could cook all weekends and there was no energy for me to clean the house. So we either had housekeepers or my husband would take care of that, and so I felt really guilty when my kids were younger that I didn't have the energy to do a lot of that, that I felt really guilty because my husband was having to pick up all of my slack. But what I see now in my three young adult men children right, they're 20, 24, and 26, is that all three of them do the majority of cooking in their relationships, that they are great caregivers in their relationships, that they believe that distribution of labor is not based on sex or gender right, it's based on who has the capacity, and I just love that. My husband modeled that right, that they saw that and it was beautiful.
Leah Remillet:As you're saying, that I don't think there is a single mom listening who isn't like. I want my boys to know that. I want my girls to know that they don't need to go in to the next chapter of their life believing that that discrepancy is just the way it has to be and it should be radical generosity on both sides. And who has the capacity? And so I mean that's so beautiful. And again it's that same thing. Both of us are sharing moments where we honestly felt guilty, we felt bad, we felt like maybe we weren't giving enough and setting the right example. And yet only in retrospect, only in that we both have our kids that are now in their twenties, we can look back and say I am so grateful that that was modeled, I am so grateful for the lessons that learned that you maybe would have stopped from happening if you had the energy and felt better. I would have stopped from happening if I didn't run a company and had to let others help because I just couldn't do it all.
Dr. Amy Moore:Yeah, Great lessons, right I mean yes, and I like that.
Leah Remillet:We can share that and others can hear right, maybe if they're a little earlier in the process than us, maybe if their kids are a little bit younger, whether it's teenagers, we can still make up time as teenagers or they're much younger that. Letting people help us because that's its own thing that we as women are often not great about right. Letting others help us, whether it's our husband, whether it's family and friends, if our kids, it's a combination of everybody. That actually is a huge part of how we're going to feel more balanced.
Leah Remillet:You can't feel balanced if you can't ever get off the treadmill. You have to be allowed to get off the treadmill from time to time or there's no way to ever. I mean, I don't know about you, I hate treadmills because you know how you you like. If I'm at a hotel or something, I might choose the treadmill and you get on the treadmill and then when you get off, you feel so weird. You're like trying to walk, like what is happening. Why does the floor feel like this?
Leah Remillet:That can be our lives and we don't want to live the same day over and over again and call it a life if it's essentially the treadmill that we just can't get off of. There's I mean going back to if running is your, your form. There's a lot of different ways to run. It can be the treadmill, but there's something beautiful about getting outside and running getting to run on a beach, getting to run, you know, through through a park.
Leah Remillet:And if we keep believing these stories that we have to do everything, we need to figure out how it's all going to work we are the ones who come up with the answers, execute the answers, all the things. We're not only hurting ourselves, but we're going to actually hurt our kids' future relationships too, which is brutal, it burns to here, but it also can give us some power when we realize, okay, so then maybe me being intentional about scheduling in rest, about scheduling in outsourcing, whether that's a house cleaner or grocery delivery or employees or the kids or the husband or the neighbor or who, what, whatever it looks like for each of us that we're actually doing not only a service for ourselves, but we're actually helping our kids and their futures as well, absolutely.
Dr. Amy Moore:And I love your promotion of outsourcing. You know, I would have conversations with Jeff because he thought he could do it all too right. Military colonel worked 15 hours a day, right, and then felt like he could come home and do it all. And so I would say things like hey, I've noticed some spiders in the basement and so I think that that exterior of the house needs to be treated for spiders. Do you want to do that or do you want me to call an exterminator? Because if I just said, hey, we need to treat the outside of the house because there are spiders in the basement that terrify our middle child, he'd say, all right, I'll do it. And then it becomes a nagging situation right where, hey, we really need that spider killer, we really need that spider killer, we really need that spider killer, right For weeks. And so I learned to just offer the choice right, can you do this or should I outsource it?
Leah Remillet:I love that, so okay. So this is fascinating because this comes to each personality. So my husband grew up in a very frugal family and so it can be very hard for him to feel like we're not being indulgent if we pay for some things. So he's, and he's got so much more comfortable over the years, but especially early on, when we first started talking about having a house near. I mean, we both are so busy and our kids were still really little and who is going to do this? And I kept trying to broach.
Leah Remillet:I really think that getting a house cleaner would like it would make such difference. I can't explain how much better I would feel. But he kept feeling like, oh, that, like that feels so Whatever Right, just too much. But he kept feeling like, oh, that feels so whatever, right, just too much. And so this conversation kept circling back and I finally decided to come to him. I'll give two different examples. I came to him and I was like, okay, this doesn't need to be permanent, but I want us to give it a try. So I want to find a house cleaner. I want to try give it a try. So I want to find a house cleaner. I want to try it for one month and I want to see how it goes. If we notice like, oh my gosh, things feel so much better, we'll keep it. If we don't, then we'll go back to how it was.
Leah Remillet:And I just had a real hard time, was like I need this, I need you to let us try this.
Leah Remillet:I think I'm going to feel so much better, I'm going to have more energy at the end of the day and I think you really enjoy that energy, sadly. So there was another time where we needed a retaining wall and he was planning to do it and he was planning to pull us all in. We were all going to help build this retaining wall and I was thinking we were all going to help build this retaining wall. And I was thinking like this is going to be horrible, Like this is going to be nightmares. And one day I just came to him and I said what would you pay to not have to make the retaining wall? He's like, oh my gosh, I would easily pay any game and ever. Great, I'm going to get back to you. So I called around and for us to be able to kind of broach our being able to outsource things when I was a little bit more free, willing to outsource, and he was a little more hesitant.
Dr. Amy Moore:Yeah, I like that. My husband grew up very frugal also and, you know, didn't have a lot of money growing up and so doesn't like to spend money on anything except his toys. And so I have to throw that in there, because he will spend money on his toys oh I, you see me actively nodding we listing is actively nodding right now.
Dr. Amy Moore:Right, but your husband will spend money on his toys, but not on your birthday. Okay then, which? I have a solution for that. We can come back to the birthday solution, but anyway, yeah.
Dr. Amy Moore:And so he was exactly the same way. When I wanted housekeepers, I was pregnant with our youngest working full time and just couldn't get to it. I just didn't have the energy. And so he said, yeah, sure, that would be fine. And so we did have, you know, housekeepers for 24-ish years.
Dr. Amy Moore:And so, a couple of years ago, he said really, think that, you know, we need to spend the money on housekeepers. We only have one kid left in the house, you know. And I said, well, I can't do it. I physically don't have the capacity, with my health issues, to clean the house. He's like, it's fine, I will do it. And so it is now that kind of situation where I'll say I'm really liking the floors, right now, right, but you can't nag. But I mean, so I don't know.
Dr. Amy Moore:I think that we all hit a crossroads too, where, hey, just because we've always done it this way doesn't mean it's going to work that way forever. Right, I only work part-time now Things have changed, but it's still the daily plight of do we just do it ourselves? Do we just call the house? Oh oh, I know this was my point. So I decide to call housekeepers right, haven't had them in two years. But my floors just don't look great, my bathrooms just don't look great. So I call $750. Yeah Right, that is what they quoted me for my square footage and the number of bedrooms, and I was like that's a little bit more than I was hoping to pay. So I'm just going to keep nagging my husband.
Leah Remillet:So this is so funny because we have the same thing. We have had house cleaners for decades. We are down to one child, and my husband kind of mentioned it. But I also was like, yeah, I mean, the house stays so clean now, like the house stayed so clean in between her coming that it's like she comes again, it's like it still looks fantastic, because there's just it's not the chaos that there used to be. So I ended up agreeing and and I, what I really wanted to do was go down to like once a month, but that wasn't available. So I'm like, okay, I understand, you know. And so we, we stopped for a while and then I was like, okay, I'm gonna just try to get some other quotes, because exactly what you're feeling like, ah, but I loved that feeling when the whole house was clean at the exact same time less solid birth prints and so I started calling around and the exact same thing me. It was three, four times what it had been and I was like, oh no, what have we done?
Dr. Amy Moore:yeah, like it's this post COVID. You know price increase, that I expected it to be a little bit more than when it was pre-COVID and I don't remember what we were paying, but maybe two or three hundred, but not 750. I mean, I had to ask him how much, right Like, because I thought for sure I misheard.
Leah Remillet:Right, right, oh, yes, I mean that could bring us into a whole nother conversation, because that is a hard part about. I am such a fan of outsourcing. I do understand that outsourcing can be expensive and that for all of us, we either have more of time or we have more money. And sometimes we're in the very unfortunate situation where we don't have enough time and we don't have enough money, and so it gets very hard and you have to start getting really creative on how you're going to divvy things up, how you're going to get help and what this is going to look like. And I think both you and I can probably look back Like there were times when we had to be really creative when our kids were really little my husband was still in graduate school we're trying to figure out, well, how do we have date night when we can't figure on babysitter?
Leah Remillet:And we came up with like a date night group where one Friday night we had five million children at our house and it was horrible, right, but then we others, we got to go out and someone else had to endure the circus at their house. I mean, there were just different things that we did and and so you're always looking at. There's going to be times in each of our lives where we have more time, so then we're going to. You know, we're going to do it ourselves, we're going to figure out how to do these things. There's going to be other times where we are fortunate enough to have more money and then we can buy time with our money, which is so beautiful. But yes, when things like this happen and everything is just going up and the prices you're like I cannot justify this. This seems crazy and you have to get new creative ideas that like well, I guess I'll just keep asking my husband I don't know New creative ideas that like well, I guess.
Dr. Amy Moore:I'll just keep asking my husband. I don't know Right, exactly Well, and I think like if I used the Roomba more often, then the floors would look better, and I bought a new steam mop, which is incredible, by the way, if you don't own a steam mop, I highly recommend it.
Leah Remillet:Do you have the one that like vacuums and steam ups at the same time?
Dr. Amy Moore:No, it just steams it.
Leah Remillet:Okay, so I. How does it suck? It?
Dr. Amy Moore:up and throw water on the floor at the same time.
Leah Remillet:It is amazing it is. It is one of my favorites, so I'd wick you on this. But those are hard too, because they're expensive. Also, right, like buying a Roomba I took forever to buy my first one and I bought it actually off of like I think it was back when we still used Craigslist. I don't think we use that anymore, I think it's like only for murderers or something. But I was like here I bought my first one and then, you know, over the years I've upgraded. But I agree, those kind of things can be huge things that help.
Leah Remillet:But yeah, my Roomba, we have two. We have one upstairs, one downstairs. They're called Fred and George, and Fred is, you know, vacuums every morning the entire downstairs and George mops upstairs. And then I have this that I got on Amazon this vacuum mop. So like it's vacuuming up all the hardwoods and mopping at the same time. So that's beautiful because it saves me so much time when I need to pull it out. I don't have to sweep first and then go mop right, like it's simultaneously having. So that's true, like those kind of gadgets can make a huge difference.
Dr. Amy Moore:Yeah, Okay, so you did a podcast where you gave 10 simple tweaks when you don't have enough time, and so I just want to throw each one of these at you and have you speak for a couple minutes on each Ready. Okay, you don't have enough time? Try these 10 simple tweaks, all right. Number one limit TV time.
Leah Remillet:Okay. So I am not going to try to say, oh, you shouldn't watch TV, you shouldn't scroll at all. I get it. This is a way that we all numb or whatever. But what if we just look very honestly at how much time we're spending and see if we can cut some stuff back, especially if it does not make you feel good? You can honestly say I get off that scroll session or that particular show and I actually feel kind of heavy or bad. What if we eliminate that? And I'm not going to not mention the power of a timer If you're going to get on social media, get on social media, but set a timer on your phone for 30 minutes so that it stops you and choose one show instead of like I'm going to watch five.
Dr. Amy Moore:Okay, so that was one and two Limit TV time and limit social media scroll.
Leah Remillet:Okay, well, perfect. Yes, I think of those things as so connected, right, and the average person is watching two to four hours of TV a day. That's not including how much time they're on their phones, whether that is YouTube or social media channels or whatever. I mean it is an insane amount of time and we can't keep pretending that it's not affecting our relationships and it's not affecting our mental health. It's not affecting a whole lot of things. I just don't believe we were meant to be staring at things this long. So just figuring out how we can cut that back and then use that time for something better and better could be sleep, better could be date night. Better could be a game with your family. Better could be, you know, taking time to really work on a project that you keep putting off. So, whatever better is for each of us, but just choosing to cut back a little bit of that I mean, if you're watching four hours and you even cut it down to two, you get two more hours of sleep you're going to feel a lot better.
Dr. Amy Moore:Yeah, absolutely Well, and I love that perspective that you know we were always saying well, I don't have time to do that, I don't have time to do that, but if we're averaging, you know, two hours on TV and two hours on social media, we actually do have time to do some of those things that we don't think we do if we cut back um on I hate okay, total, honest, not popular opinion.
Leah Remillet:I hate the saying I don't have time. I it it like, I loathe it because it is not true. It is never true. We make time for what matters, and so when we're saying I don't have time, if you are caught up on your favorite shows, then okay, this is about priorities and so honest. So often, honestly, it's actually not that we don't have time, we don't have energy. You know, the reason that we watch shows at the end of the day or we scroll, is because we're tired, we're worn out, so we don't have the energy to get into organizing the kitchen or a big work project or anything else. But maybe we could still spend that time a little better by reading a physical book or, you know, relaxing with our spouse out on the deck or you know, just other things that are going to do a lot more for us?
Dr. Amy Moore:Absolutely Okay. I need to read a word from our sponsor and then we'll come back to the list. All right, are you concerned about your child's reading or spelling performance? Are you worried your child's reading curriculum isn't thorough enough? Well, at LearningRx, we recognize that most learning struggles aren't the result of poor curriculum or instruction. Instead, learning struggles are typically caused by having cognitive skills that need to be strengthened Skills like auditory processing, visual processing, memory and processing speed. Learningrx one-on-one cognitive training programs are designed to target and strengthen the skills that we rely on for reading, spelling, writing and learning. With experience training more than 130,000 children and adults already, we'd like to help you get your child on the path to a brighter and more confident future. Give LearningRx a call at 866-BRAIN-01 or visit LearningRxcom. All right, we are back. Let's go to number three. All right, wake up just a little earlier.
Leah Remillet:If our kids are at our alarm clock, we're not going to feel so great. You wake up just a little earlier. If our kids are at our alarm clock, we're not going to feel so great. You wake up, feeling behind when they're tugging on you saying, mom, I'm hungry, mom, I'm this. So just waking up a little bit earlier.
Leah Remillet:I'm a huge morning person but I understand that's not everybody. So work with your, with your personality, with with what works for you, but just giving yourself a little bit of time where you get to feel like you're ahead of the game. I feel incredible when, before I even would wake up the kids, I had already read my scripture, said my prayers, done my workout, gotten dressed. I'm like I am amazing, that's incredible. I was just truly. If you feel like man, I don't ever feel good waking up. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but try waking up earlier and giving yourself just a little time that is for you, and I mean if you want more time, you can literally create more time just for yourself by waking up a little bit earlier.
Dr. Amy Moore:Yeah, I like that and I am not a morning person a little bit earlier. Yeah, I like that and I am not a morning person. And so I'm sure half of our listeners are thinking there's no way I could do all that before my kids get up. Right, exactly, but what I did is I would get up an hour early, earlier than my kids, so that I could just have coffee in the sitting room, watching the sunrise over the mountains or against the mountains, really, but watching the sunrise because mountains or against the mountains, really, but watching the sunrise because that brings me joy. That was life-giving, to be alone in the silence with my coffee, and so it was me time.
Leah Remillet:That really made me feel like I had more energy because I didn't start the day in chaos yes, when my kids were really little, I had a very bad habit of staying up very, very late. I think we've actually talked about this, like when I've been on before but to the point where I was staying up till four or five, six in the morning, and then, of course, I was woken up by my kids. So when I was shifting and trying to get better sleep and start to try to wake up a little bit earlier, it was brutally painful and so I started in 15 minute increments. I would literally be like, okay, I'm going to start trying to wake up 15 minutes before the kids. And so in 15 minutes, what could I do?
Leah Remillet:And it was really small things. And then, after I got comfortable with that, I was like, okay, now I'm going to do 15 more. Now I have 30 minutes, what would I want to do with 30 minutes? And then, honestly, I just started loving it so much, like that, those early hours where nobody is bothering you, it just kept getting earlier and earlier, early, because I just wanted more time, I craved it. So yes, for those who are like I am not a morning person, that sounds terrible. Start really small, start with 15 minutes, then add another 15. It's amazing what can happen with just 30 minutes before everybody's waking up, just to get a little head start.
Dr. Amy Moore:Yeah love that. All right Number four bash baby batch. What does that mean?
Leah Remillet:Okay, batching is my absolute favorite productivity time management hack. Like if I was going through all of the different strategies and I have they're all on my podcast I would say batching is my favorite. So essentially, what we're talking about is do like tasks together. Don't start on something, then walk away and then go work on something else. So this can look like all kinds of different things In the business world. It might look like I'm scheduling a bunch of podcast interviews all on the same day and I'm bashing them all on one day, or all of my meetings are on one day, or I'm going to work on social media content in an hour block and try to see how much I can get done, versus I'm doing one single episode every week or I'm doing one single post each day. I'm trying to do a lot more. While I'm in the zone I'm thinking about this thing, but it can also work into our home life as well. So this could look like people who do meal prep. It can look like if I'm making something that would freeze, well, I double or triple the recipe and then I'm going to put, you know, one or two meals into the freezer so that I have them later. It might look like I'm doing all the laundry on Monday, versus I'm doing a load every single day throughout the week. It might look like I'm. It's anything where you think I do this task repetitively. This is something that I have to do all the time.
Leah Remillet:Could I block out a set period of time and see how much I could get done and get ahead? That feeling of being ahead you feel so good and every woman knows the feeling of being behind and you're trying to catch up and it feels horrible. I mean it just sucks the life out of you. And so look for every area of your life. Where do you think could I get ahead here? Is it possible to batch this the silliest way I batch my vitamins? I literally, every two weeks, get all the vitamin bottles out. I have all of these little silicone cupcake things and a little lighter and I put all of my vitamins so that Over the next two weeks I don't have to get out all the vitamins and open every single bottle. They're just there, I grab them and I go. I mean just simple ways to look for. How can I just make things simpler for myself?
Dr. Amy Moore:Yeah, I love that. And from a from a brain science perspective, we know that neurologically, there's no such thing as multitasking. Right, we're kidding ourselves by saying I'm a great multitasker. What we're doing is rapidly switching tasks, but that makes us very inefficient, right? So, neurologically, rapid task switching what we think of commonly as multitasking is not very efficient, and so I read a study recently where it said it takes us 24 minutes to recover from a distraction.
Leah Remillet:Yes, I read that too.
Dr. Amy Moore:Yeah, and so that is shocking. Right, right To think that, oh, my goodness, how much time are we wasting, especially those of us who are ADHD warriors. How much time are we wasting trying to get back on task because we were distracted by another task, or trying to do multiple things at once? And so I love your idea of saying, okay, I'm going to do like tasks together and then move on to another set of like tasks. Right, so they're similar tasks that use the same cognitive skills, that use the same parts of our brain, that use the same types of energy in the same location and environment and tools or whatever it is, and to make us more efficient. So we're not reducing our workload, we're just being more efficient at accomplishing our workload.
Leah Remillet:Exactly, and I think what most people don't know is my whole work is on helping us be more productive, more efficient, have more time management, be able to feel more balanced and have systems that make life run smoother. What people don't understand is the reason that I am obsessed with this. That I have all these is because I have ADHD, because I am someone who can be so easily distracted. This, I needed these in order to function, in order to be able to accomplish the things. I had to figure out how to stop letting things take so long because of distraction, because of all the squirrel moments, because I went to do one thing and then I saw another thing. I mean, give a mouse a cookie is me all the time if I'm not careful and so that's why I put all of these different measures in place, and all the things I talked about was literally to protect myself from me.
Dr. Amy Moore:I love that because you know I'm very transparent about my ADHD struggles and you know my focus is always on OK, how am I making sure that my brain is healthy? How am I making sure that my omega-3 fatty acid levels are normal so that my dopamine receptors work? And right, like I'm always focused on this, you know, as a cognitive psychologist, from a brain science perspective, right, what am I doing to maximize my brain function to compensate for my ADHD? And so I never think of it in terms of, okay, how can I change my behaviors to support my ADHD? And so I love that you pointed that out, because all of our listeners who have ADHD are saying thank goodness, I have some tools to walk away with right now. Okay, this one I'm fascinated with is number five Utilize your kids extracurricular time. What does that mean?
Leah Remillet:Yes, ok. So I think this is about being very intentional. With all of the drive time that we have, we're dropping them off at sports or whatever it might be. Make sure you're utilizing that time the best way possible. So that could mean, oh, my kids have soccer practice. This is pretty close to the grocery store. This is when I'm going to do my grocery shopping, instead of doing your grocery shopping earlier in the day and then running up from there and then being like do I stick around? Do I try to go home? So I have 15 minutes to try to get something in. So that could be one way, but it could look totally different. It could also be this is me time. I'm going to drop them off and I am going to go sit at a little cafe and have some tea and read a book. There was one time where my kids I put that all three of them in a swim team over the summer. It was 30 minutes from our house, and so I had the choice of okay, I can drop them off, I can run home, and I'll have like 15 minutes and I have to turn around, which seemed ridiculous. So I'm like, okay, well, how am I going to use this time better. So that's when I decided I was going to do my workouts. I was going to drop them off, I had my full workout clothes on and I would go running for that period of time and I'd have just enough time to be able to just have a little me time before they wrapped up. And so just thinking about the time when our kids have their extracurricular, how we're using it and I think often if we really look, we realize this is not efficient at all. This is not an effective way to be using this time. So, just being more intentional about that time that you have and I think we could take that further I loved using the time back when I still had kids in the car, as you know, when we were driving to things.
Leah Remillet:That's when we were going to talk. I didn't I very rarely allowed music, I mean just if we were having fun, but it was like no, this is when we talk, or we'd be listening to a book. It was quality time that we were going to use. And then, when they were at their thing, that became time where I was like how do I want to use this? Do I want to get the grocery shopping done during this time Because I don't want to have to do it later. Do I want to use it for nap time in the car? Do I want to use it to go sit in a cafe and listen to a book, or do I want to use it to get my exercise done? So, just really thinking about that time and how it can serve you better.
Dr. Amy Moore:I love that. I love that. I remember, before smartphones and we could use our phone as a hotspot, they had these little things called a MiFi, and so it was this little gadget that was your own personal Wi-Fi device. And when I was getting my PhD, my kids were little and so we would go to martial arts and so I would sit in the parent area with my MiFi, my little Wi-Fi, sit in the, you know, parent area with my Wi-Fi, right, my little Wi-Fi, and you know work on my PhD work. And so it was because we live 25 minutes away from the martial arts studio. I mean, so by the time you would get back home and drive back, martial arts is over anyway, so it was really out of necessity that you know I was staying there, but then to be able to use that time was gold.
Leah Remillet:Yes, and I think we need to just make sure that we openly talk about that. I think there's been this shift where it can be easy to fall into the trap of believing you're supposed to be there at the practice watching, cheering on, and I'm just going to gonna say I think that is ridiculous. No, you don't. That's why they have a coach. You do not need to be there. In fact, it's probably not even that helpful for you to be there, because now they know you're there and they can kind of rely on you instead of learning their own independence and and relying on their coach and all those things. So if anyone is like, oh my gosh, but all the other parents are there like watching, I would feel you just let that go, let that guilt go and go enjoy that golden hour or whatever you want it to be.
Dr. Amy Moore:Right, I absolutely agree. I mean my oldest. I used to say he looked like a gazelle in martial arts. He was so beautiful in the way he could move that I loved watching, and that was very often distracting from you know the month that I was working on because he was so fun to watch. But I think that you're absolutely right that children need to learn how to advocate for themselves and they can't do that when you're always there. Yes, yeah, okay. So number six is utilize helpful gadgets. We've already talked about. We totally talked about that. Yes, yeah, okay. So number six is utilize helpful gadgets. We've already talked about. We totally talked about that. Yes, the Roomba and the Steve Mop that vacuums at the same time. So anything that can make our lives easier and save a little bit of time, I think is wonderful.
Leah Remillet:And those are exactly the things that I mentioned. So I mean literally these are the things I'm talking about Doubling dinner, freezing one, having Roombas and vacuum mops and all these different gadgets that just can save us a little bit of time. You stack those and it becomes a lot of time.
Dr. Amy Moore:Yeah, and that led us to number seven, which was simplify everything about meals, right, and so I love that kids can participate in that, they can help in, that we can have leftover nights. You call them yo-yo. You're on your own, you're on your own.
Leah Remillet:We actually always called them fend for yourselves night. That's what I called them the whole time, my kids. And then I heard at the very end someone say yo-yo, and I was like, oh, that's so much cuter. I wish I would have called them that, right, I thought that was name, and I think if you have really little kids, you could level that up by saying it's Yodo night and we're going to do a picnic on the floor. Now it has become so special, this really beautiful tradition that the kids can be so excited about.
Leah Remillet:And again, you're not cooking and you just let them have the cereal. If they want the cereal, it'll be okay. It'll be okay, just let them have the cereal. And you know, it's some of those things where, yeah, I mean, there's all these competing ideas, we're constantly trying to do everything right in all the different ways and they contradict themselves, even the advice. And so, just coming back to, if I had to do this in the simplest way possible, what would that be? And then, Mitch, well, can I actually just do it the simplest way? And more often than not it's like, well, yeah, I could, okay, well then, let's give it a try.
Dr. Amy Moore:Yeah, absolutely All right. We've talked about outsourcing and delegating Yep. So you say stop grocery shopping. How in the world do we fill our pantries and fridges if we aren't grocery shopping?
Leah Remillet:So I, unless you love grocery shopping I do understand that there are some mamas out there where she's like this is my me time, don't you dare try to take that Okay, if you love grocery shopping, go and grocery. But for the rest of us who do not enjoy it and it's just one more chore and a time suck, then allow for grocery delivery. I will admit it, they don't pick out as good of produce as you will. Okay, they just don't. But I am telling you that it'll be okay. It'll be okay.
Leah Remillet:And between I mean at this point I can have my Costco delivered, I can have my groceries delivered and anything else I can find on Amazon. So I have, you know, there's Thrive Market. I have. We have to be very careful with a lot of the food that we have in our house, and so I use Thrive Market so that I can get the things that actually work dietarily for what we can do. There's also meal kits that you can come, and we've done all of them at this point where it's like, hey, we always would do three each of the meals that we do like.
Leah Remillet:If we're doing a HelloFresh, we would do three dinners because I have three kids. They would get to pick the dinner. They would be in charge of cooking that dinner and it was great. That was three nights I wasn't cooking. And that's groceries that I'm not buying because they all come free package. So just realizing there are incredible resources out there, use them. If you happen to have a 16 yearyear-old, well then, let them be your grocery delivery. Hey, we buy the food, but you go and shop for it. So there are definitely options, but unless you actually love grocery shopping, let that go.
Dr. Amy Moore:Yeah, so even my 20-year-old, who lives with his fiancée at college, orders their groceries for pickup, because they're full-time students and they work, and so and they're both music performance majors, so it's not just that they have to go to class, right, they are constantly in rehearsals, you know, in practice rooms performing. Like they, their day is scheduled back to back to back, and so they don't have that extra hour to give, and so it might seem indulgent, but I think it's only a couple extra dollars to have it brought to your car, not delivered to your house, but brought night to your car and that's a great option, right, you just drive up, and here's what I will say.
Leah Remillet:Right, you just drive up. And here's what I will say. For everyone who is feeling like it is more expensive, I can almost promise you it is not because you're not in the store adding things that weren't on your list. Every time I go into Costco, there is always extra things that I add that I wasn't going in to plan for, because I'm like oh, I'm seeing it, I'm looking at it and I buy it. There's a reel that I created years ago.
Leah Remillet:That is so funny. It's my husband. I sent him to Costco. We needed one thing. I sent him to Costco. He comes back, he has one of the boxes and I'm like what happened? And I just started recording. Like, just whatever reason, I just pulled out my phone and started recording again and he's like I saw these other things and he's telling me that when he gets up to the checkout, the employee he brings up like yeah, I was only supposed to get one thing. And she says that's why I do grocery delivery. And he's like that's literally what my wife teaches. That pun it. Really. It was like $300 and he was supposed to buy one thing it should have been like a $40 purchase, right? So that's another very, very real thing to think about. Is you're not buying those things that weren't on your list?
Dr. Amy Moore:Yeah, I love that and I had not even thought of that before. So the extra $2 that my college kid is spending, he's making up for by not being in person and adding just one protein bar to his cart extra. Right, exactly, for sure. Okay, last one, you say adults need recess too, and you talked a little bit about making date night happen, even when it's hard and feels impossible. But why do adults need recess too?
Leah Remillet:So this would be fun to hear from your perspective, because I think you've probably studied the science behind this more than I have, although I have a little bit, but I can't remember the numbers off the top of my head. But essentially, as adults we tend to run from thing to thing to thing, especially those of us who are maybe more type A. We're kind of overachievers, we really like feeling productive and there's just a lot to do, so we just go from thing to thing to thing every single day, over and over and over, and there is power in building in a buffer in between activities. So I used to be really bad at this. I would work right up until the minute that I knew the kids were walking in the door or sometimes I could hear it, and so I'd pop right up, I'd come down the hall and I'd be like hi, guys, and you know, turn to mom moment.
Leah Remillet:Right, I would do this with everything, though Everything was scheduled so tight. There was no wiggle room, it was just you're going from thing to thing to thing, and when I started building in recess, just giving myself 15 to 20 minutes, I get up and I go for a walk around the neighborhood. Sometimes I literally get up and I like do a minute of squats and then I sit back down or I make myself actually take a lunch where yesterday it was so wonderful I you know, made a little Greek salad for myself and I walked outside onto the porch and I was like I'm going to listen to one chapter of my novels, and you know it was about 20 minutes.
Leah Remillet:And so I listened to that while I was eating and just sitting in the sunshine and it was beautiful and it felt so good. And there was a really long time where I would have never given myself permission to have that recess, because it was this idea that busy is a badge of honor, that the more I get done the more valuable I am, that all of this go, go, go shows that I have worth. And it's just not true and we burn out and we end up being not the best version of ourselves, where, when we build in these buffers whether it's 30 minutes for lunch just for ourself or it's 15 minutes in between tasks to just rest for a moment, or getting up and getting outside, which is easy in the summertime it's a little harder, depending on where you live, in the winter maybe. But just making time to rest you actually become much more productive.
Leah Remillet:And I think it's for two reasons. I think one is the obvious of we are able to reset and come back, but the other is that it goes right along with that, because I've walked away for a minute and I'm coming back, I'm amped back up, I'm excited and I'm ready to jump back in, where, when I just force myself to go go, I get very mentally fatigued and so it's so easy to give yourself permission to go check the inbox and go down that spiral or check your phone and then go down that spiral or whatever it might be. It's essentially an unintentional form of a recess that's not beneficial to our mental and our physical self, where, when we actually schedule in the resets and those recesses, it actually makes us feel like we have more time, which sounds crazy, but you do. You feel like you have more time because you took a little bit of time to just rest.
Dr. Amy Moore:Yeah, absolutely. I mean even those people who say that they enjoy being busy all of the time. First of all, liars, but second of all that go, go, go puts us in a state of chronic stress. And chronic stress means our brain is constantly in fight or flight, and so we have cortisol and adrenaline coursing through our veins and those stress hormones shrink the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for memory and coding and retrieval, and it enlarges the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for emotions and alarm system, and so that makes us more emotional and it makes it harder for us to focus and remember things. And when we can't focus and remember things, then we can't be efficient and we can't be productive. And when we're emotional, then our prefrontal cortex goesate, right, and then that level starts over again, right, that bucket, you know, cannot be as full, and and then we can be a little bit more productive and be a little bit more efficient and less emotional.
Leah Remillet:So good, and I read something that has always stuck with me about you know, each time we're letting that cortisol spike and we're getting that fight or flight mode happening, our immune system stops because our body has to go to oh man, I need to make sure we're safe. I'm not going to worry about immunity right now, I'm worrying about bears, and so you think about if we're allowing that every single day. And then maybe you're someone who's like man I get every cold, I get every everything. Even just building in more rest and being able to have more calm in our lives can help us mentally, it can help us physically. I mean it can literally ward off the flu and emotional outbursts, I mean all of the things?
Dr. Amy Moore:Yes, all the things. Yes, it lowers our immune system. And there's this other fascinating study that showed that parents who have more empathy have lower immunity. Like, their immune system is a little weaker, right, because of the stress, Because of the stress of being emotionally attuned to our children's needs. Right, even though it might feel good, right, that stress will lower our immune system a little bit. Now, I am not advocating for getting rid of our empathy. We absolutely should be empathetic parents, absolutely 100%, but it's helpful to be aware of that. That, yes, that is also stressful, so that makes it that much more important that we find ways to relieve stress in other areas learn how to regulate our emotions, learn some mindfulness, rest and take recess.
Leah Remillet:I love it. That's so. It's so important, it's so interesting. It's all so connected, which is what I get so excited about. Right, like, you and I are each thinking about how do I be a better version of myself, for of myself and especially so that I can show up for the people I love more and then help them to be better versions of themselves. And we do it from totally different ways, but then there's all these amazing connections and it's just so exciting and fun to see.
Dr. Amy Moore:It is exciting and fun to see. So, Leah, tell our listeners how they can find more of you.
Leah Remillet:Absolutely so. Number one Balancing Busy Podcast. We already know that you have great taste in podcasts. You're already on your podcast platform, so how incredibly simple to just go and do a quick search of Balancing Busy and follow that one. We have all kinds of episodes that cover everything from very tangible tips of how to save time, how to deal with overwhelm and stress, but also all kinds of other topics as well. We're always trying to look for all the areas of our life, just how we simplify them. So I would say that, and then you can go to balancingbusycom. We have all kinds of resources, everything from my favorite 10 time-saving hacks that I use that have literally stacked hours and hours and hours for me every week, along with all kinds of other resources. So, yeah, I would say, start there.
Dr. Amy Moore:I love it. All right, leah Remillet. Thank you so much for coming back for a third time. And, listeners, leah has invited me to be on her podcast, balancing Busy, so you'll get to hear four conversations with us in total, and I'll actually put links to the prior episodes with you in the show notes of this episode so that, listeners, if you weren't around two years ago, it'll make it easy for you to find those and find her. Thank you so much for being with us today. Really loved spending another hour and 15 minutes with you, and our episodes always run long with you because the conversations are so amazing, I know, okay, listeners, thank you for being with us today. If you like our show, we would love it if you would leave us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. If you would like to see our faces, you can watch these episodes on YouTube at the Brainy Moms. Come find us on Instagram and TikTok at the Brainy Moms as well. I hope you feel a little bit.
