Get ready! This is a gamechanger. For you, the parent, as well as your kiddos!

It’s called “Mind Body Soul Time.”

I learned about it from an online course called Positive Parenting Solutions by my friend Amy McCready, and it’s been so incredibly helpful for our family. (PS. This is not a sponsored post - I just really believe in this course and have benefited so much from it personally!)

Here’s how it works:

Each parent gives each child 10 minutes of Mind, Body, Soul Time, twice a day, every day.

No phones.

No distractions.

The kid gets to choose how they want to spend their 10 minutes with you.

The other kids get to wait their turn.

Set a timer, and give them your COMPLETE undivided attention! Play, laugh, listen, and just be with your kid.

That’s it!

Here are the benefits we have seen:

• Milly has done less “acting out” to get attention. She knows she has our attention once or twice a day, and it has really diminished her negative behavior.

• Lyndon gets the reading and playing time that Milly got when she was her age! And honestly, that probably wouldn’t happen if it wasn’t planned into our day. Sad to say it’s true, but 2nd kids who are easy-going certainly don’t get the attention the first born kid did!

• Milly and Lyndon are less jealous / needy of their time with Mama with the new baby.

• I feel more fulfilled as a mother, knowing that even if it’s only 10 minutes, I am listening, in tune with my kids individually, and not distracted once a day.

We certainly don’t do this perfectly every day, but whenever we begin having behavior issues, we go back to this. If we consistently implement MBST for 1-2 weeks, we immediately see a difference!

As I learned from PPS, the two main psychological needs of a child are belonging and significance. When both parents give their children this undivided attention, it fills their belonging and significance buckets in a major way. When those basic needs are met,

Tip for parents of lots of kids: Aim to do this with each kid once a day instead of twice a day! Or maybe make it your weekend tradition if you can’t get it into your routine. Give yourself grace when first trying it, too. In our major life transitions (like recently having a baby), we try to do it well once a day, and we give ourselves grace when we don’t get to do it. The point is this: don’t give up and not do it at all! It’s better to have MBST with each child than having none at all!

Have you tried this before? Or do you implement something like it in your family?

Say this with me:

My phone is not a photo storage device.
It is a PHONE.

As a photographer, I know that photos are our most valuable possessions. They are our life captured, and they are the legacy we want to leave behind.

BUT. I have also come to learn that photos are simply digital files that need managing. That’s not very nostalgic, and it’s kind of blunt to say that about your most treasured memories, I know. But it’s true!

Here’s what I have seen in myself: We LOVE to keep those special images close.

As in, we love to keep ALLL the photos we’ve taken on our phone close to us, actually ON our phone, so we can quickly reference them when we’d like.

But again, say it with me:

“My phone is not a photo storage device. It is a PHONE!!”

I’m telling myself these same words because I FEEL YOU. I’ll give you an example...

Back up to just a few months ago. It was the week I was due with my 3rd baby, and I realized I had not taken my own advice ALL YEAR. I had over 10,000 photos and videos on my phone and I had done nothing with them!

Knowing I was about to take another 10,000 photos of a cute new baby, I knew I had to take action and clean off my phone.

I ran into SO many obstacles.

My computer had a hard time reading all of the images, because there were just SO many. It froze several times, and I even left it plugged in overnight for TWO nights in a row to try to get everything downloaded.

Something was obviously glitchy with my technology, and after a week of downloading them and trying to clear them off my phone, I FINALLY got them all off of my phone and onto my computer.

THEN, the unthinkable happened. The hard drive I was using was overloaded, and it stopped working. I was fearful that I lost all of my beloved personal photos.

I won’t bore you with the details, but after my loving techy husband spent way too many hours helping me (and consoling me through my tears), I could access the hard drive again. I spent time backing everything up, and I still have some work to do sorting and organizing everything, but it was so calming to know everything was safe where it should be, backed up.

Here I am today, 3 months later, and I have 1 more baby and 2,600 more photos on my phone. And now that I’m coming a bit out of the newborn fog, I’m transitioning back to work, and I’m realizing just how quickly time flies, I’m committed to getting BACK on the bandwagon and organizing my photos.

Want to do it with me? Not sure where to start?

You’ve come to the right place!

Start here with my free guide to clearing all your photos off your iPhone.

It’s not lost on me that I’m blogging about Deep Work - one of my favorite books from 2018 - while I am not doing ANYTHING of the sort. Raising a newborn is HARD work - much harder than Deep work, but they fundamentally are two very different kinds of work.

And both are wonderful :).

Deep work, as Cal Newport defines it, is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time.

I wanted to share two things that were my biggest take-aways from this book, that will hopefully inspire you and help you as much as they did me.

First of all, this is a great kick in the pants book! It’ll make you think deeply about how to get work DONE. And the why behind our work. If you missed it in last year’s book club, it’s worth a read this year!

Blocking your Time = Thoughtfulness

This is the first principle I wanted to share: the importance of blocking long amounts of time to get Deep Work Done. My favorite thing the author said regarding time blocking? It’s about being THOUGHTFUL. Time Blocking is simply a way of being thoughtful about your day, before it begins! I loved that. It removed some stress I associated with time blocking. “What if I’m interrupted? What if I don’t accomplish it all?” Who cares. I was thoughtful about my day before it began, I blocked the time to do the most important things, and that’s all you can do!

“Shutdown Complete”

Okay this is nerdy but I love it. Cal Newport advises a Shutdown routine at the end of every day, starting about 30 minutes before you have to leave:

• Review your emails to make sure there’s nothing urgent in your inbox

• Review what you accomplished or didn’t accomplish

• Re-write your list for tomorrow

• Close your computer and say out loud, “SHUTDOWN COMPLETE!”

By saying it out loud, it signals to your brain: Do not go back to work. Do not open that computer up again. Your work is complete for today, so go be with your family.

I’ve done this a few times and goodness it works! I love it. You should try it :)

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