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When you’re a little girl, no one tells you how much laundry you will have to do when you grow up. There should be more to life than laundry, more to life than sorting, folding, and searching for that missing sock. How can you move beyond the responsibilities and obligations that create chaos in your life and shift toward living a balanced life? The purpose of life is not making sure everyone has clean underwear.

So many women get caught up in their busy day-to-day schedules and responsibilities that they forget to enjoy life. Life was meant to be enjoyed, not just tolerated. Live Life Beyond the Laundry teaches strategies to successfully manage day-to-day schedules and responsibilities through a variety of activities and tools. The strategies are adaptable to take into account the special qualities of your family and life. Once you put these time-tested strategies and tools into action, you will lead a life of happiness, joy and fulfillment. You will achieve what most busy women only dream of: balance.

You may be asking: why Live Life Beyond The Laundry? That is how many women gauge their lives. I hear women say:

•“Just a minute. I need to throw in a load of laundry.”

•“No, I can’t go to a movie today. I need to catch up on the laundry.”

•“Oh, I am so glad the weekend is here. I can catch up on the laundry.”

An interesting fact: I did the math and I have completed roughly 7,500 loads of laundry over the last 25 years. That is a lot of laundry to do all while raising a husband, three kids, a cat and a dog. Do your math; you will be amazed.

Many women, and I assume you are one of them since you purchased this book, don’t begin living life or allowing themselves to enjoy life until the laundry is caught up. Based on this observation, I equate living life beyond the laundry to balancing your life. It’s just my fun way of reminding myself of the importance of balancing life.

Living Life Beyond the Laundry = Balancing Life

Are you ready to begin living life to the fullest and enjoying life beyond the laundry? The decision is yours. If you answered a whole-hearted YES, read on.

Before you begin to create successful change in your life, you must understand one critical key. Successful change requires a clear vision of what you want to achieve. Live Life Beyond the Laundry will help you create the ideal vision of what you want your life to look like. Once you have created the vision, you will learn how to create action plans using the strategies and tools highlighted in each chapter. Finally, one last critical component: You will learn how to celebrate your success. That’s your reward for doing the hard work.

So many of us plan and plan and forget to do. When you complete the activities in the following chapters and put them into action in your life, I guarantee you will increase your happiness, work/life balance and overall joy for life.

Let’s look at it a different way: A carpenter would not get very far building a house if he or she didn’t have a blueprint, organized daily plan, hammer and saw. This book is your blueprint, and each chapter will explain how to correctly use the tools and strategies in the work/life balance toolbox. Learn how to utilize the right tools at the right time to take life from chaos to calm. You are constructing your life the way you want it to be.

Create your best possible life by first following a blueprint (this book) and then using the correct tools (the 7 Strategies) to achieve the desired results. In Live Life Beyond the Laundry, each tool is designed to meet the unique needs of your family. Learn how to apply the tools to achieve your desired life. It’s not enough to learn about them; you must put them into action. Why wait another day? Begin to Live Life Beyond The Laundry today. The key to success is using the tools on a daily basis. Daily action creates results.

You may be thinking, as most women do, “I am too busy to do any more. My life is crazy busy already.” Reframe your thinking. You are too busy not to learn how to manage your day-to-day schedules and responsibilities better. Begin today; put the first strategy into action and notice the results. I am not expecting you to move a mountain. Making positive changes in life is all about taking baby steps. As I mentioned above, daily action creates results.

Below is an overview of the 7 Strategies to take life from chaos to calm. By the end of this book, you will have a complete understanding of each strategy and will fully understand how each tool in the work/life balance toolbox can benefit your life.

These strategies are ten years in the making. I have studied, honed and adapted the tools to create a high-quality work/life balance toolbox. This is my gift to you; I have done the research for you. Consider me your research assistant. I have created the tools for you to tackle the job; all you have to do is put them to work.

In the following pages, I have given you a brief description of each of the 7 Strategies you will learn to implement in your life. These will give you a taste of what each of the strategies entails.

Strategy #1: “Me” Time. It is important to take time for yourself each day. If you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t be able to take care of others to the best of your ability. “Me” Time recharges your battery and allows you to operate throughout your day fully charged. Strategy #1 focuses on tools to build “Me” Time into your daily routine. Learn how to put yourself at the top of your daily “to do” list.

Strategy #2: Ask for help. Busy women think they can do it all—all by themselves. Admit it, girls; you think that unless you do it yourself, it won’t get done correctly. So you power through the day, accomplishing task after task, then collapse into bed at the end of the day. Well, ladies, if you help each other out, you will be more productive and have more time for “Me” Time, family time and, even better, less chaos. Strategy #2 focuses on tools to incorporate asking for help into your daily routine.

Strategy #3: NO is not a four-letter word. If the words, “Yes, I can help with that” or “Sure, I can make that work” are part of your daily vocabulary, this strategy will transform your life. Busy women tend to overcommit and spread themselves so thin they don’t have time for their families, let alone themselves. Strategy #3 focuses on tools to help you learn to say YES when you really want to say YES and say NO when you don’t want to do something. NO is a complete sentence!

Strategy #4: Balancing act. In essence, this strategy discusses time management that works. No matter how many things you can juggle or multi-task, there are still only 24 hours in a day. Time is the only commodity you cannot purchase more of, so you must use the minutes you have wisely. Strategy #4 focuses on tools for planning, dividing and conquering the day for success.

Strategy #5: Stop procrastinating NOW. There are many reasons why we procrastinate and, yes, ladies, we all procrastinate in some way, shape or form. Simply put, procrastination wastes time, decreases productivity and allows chaos to bloom. Learn about the different types of procrastination and how to build success tools to reduce its power over your life. Once you understand why you procrastinate, the tools will be easier to incorporate into daily life.

Strategy #6: Busy Mind Syndrome. Otherwise known as BMS, this is the tendency we have to let all the things we faced, done and undone, to clutter our brains. BMS makes it difficult to sleep and focus on your daily schedules and responsibilities. This strategy focuses on understanding the root cause of BMS and how to use the tools to reduce it. Some of the common causes are mommy guilt, over-committed schedule, unrealistic expectations, and the never-ending to-do list. Let’s face it; who doesn’t want a little less BMS in their lives?

Strategy #7: Don’t Reinvent the Laundry Basket. Simply put, we all have tips, strategies and tools we use each day. Ladies, share the knowledge. Why reinvent the laundry basket? Many of the tools in Strategies #1 through #6 I learned from friends, family and co-workers. Yes, some of them I modified to meet the unique needs of my family; however, I learned them from others. So, if you have a tool or strategy that works, share it. This strategy is a compilation of miscellaneous tips and success stories I learned from friends, family and co-workers.

Working through this book is a process. You have a choice to work through one strategy or several at a time. You set the pace; this is your journey. It is not a book to read cover to cover. Work through the strategies at your pace. As you progress through the activities, you will know when you are ready to integrate a new strategy into your life.

Living Life Beyond the Laundry = Balancing Life

Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action changes the world. ~Joel A. Barker