In February, I was at a work conference in Vegas and I brought my best girlfriend along. I  work in the Higher Education field and I love being surrounded by people who are doing amazing things on their campuses and beyond. My girlfriend was also feeling the inspiration and one afternoon, we starting mapping out her plan for a new blog.

This past week, she finally put the plan in motion and was daunted/terrified/intimidated by the process of starting up this new venture. I admit, I might have overwhelmed her talking about tagging posts and scheduling and domain names… and content creation and target audience and visual elements… and social media and Introduction vs. Personal Bio…

We have a tentative work day scheduled to get the blogging basics down, but naturally my mind drifted back to this little space. If I’m consulting and helping her build a new online identity, I should probably spend a little time working on my own.

My goal for this first year of working mom-hood was to just time-manage, find a way to get back to single-life productivity while having twin infants and a full household. At the one-year mark, I think I fulfilled that goal with the help of family, a part-time nanny, and my husband’s new job that allows him to work most of the week.

I will be the first to admit that this does feel like cheating. With both parents working from home who can also afford outside help, we didn’t have to compromise as much of our time or our professional lives to make our family function.

I knew that our unique situation would allow me the freedom to create a schedule and work-life blend. It also makes our home a little more egalitarian. I did not have to make sacrifices as the female, my husband does an equal share and spend equal time with the girls, and we are both able to get out of the house as needed for time alone.

So now that I have a new 2020 planner (and have #101in1001 items like “Start a bullet journal/planner hybrid” and “Instate a weekly blog time”), it’s time to put that plan into motion.

Here are my Motivational Prompts to get back to blogging:

1. Writing comes easier the more you do it.
   I work with authors. They have writing goals. Write often. Make it a habit. Just get the words down.
2. If you are not excited about what you’re writing, no one else will be. If you’re doing it right, it shouldn’t feel like work.
3. Ideas have their own lives. 
   If you put your great idea on the backburner for to long, it will find someone else. (As per Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert)
4. So it is written, so it shall be done.
   I found that the more I write and share my goals, the more I get them done. I posted about every run I had training for my last race. I took photos of my accomplished goals and shared them on Twitter and Instagram. If I want to make a shift and start reaching for higher and higher goals, writing about them makes me accountable and motivated.

This blog doesn’t really have a target audience or a mission. I don’t have a content calendar, and I’m not trying to monetize. It’s about building my home, literally and metaphorically. It’s not inspirational or influential, but if it fills that need in genuine way, then I’m happy.