Your Agile Home

Budgeting Doesn't Have to be a 4-Letter Word

Talking about budgeting is such a big deal and can be a bit frightening in the beginning. Today, I'm joined by my friend Nicole Rule, a money coach and dear friend of mine. Nicole started her journey as a money coach when she had her first child and realized she had to work absolutely every hour of her 40-hour workweek to pay bills. She tried out Dave Ramsey, but it didn't work for her family. Together, she and her husband created a plan that worked. Knowing your true values is an import...

Priorities are What Gets Done

Prioritized items are the things that actually get done in your life. It's easy to have shiny object syndrome but you will move mountains for your priorities.  The best way that we did this, was to sit down and identify our family values. We do this as a whole family. Once we know our family values we can prioritize what needs to get done and what we want to do. This will make you happier and make a more conducive environment. If you have any questions, let me know in the Facebook Group!

How We Agile: Babysitters

Babysitters are such a vital part of parenting. Finding and keeping babysitters are so important. We ask for referrals from friends, hire from preschool and hired friends or children of friends.  You want to make sure to interview the babysitter and have them play with the kids for a little while.  What do you do for your current babysitting? Let us know in the Facebook Group!  

How We Agile: Vacation Planning

Travel and vacations are some of the most stressful times as a parent.  To make everything easier on you, map everything out before you get started. Start your Scrum board now. Make sure it includes all of the plans made, plans you need to make and all of the things you need to pack. Let us know in the Facebook Group how smoothly your next vacation goes. 

How We Agile: Behavioral Issues

We can Agile our children's behavioral issues, things like not sitting at the dinner table, hitting, potty training, etc.  The single most important part of Agiling behavioral issues is to collaborate with your child. During our weekly meeting we address the problem, use user generated stories to speak about the problem and then everyone pitched in ideas for us to try to fix the problem. This way, everyone feels heard and has a part in the solution. Do you have any behavioral issues ...

Daily Stand-Up & Self-Care

It is crucial that you include personal self-care time in your Daily Stand-Up conversation.  In my life, for example, I spend my personal time for 30-minutes reading before bedtime and another block of 30- to 60-minute of time for my hobby.  You mention it in the Daily Stand-Up because your team is there to make sure that you get your time in so that you're happier and pouring from a full cup. This teaches your kids that hobbies are good for you and builds communication skills around sel...

How We Agile: Birthday Parties

Planning ahead will allow you to celebrate birthday parties without stress. Listen to today's episode to hear how we Agile birthday parties in our home so that we can celebrate without chaos, without taxing your budget, and with as little stress as possible.    Don't forget to sign up for the free daily stand-up cheat sheet.

How We Agile: Working From Home

Now, most of you know that I work from home. What you may not know is that my husband also works from home and we share an office for a great deal of our working day (other than recording times or client calls). This is where the daily stand up comes in.  (Be sure to sign up for the free daily stand up cheat sheet here.) If you're working from home with your partner, communication is vital.  

Mother Like a Boss with Kendra Hennessy

Today, Kendra Hennessy from Mother Like a Boss joins me. We're so aligned with our missions and beliefs.  We dig into her quote, "Routines are a long-term solution. To Do lists are a short-term fix." A routine is really just a system for your day. When we are working off of to do lists, we never get ahead and are always in "putting out fires" mode. The to do list will never be done. You have to set boundaries. It's your responsibility to set a boundary but it is not your responsibility t...

Kids Podcast You Will Enjoy

Driving in the car can be super stressful. The kids can be chatty, frustrated, fighting, etc. One of my favorite solutions is to put on a podcast for kids...that I find enjoyable! Here is a list of our favorites: The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel The Alien Adventures of Finn Caspian Pants on Fire Chompers Tumble Brains On Do you listen to podcasts with your kids? What are your favorites? Tell me in my free Facebook Group!

Kid Podcasts You Will Enjoy

Driving in the car can be super stressful. The kids can be chatty, frustrated, fighting, etc. One of my favorite solutions is to put on a podcast for kids...that I find enjoyable! Here is a list of our favorites: The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel The Alien Adventures of Finn Caspian Pants on Fire Chompers Tumble Brains On Do you listen to podcasts with your kids? What are your favorites? Tell me in my free Facebook Group!

New Year, New Routines

I have been so excited to evaluate my routines. This is a great time of year to evaluate. Say no to resolutions and find the areas that you can make some tweaks.  For example, we are looking at what new responsibilities we can give our children now that they are a bit older. We are raising our kids up and teaching them new things constantly.  As you're setting your new routines, live with the change you make for 2 weeks to see if it really does work for you.  Let us know your progress ...

2020 Goals

In this episode, I get real and share my 2020 goals with you.  This year, I'm focusing on a few parental, business, personal development and relationship goals. After setting my goals, I was sure to set action items and due dates. This will make it easier to add them to our 2-week sprints. What are your 2020 goals? Let me know in the Facebook Group!

How We Agile: Getting Back Into the Swing of Things

The holidays are over. If you are anything like me, the end of the year can get stressful. So how do you get back into the swing of things after the busy holiday season? Take some time to put some goals into writing that you feel will help propel you forward - maybe this is setting a goal of going to yoga twice a week or reading two books per month.  Making time to do things that you are going to enjoy and help you feel renewed is the key to get back into the swing of things.   Head on...

Just Say NO to New Year's Resolutions

Raise your hand if you've set a New Year's Resolution or two in your time.  It's not enough to make goals - they need to be specific and measurable, sure, but even that's not enough. This is why we Agile.  Listen to today's episode and learn how to actually set goals you can accomplish. Remember, our goal is to make your work visible. I created an amazing guide to help you start with a simple daily meeting. Grab your guide here. Don’t forget to join us in the Facebook Group!

Feeding Your Family Well with Amy Vig Jizmagian

If dinner time is a battle every night filled with nagging your children to finish the food that's on their plates, then you don't want to miss this episode.  Listen as Amy teaches us about family-style meals, how she encourages her children to be well-rounded competent and confident eaters, and how you can do the same with a few little changes each week. (Spoiler alert, there is discussion about broccoli and lima beans in this episode, but have no fear - mac and cheese is on the menu at A...

Word of the Year

It's time to talk about your word of the year. It can be so hard to pick a word for everything you want to accomplish and how you want to feel in the next year. I recommend sitting down and writing all of the words and feelings and then picking one. For me, I picked advocate. It is important to me that I advocate for myself, my children and my community. Your word of the year becomes your compass. Have an amazing 2020 with my an amazing guide to help you start with a simple daily meeti...

Seasonal Bucket List

I don't like calling it a bucket list, if I'm being honest. I prefer to call my seasonal bucket list a seasonal activity list. I feel like a bucket list is linked to a traumatic event.  Creating a list of things that you want to do for a season is a great way to spend intentional time. You definitely want to map it out at a family meeting so that you don't miss anything important. Also, podcast episodes will be pausing during the holiday season so that I can have intentional time. Plea...

Rebuilding Intimacy in Your Relationships

Honestly, intimacy in your relationship can fall to the wayside if you don't plan for it. It's affected every relationship at some point. I've been there!  I've built in rebuilding our relationship into our sprints. I make a mental note each day what my husband's love language is. Sometimes I have to actually remind myself so that he can receive love. We have to remember that how we receive love is not how we normally give it.  Plan a date night. We recently instituted choosing to watch,...

The Joy of Missing Out with Tonya Dalton

In this episode, I'm joined by Tonya Dalton. We are all on this hunt for the mythical balance, but it isn't achievable. We think we want balance, but we really don't. When you try to implement it in your daily life, it doesn't really work. If all things are equal, we're not moving in any true direction. We have to lean into our growth, but then we have to counterbalance. Really, we're looking for harmony, not balance. Focusing on this makes us feel like we're failing because it just is...

Kids Music That Won't Make You Scream

Today we're talking about something I love even more than productivity and home management. We are going to talk about music...kid's music that won't make you scream and want to pull your hair out!  There are so many songs that are just hard for us as parents to listen to, especially the toddler music! I recently rediscovered Casper Babypants. We also love Lori Berkner, Raffi and We Might Be Giants. There are quite a few more that I list in this episode.  I've listened to all of these so...

The Importance of Holding Firm on Boundaries

Boundaries are hard especially as parents. It's easy to fall into the trap of helping your kids with everything they need immediately and forgoing your own self-care.  It is very important to set boundaries and give ourselves the time that we need. It makes us a happier and nicer person.  The biggest problem is that we say we need to set a boundary and we say "oh, I'll get to it tomorrow." Or we might do it consistently for a week and then we stop doing it.  This signals to everyone wh...

Breaking Down Large Projects

Let's talk big goals. Moving goals. Travel goals. These huge goals that have tons of big and moving parts. You need to break it down into manageable pieces.  Write all of the steps down. Sit down and write everything that you could think could be a task to move forward. Then try to categorize it as first, next, last. Think of what could be lumped together and what could be separate. What is a small piece of the project and what is a large piece? This way you can figure out what needs to go...

How We Agile: Cleaning Routines

I am not a cleaning expert! I am not going to tell you how to clean your house, but I can tell you how to break it down into small and achievable tasks.  Your time is money, if you feel you could spend that time better or something you desire, I highly recommend outsourcing your cleaning routine. Write down when you are going to do certain things. The parts that are important to you are important, so make sure you know how often you need to clean it. As always, do a 2-week sprint. See ...

Make Every Sprint Your New Years Eve

On New Years Eve, we do a lot of thinking about routines and being our best selves in the new year. I want you to do that every 2 weeks! You can do that after every sprint. You can look at your sprint and your sprint goals and see how you can improve every two weeks! This helps you not be married to a system that isn't working. You don't need to wait until the next big holiday.  You've had the transformation of accepting and resolving a New Year's Resolution every 2 weeks! Isn't it gre...

The Importance of Making the Work Visible

The maternal mental load is a hot topic right now. Many people did not realize that so many things are going on under the surface. One of the reasons, I started using Agile in my home was because it made the work visible. All important steps and decisions go onto the project list. There are some things that each of you hold inside that you want done and you think about them a lot. But, for some reason, they haven't made it onto an external list and this can build resentment. Head on ov...

Communication in an Agile Environment

Communication is such a huge and important part of being Agile. One of the biggest problems our society has is that we listen without hearing. We formulate our response as we listen to them talk. This doesn't work in an Agile Environment because everyone needs to feel like they are being heard. Everyone can be heard, feel respected and will get their ideas written down on paper and be resolved. Now that you know all of this, take this idea to your next family sprint meeting. Head on ov...

Do Winners REALLY Never Quit?

Let's talk about a very famous quote from Vince Lombardi - "A winner never quits and a quitter never wins." Is this really true? How many times have people quitting led to them making a better decision and, ultimately, having more success and happiness? Many of us get married to a system without evaluating if it is really working for us. The glory of the Agile system lets you set yourself up with what is working now and later you can ask questions to see if it is still working. It does...

The I Don't List

We, as moms, look at everybody else and society's expectations of us, feeling like we  don't do enough. This is not necessarily true. You do not have to do #allthethings. Even the most successful people you know, they have a list of things that they don't do. We all have priorities and sometimes we don't like doing things so we just don't do them.  Your values come into play - what is important to you and what do you want to show in your life.  Email me or schedule a call with me to ta...

Visual Schedules and the Morning Routine

A visual schedule is a game changer. You won't argue with your kids about getting ready on the daily. The morning routine is often the busiest part of our day. We call our system the Children's Daily Scrum board because we use Scrum in our Agile Home. I bought my daily schedule from Amazon.    Whenever an argument starts or a question pops up, I always tell them to go look at their boards. This has allowed me to drink hot coffee, every day!   Can I get an amen? Don't forget to join...

Books and Your Family Values

If you're looking for a way to reinforce your family values, you don't have to look further than your bookshelves.  The catalyst for me was the book The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More by Bruce Feiler.    There are a few ways that we reinforce our family values through reading. Most commonly, I look at my kids' bookshelves and create one with books specific to our family values. I used Samantha Munoz...

How to Handle Sick Days in Your #Momlife

Two Moms Agile: Scrum vs Kanban

Brandi Olson is the founder and chief change artist at The Olson Group . With expertise in teaching, organizational learning and change, and human-centered design, Brandi is an experienced organizational designer and strategic partner with 10+ years of experience applying and teaching agile practices with teams and leaders. Brandi has a Masters of Education from the University of Minnesota and is a trained Human-Centered Design facilitator, Agile coach and Certified Scrum Professional with t...

What is Kanban?

Kanban was actually a system created by Toyota. Its flexibility allows you to overlay other workflows. There are 4 principles of kanban. Principle 1: Start with what to do now.  Principle 2: Agree to pursue incremental, evolutionary change. Changes that improve the system. Principle 3: Respect the current process, roles, responsibilities & titles. Principle 4: Encourage acts of leadership at all levels It is like scrum but it doesn't have deadlines. Next week on the podcast, we are...

What is Scrum?

We've talked about Agile on this podcast a lot. Agile is a project management system that helps you get your ish done. There are different ways to Agile, and my favorite is scrum. Scrum is an agile process allowing you to focus on delivering results in the shortest period of time. It's rapid and repeatedly checking systems and goals.  If you're a family that has to keep things changing often, scrum is the way to go. You get regular feedback, the entire family addresses the problems toget...

Where is Your Child's Reward Center

Finding this aspect of your child's personality will be a game changer because finding your child's reward center means you can get them to do thing that they don't necessarily want to do. Knowing a child's love language (Click here to find out more info), can be easy. It's the thing they ask for the most. People feel more loved when they receive love in their love language. But we often give love in the same way that we like to receive it. Email me or comment and let me know what your c...

My Favorite Video Games for Kids

Video games are on our nightly routine. Every night we get together and play games.  Some of our favorites for our son include Mario Odyssey, Mario Tennis, free-build in Minecraft and a few more! The reason we do this together is because it can be so collaborative and feel like a team effort. We used to do this when I was a kid.   If your kids are into video games and you haven't checked them out, I encourage you to check them out and try to get immersed, too.  Tell me your favorit...

How to Agile: New Schedules

Agile is meant to add flexibility to your life. It isn't about changing absolutely everything, but to make little tweaks.  My kids are now in school for 5 days a week. That's 5 days of lunches, snacks, extra clothes, things they need. The nice thing about having a system is that it doesn't change drastically.  This is a prime example of how you agile. You try something (like lunches). You introduce it. You go through a certain amount of time trying it. If it isn't working, then at the en...

3 Most Asked Holiday Questions

The holiday season can be a very stressful time. We need to know what could really makes the holidays a great season for you. How do you deal with holiday timelines and traditions? List out what all of yo.ur usual holiday events are. Think of how they serve your family's values and start prioritizing for each of the family members.  How do you deal with your family?  This is so hard because there can be a lot of problems with extended family. Have a plan with talking points to guide ...

What to do When You Backslide

Losing your routine and stability can feel like a backslide. One day you just forget and then you don't get back into the flow.   Backslides can happen from one forgotten task or if someone, like the kids, refuse to stick to the routine. The key is to help them find the motivation. You can either find their motivation center or find the root of the problem.  The other way to fix a backslide is to just hop back on the horse!  Look at a part of your routine that has slid away from you ...

How We Agile: Moving

Welcome to the How We Agile Series! We'll be talking about all of the ways that we Agile using Scrum, Khanban and more!  Recently we moved and we agiled this massive task. I started with a whiteboard with To Do, In Progress, and Done sections. We broke tasks up into 2 week blocks. I recommend using a moving timeline off of Google. Another top tip is to color code your boxes. We broke the whole thing down into very small pieces, prioritized each piece and made sure we didn't pack anythi...

A New Season for Me

This new season of my life is absolutely wonderful. We moved from a beautiful rural house into the city which means we're closer to the kids' school and so much more. A new season does also mean we have to set up our lifestyle again. When you're going through a season change, remember we are looking for progress over perfection and functional over pretty. You can pretty it up later, but you have to begin with it being exactly what you want.  Think of something that is not currently worki...

Finding Time for New Routines

It can feel rough and like you're the only person who doesn't even have the time to set up the systems. When we talk about setting up these routines & systems, I mean it's only going to take 5 minutes a day, with a 10-minute meeting once a week and a 20-minute meeting every two weeks. You already have these time increments. I go over all of this in my course. You start out with knowing your family's values, setting your family's mission statement and tracking your time. Track your time...

The Dreaded To-Do and Honey Do Lists

To-do lists can feel pretty dreadful. No matter how much we do, there's always something to add to the list. Well, duh! You're alive. This is why we started living the Agile life. You have very specific goals that you want to reach in a specific time period.  I post my to-do list pretty frequently on Instagram so that you can see how I stay on top of it.  The secret to your Honey Do List is to sit down with your partner and discuss each task. Decide if your partner will do it, if you w...

Help! I Need Somebody! How to Help Yourself Ask for Help

Asking for help is an art form. It is not easy because we're used to doing it all on our own and it is very difficult to break those habits. Even people who have no problem asking for help in most ways, there are still some areas of help that it is difficult. We often feel like if we ask for help, we owe something in return.  Today, I want you to ask someone to do something for you. Relieve yourself of the guilt. Acknowledge what is going on inside of you. That is vitally important for y...

School's Back, Back Again

We’re jumping back into the school year. Are you prepared? Or is your house utter chaos when it comes to getting ready for school, bedtime and – did you even sign that permission slip that was sent home last week? Listen to today’s episode to hear about how I use a visual schedule to keep our morning and nighttime routines consistent enough that I can have hot coffee every morning. Say goodbye to micromanaging! Don’t forget to check out my free FB Group and read a great conversation with...

Teaching Kids Life Skills

We all have to teach our children life skills each and every day and I think one of the best ways to do that is during a 2-week sprint.  Whether you're trying to teach your children any of these necessary skills like money management (did you miss that episode? check it out here), house cleaning, laundry, cooking a meal, or going grocery shopping, listen to today's episode to learn how to break down potentially overwhelming life skills and how to utilize 2-week sprints to make the teaching...

How to Combat Mommy Martyrdom Syndrome

Let's talk about Mommy Martyrdom. You know, those moments in the day where you're saying "ugh, nobody does anything to help me around here!" or "ugh, I have to do everything myself!"    But what I've found is that when I'm in that headspace, people stopped wanting to help me because all I was doing was huffing and puffing and complaining.   But then the voices in our heads start saying "you're not doing this thing because you don't want to help me" or "you're not doing this thing bec...

Kids + Allowance and an Amazing Allowance App

Allowances are a hot button topic for all parents, I know. Should you give an allowance at all? Should you give an allowance for chores? What sorts of things should you be incentivizing?  In our home, we believe that in order to teach money management, our children will need to have access to money.  Listen to the episode to hear how we handle the issue of allowance and get some ideas about how you can start teaching your children about money too.    How do you and your family handle...

How I Practice Self-Care

We've talked before on this podcast about how self-care is NOT the answer (missed that episode? you can check it out here!). Self-care will NOT solve your problems, but self-care IS an important part of your life.    So how can you practice self-care? Be prepared ahead of time.    Personally, I create self-care baskets. Whether I'm putting my bath bombs, facials, and bubble bath in a basket, or putting a crossword book (with a pen!) and my yarn in another basket, everything I need t...