Germ season is coming (slash, is already here – I recorded this and, right after, 3 out of 4 of my family went down with a virus ha). Let’s talk about how to handle a sick kid at home when you’re trying to work.
This is Part 2 and focuses on what we can do once kids are sick at home. Part 1 covered things we can do beforehand to prep for kids inevitably being sick at home this season.
Here’s the full article these two episodes are based on.
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Episode 27. Sick Kid at Home Part 2
[Upbeat Intro Music]
Kelly Nolan: Welcome to The Bright Method Podcast where we’ll discuss practical time management strategies designed for the professional working woman. I’m Kelly Nolan, a former patent litigator who now works with women to set up The Bright Method in their lives. The Bright Method is a realistic time management system that helps you manage it all, personally and professionally. Let’s get you falling asleep proud of what you got done today and calm about what’s on tap tomorrow. All right, let’s dig in!
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Hey, hey! Welcome to part two of what to do if you are trying to work at home with sick kids. And so, part one was about things that you can do before your kids are sick, and now we’re gonna turn to the things that you can do once your kids are sick. As a reminder, this is all based on an article that I wrote that I crowdsourced the advice from other people on Instagram and my email list, so these tips come from other people as well, which is awesome because I only have five years of parenting experience, and so, I think it’s really helpful to hear from more experienced parents. The article that they’re about, I’ll link it in the show notes so that if you also just want to listen today and then go back to that article to pull out things that you will implement, awesome.
Okay, so we are gonna talk today, as I said, about what to do once the kids are sick. I just want to be really clear that these weeks are hard. There’s no amount of time management wizardry that can change this, and so, just know that. They’re gonna be hard. There’s nothing wrong with you, if you were more organized, or anything like that. They’re just really hard. You lose sleep because you’re up with kids, and I just find that anytime I lose sleep everything is worse. You know, the days you’re just tired. You’re trying to help your kid and be emotionally available for them, but then also you’re trying to get work done and manage expectations, and you feel some guilt over there because maybe your team has to pick up some slack. There’s just a lot going on and just knowing that we can’t change all of it is part of kind of releasing the pressure of trying to get too perfect through this.
So, obviously, just know that going in. There are some time management strategies that can help, so we’re gonna talk about those, but again, these weeks are hard. That’s just very normal and unfortunate, but it is what it is. So here are the tips, though. Let’s make it as easy on ourselves as we can.
Tip #1: Embrace Instacart – 2:19
Tip number one, short and sweet, is to embrace Instacart. If you haven’t already, I highly encourage you to really use Instacart during those weeks of your life. Use it for medicine. Use it for soup. Use it for crackers, to get food, anything like that, use Instacart. You can use Shipt, which is another option for Target. You can use Grubhub, whatever service makes your life easier. If you live in an area where you have these services available to you, use them. Set them up ahead of time. So that is actually something that, if you’re listening to this now, before a kid is sick, and you haven’t used these systems, try them once or twice before. You might get hooked, and you might never go back. But also when you need them when you’re sick, you’re not setting up an account, putting in your credit card, all that kind of stuff.
So that’s the tip, short and sweet. Really embrace the services that can help you. Instacart is a massive one for me when we have sick kids at home, especially if your kids are little and you can’t leave them at home. It’s just terrible to have to grab a kid with a 103-degree fever and take them into the grocery store. I mean, no one wants you in that grocery store with a sick kid, and also it’s just so painful to have to get your kid dressed and get them in the car and all that kind of stuff. So embrace that stuff.
Tip #2: Upset Stomach Can Mean Strep Throat – 3:32
Tip number two is super random. This probably only applies to parents with little kids. But know that a kid’s upset stomach can mean it’s strep throat. That is a lesson that I had to learn last year, and I just wanted to PSA it for people. Again, it might feel super random to you, but it can save you days because the awesome part about strep throat is they can take antibiotics and feel better relatively quickly. They can also go back to school after a certain period of time as long as they’re feeling okay. It’s really magical, but I think of strep throat as a really bad sore throat. I did not realize that with little kids in preschool, pre-K, and kindergarten-type ages, it’s not even an upset stomach necessarily.
Now I know that some of my friends’ kids will throw up or have diarrhea. My daughter just had a painful tummy, screaming about how much her tummy hurt, and I let it go on too many days before I found out that could be strep throat. I finally took her to the pediatrician, got strep throat diagnosed, got antibiotics in her, and she was fine. But I would have saved myself many days of having her home, but more importantly, I would have saved her days of being uncomfortable if I had known that.
So this is a bit of a time management and just random PSA for the parents of little kids out there that basically now I’m like, when in doubt, let’s go get tested for strep because I just want to make sure. I don’t know if it can end up bad if you don’t get strep dealt with in some scenarios, and so, just might as well figure it out so that you can make everybody else’s life easier by getting them the medicine that they need.
Tip #3: Have a Plan – 5:12
So tip number three is definitely more in line with what I normally talk about when it comes to time management, which is we’ve got to come up with a plan for when a kid is sick. There are kind of two phases to the planning process I see. Phase one is that more immediate, “Okay, suddenly I realize my whole day just got thrown out the window because my kid is sick, so how am I going to deal with that.” Then phase two is when the dust settles a little bit, how are we gonna rearrange everything else. So let’s talk about this.
So phase one, as I said, is that immediate phase. You realize your kid is sick, and suddenly you know you’re gonna have a sick kid at home. This means getting clear on when you can work and then, in light of that, what you need to move around because you won’t be able to work during that time and maybe have some meetings set up.
So in terms of just getting clarity on when you’re gonna work, it really comes down to when is someone else in charge of your kid and then also maybe, if nap times are still a thing for you, when are they likely to be asleep. That’s the first step that I really think about is let me literally plot out in my calendar when someone else is in charge of my child and then also when I think they might be asleep because it’s not as ideal as when someone else is in charge, but also gives you some wiggle room here. You have to know your kid.
One of my kids, when she’s sick, I can’t rely on sleep because she might not sleep. Where one of my others, she’ll sleep way more. And so, I can kind of bank on that a little bit more. So you know your own kid, but really just getting that clarity of when is someone else in charge of my kid or when are they asleep, and then what falls outside of those windows, and let me immediately cancel or move all of those things either into the windows or into the future or even just canceling them for now and letting them know you’ll reschedule.
You can also look at this and say just because a meeting falls in a window that you can work, if it’s not a high-ranking meeting, maybe move that and then move one of those more important meetings into the window that you have the help for. If you have a partner, this is a great thing to do with your partner. Maybe look at it yourself first and understand what your own needs are, and then pull your partner in. One woman who wrote in said, “Have an early strategy session with your partner, if you have one, where you lay out what you both need to do in the next week, and that will lead to what feels like a more equitable split even if it isn’t fair all the time.”
That raises a really good point. I think, for the immediate thing, look at today and figure out today so that you give yourself that breathing space and stress, so you know that you don’t have meetings coming up that people expect you at and you’re not gonna be there. But also, to the extent you can, really get clear. It’s all a guessing game. Saying, “Okay, this kid has a sick tummy. I’m likely out definitely, probably tomorrow.” I mean, even just using school rules you’re like, “They threw up this morning. Chances are they’re gonna throw up again. I can’t send them back for 24 hours, so we’re out tomorrow and probably the next day and maybe the next day.” Really be realistic there, and then use that information to really look forward through the rest of your week.
You can use your judgment here. Phase one really is the deal with the immediate fire issues of the meetings coming up, but it is important to look at your next couple of days, even in that immediate-fire scenario because you might have a massive deadline tomorrow that you were gonna work on a lot today, and so, you need to be aware of that so you can also get that off your plate today.
So, taking a step back, going into that meeting with your partner, what you might do is say something like if your partner can take the morning and you can take the afternoon, then you could plot out that kind of stuff in your calendar, and then you could rearrange, move, or cancel meetings or things you intended to do in light of that division. It might not be so clean cut. It might be more like trading off every hour or two hours, depending on schedule. But again, use your calendar to lay that out so that then you could start matchmaking the tasks that you’re going to do that day or the meetings you’re gonna do that day to the windows that you do have coverage for.
Just to be really clear, that’s when you would send out those emails about, “Hey, I need to move this meeting.” “Hey, I’m not gonna be able to come to this meeting. Please send me whatever I need to do.” “Hey, we have this massive deadline tomorrow. I’m going to need to move it out. Can we file for an extension,” if that’s relevant to what you do, or is someone else gonna have to take that over if you can’t move it, and how are you gonna orchestrate that. But that’s when you really sit down and you look at the immediate things that need to be dealt with today and maybe also today because of things that are coming up tomorrow or in the next two days, look ahead at that. Just deal with the high, high-level, fire-type stuff where people expect you to show up, and then send out those emails to bring people into awareness around it all.
At the very least, send out an email to your team just giving them a heads up of what’s going on, and just blanket cancel your plans for the day. But whatever you need to do to just get that out there, partly to be fair to other people and have that communication going but also really to reduce your own stress. I think that sometimes it’s that feeling of, “Well, can I get to that thing tomorrow or can I even get to that thing later today?” And if you just call it and embrace the reality of your situation and move things around in light of that, you’re really going to ease a lot of your stress through the next hours and days of your life.
Phase two happens more when, let’s say you get to a naptime or your first hour of coverage that you don’t have immediate fires you need to put out and you have just a little bit more breathing space, that’s when I want you to revisit that question of how many days do I anticipate this lasting. Overestimate, and then sit down and really look at that calendar. What meetings should you move out in light of this? Even if you technically can find the time for the meetings, is that really the highest priority of things you should be doing in the next three days or four days given your limited time? Do you want to ask for an extension of things, even an extension of deadlines next week to help, again, push some stuff off your plate this week? You know, really looking ahead at this week and even next week when it comes to deadlines with the goal of how do I give myself as much breathing space through this as I can. Just doing this as ahead of time as you can, this is the earliest you’re able to. It is what it is. But really pushing things out that you can, delegating things out if you can, all of that kind of stuff is what you want to really sit down and, now that you have a little bit more breathing space, think about.
I really urge you, as you’re doing this, to build in wiggle room because part of what we all know dealing with a sick kid means is you’re not gonna get the best sleep, typically. You’re not gonna get their full nap windows. You might need a nap. You might truly, desperately need a nap because of how little sleep you got the night before, so you might not be able to use every window of time you have for work. You might need to take care of yourself, and I Just throw all that out there so that you, as you’re pushing things out — part of the issue is just setting expectations. If you push something out and say you’ll get to it on Friday when really maybe you could get to it if you could also turn it in next Tuesday instead, give yourself the breathing space, and don’t find yourself saying Friday and then on Friday having to go back to them and asking for Tuesday. It’s better just to ask for Tuesday and then give yourself the breathing space and not have to ask again for another extension down the road.
So just putting that out there for you that as you look at the rest of this week and the rest of next week is push things out as much as you can while having to deal with the responsibilities of things because things are gonna come up and you’re not gonna get the best sleep and things like that. And so, the more breathing space we can build into this the better, and just know that going into it as you go through these phases.
So just to really recap this, the immediate phase is like the fire phase where you’re like, “Okay, what do I have today?” You might do this with a partner. “What windows, if any, of time do I have to work today, and if I can, let me matchmake my highest-priority things into that time.” The highest priority might be a nap compared to what you got done today. And then everything else that has to get moved, start sending out those emails.
What I think is the right time frame to look at is really today and probably tomorrow and the next day, if only just for the deadlines. You don’t have to move all the meetings for tomorrow right then, but you want to look at the major deadlines that you have so that you can address those as soon as possible if there’s work left to be done. Then phase two is, “Okay, I have a little bit more breathing space. Let me take a step back. How many days do I think that this is going to last? Let me rearrange my schedule for those days and let me also look into next week and make sure there are no big deadlines that I’m not seeing right now that I also have to deal with and maybe push out right now.”
As you ask for things to be moved and really extend some deadlines or move out meetings or things like that, overestimate so you’re not going back to them again and having to reset expectations down the road. Build in that wiggle room because you’re gonna be tired. Your brain’s gonna be elsewhere because you’re gonna be thinking about your kid, all of that type of stuff. So really overestimate and build in the wiggle room on the frontend.
I also just wanted to share two things that other moms wrote. In the words of one mom, she said:
“Honestly, I just have to embrace working less. Some stuff isn’t going to get done.”
That’s a really great thing she’s bringing up. Along the lines of what I’m talking about, there are certain things, like don’t forget the power of elimination. There are some things that you’re gonna be like, “Yeah, this was a great idea. But now that my whole life is turned upside down for this week and probably a little bit of next week, I’m just gonna have to eliminate some of this stuff.” And so, that is a really great thing. And then just knowing you can’t. Physically, it’s impossible for you to work as much as you would without a sick kid at home, and so, you just have to embrace that reality and accept it and then really prioritize what limited time you have for work.
Another mom said:
“Asking for grace from people. They’re a lot more forgiving than we think.”
I think that’s a really important thing to remember. There are a lot of people right now who really understand what you’re going through, and they will relate with and understand what you’re going through. If they don’t, that’s a good sign too. So take that for what you want.
Tip #4: Where Do You Find the Time to Work – 15:39
Okay, tip number four relates to where do you find the time to work. What does that look like? Some of the stuff is pretty self-explanatory. As we talked about, when kids are asleep, that can be, depending on your kid, a decently-solid window to rely on. Another one is screen time. Even if you don’t normally allow screen time, embrace it for when kids are sick. The distraction helps them get through the day too and you too, and so, I just throw that out there for you.
One thing to think about is that if I know I need my kids to leave me alone for a specific hour, let’s say, because I have an important call that I cannot move and there’s no one else to watch my kids, I will save screen time for that. So you want to be a little strategic on that front. We won’t do screen time, or we won’t do iPad — my kids rarely get the iPad. I will say I’m very liberal with screen time, like TV shows on the TV, mainly because they do all these other things while the TV’s technically on. But we don’t use iPads very much because my kids struggle with letting those go. They’ve become a little too zombie-ish for me. But I’m all about the iPad when my kids are sick, especially if it’s given strategically for when I really do need them to leave me alone so I can do a call for a period of time. Then they’re still novel, and that is a really nice thing to have.
I’m sharing some of this stuff because it might sound really obvious to you, but as we all know when you’re in the thick of having kids at home that are sick, your brain isn’t always thinking super clearly. So just want to throw out there that you can move nap times around a little bit, especially earlier, I find. If your kid is still napping and they’re sick, they usually need that nap so badly.
So let’s say my kid normally naps at noon but I have an 11:00 AM meeting that I really can’t move, I will put my kids down at, like, 10:45, and even though that’s an hour and 15 minutes earlier than they normally do, when they’re tired, they do go for it. I just throw that out there for you to consider. It’s good for them. It’s good for them to get some extra sleep and it can really help you. So I just find that when my kids are sick, it’s a lot easier to move naps around to accommodate my schedule as well.
Also, especially if you have little, little, little babies that aren’t talking as much, is going on a walk and taking a phone call, if the weather allows, is a really nice way to be able to — they’re snapped in their little stroller. They’re not running around, their hands are more free even if they’re on a stroller, and your brain can really focus on a call, versus when a kid’s in the house running around and you have to keep an eye on a tiny kid. So just throwing that out there as another option for you.
So tips for finding some time to work: obviously sleep, screen time, movie nap times, going on a walk and taking a call.
Tip #5: Embrace The Reality of Your Environment – 18:24
All right, tip number five is be intentional about the environment you’re in and what work you can do in it. This just kind of goes to the embracing the reality of your environment. So, to the extent you can, if you have to work when kids are awake, really try and matchmake what you’re doing to the environment. So when your kids are awake and you’re around them, even if they’re watching TV or a movie or something like that, I mean, you just kind of know. At least I do. At least with my kids, I only have my kids and what I know their requests for food or drinks and things like that are. And even how they’re feeling and what they’re gonna need from me is going to be too disruptive for me to bring my intellectual A-game to focusing on something.
So, sometimes I just don’t work. It’s just too much. But if I do really need to work, email’s the kind of thing that I can stay on top of in those moments because it’s bite-sized, it’s easily interruptible, I can definitely leave email to focus on what they need from me in those moments. While email might not be the highest-priority thing I need to do, by clearing out email and staying on top of it when my kids are awake, then when they are asleep or I get the coverage I need, I can turn to the more higher-focus things I need to focus on.
So just throwing that out there for you to consider, that as kids are awake — I mean, please don’t get me wrong. If you can check out of work, go for it. This is more for the people who are struggling to do that given the demands of their job. When kids are awake, if you can have the default thought of, “When I have time to work, what I do is email, and I’m just dealing with email and moving things along with teammates and responding and helping clients and that kind of stuff,” and then when I have the nap times, when I have other people covering, I can dig into more of the deeper work that I’m supposed to be doing or have those meetings that I need to have that aren’t easily moveable.
Okay, so just to recap where we are:
- Tip number one is embrace Instacart.
- Tip number two is know that a kid’s upset stomach can mean strep. (Basically, when in doubt, test strep.)
- Tip number three is when illness strikes, come up with a plan. (That’s the two-phase plan. It’s kind of like fire, then when you have more breathing space, and looking really ahead of time and overestimating the times you need when you reset expectations).
- Tip number four was about how to find some time for work, and we talked about screen times and moving nap times and going on walks).
- Tip number five is being intentional with the environment. (Really thinking, “When my kids are awake, this is the type of work I’m gonna do. And when I have more coverage, this is the type of work I’m gonna do or the meetings I’m gonna have.”)
Tip #6: Keep a To-Do List – 20:58
Tip number six is, throughout a day, keep a list of tasks that you need to handle, both work and professional. Those of you who’ve been around might gasp at this because I’m very anti-to-do list, but I completely understand how in some environments a list can be better than time-specific calendar stuff because your whole day is suddenly very influx, and you have to be a little flexible. So having a list can be helpful as long as you’re aware of the pitfalls of the list.
So if you want to use your calendars in the ways that I teach, wonderful. If that’s not serving you in this type of environment, totally get it. One mom wrote in, and she said:
“I keep a note on my phone of emails or things I need to take action on that come in throughout the day that I’m gonna take action on at night. I find that looking at my calendar is more stressful during these days because I’m reminded of everything I’m missing out on or should be attending. Mentally, I cannot take care of a sick kid and do the work, so I limit myself to reading emails during the day and keeping track of what needs actioning at the end of the day.”
I really love this. I wish, obviously, if I could wave a magic wand, no one would have to work at night, and we could all get the sleep and recuperate. But I’m a realist, and so, this is a wonderful way that she has found to know herself, know her own emotional needs and capabilities, and really find the right balance for her to handle that.
So, whether you’re a paper-and-pen-type list maker or on your phone, I think it’s really smart because it allows you, when you get to those quieter moments, to really have a clear list of what the things are that you need to bang out.
As with anything, and as with any list, I just want to throw out there that just because it’s on the list doesn’t mean it’s realistic for that period of time. So let’s say that you realistically put the kids to bed. They’re finally asleep. You have an hour and a half, maybe two hours, of work that you can do before you really need to go to bed to protect your own health, and you have a list of ten things, that’s when you really also need to do some ruthless prioritizing of, “I’m not gonna get to all of these things. So let me just pick the first most important thing, bang that out, the second most important thing, bang it out,” and then looking at the rest of it like, “This is stuff that is not going to get done today.” maybe you send some emails out to acknowledge that and help move things around, and then you also protect yourself and go to bed.
Long story short, what I’m trying to say is just because everything’s on a list doesn’t mean it’s reasonable. It likely is not realistic for you to get it all done that night. So before you dig in and expect yourself to do it all, go in with the approach of, “I’m going to do as much as I can right now, but it is what it is.” You cannot stay up all night. You are not going to get the same amount of work done that you would during an eight-hour workday in an hour and a half in the evening.
Tip #7: Take Care of Yourself (Sleep Included) – 23:43
Along those lines, tip number seven is still take care of yourself including your sleep. As one mom said — and I’m gonna put her whole comment in for context. This goes a little bit beyond it. She said:
“Working and taking care of a sick kid is the worst. I only have one kid. We both have flexible jobs and work from home, and we have family in town, and I still sometimes lose it when sickness abounds. I do not understand how people do this without these things. We have number two coming, and I’m not prepared for how it will change things, but I’m also so thankful we have all these things mentioned above. I think I’ve just come to terms with the fact that when they are sick things just don’t get done. Ruthless prioritization is the name of the game. Sometimes a bath after she goes to bed is way more important than any email, dish, or laundry basket.”
I really just want you to hear that because it’s something that so often, especially when we’re in the depths of stress because we’re stressed about our kids and their health and then stressed about work, we just don’t always think the most logically that we normally do, and it’s really hard sometimes, but I couldn’t agree with this more to the extent you can. I get it. Sometimes it’s not all in your control. But to the extent you can, really prioritize sleep in this context.
It’s not the worst thing that could happen, but a potential really bad thing that could happen is you finally get your kids healthy and then you get sick, or you get sick in the middle of it while you’re also taking care of a sick kid and trying to be there for work. And so, really try and do your best to take care of yourself so you also don’t go down.
I’ll throw out there a random little tip, but meditation apps are really helpful for me to slow my brain down. Often if I have been taking care of a sick kid all day and then I get in bed, that’s when a lot of work thoughts or other thoughts come up and start bubbling up and even thoughts about my kid and, “What will I do tomorrow? How am I gonna handle if they get up in the middle of the night?” All that kind of stuff that’s just not that useful in those moments. And so, using a meditation app like Insight Timer (I just use the free version) is really, really helpful to quiet my brain down and help me get the sleep that I need.
Okay, the last two tips are a bit more mental, but candidly, the mental game when your kid is sick is really important. So, while I’m usually very practical, I also really think it’s really important to think about this stuff.
Tip #8: Having Gratitude for Health – 25:57
So tip number eight is having gratitude for normally healthy kids. If you have typically medically-normal children, I want you to just remind yourself of that because it really helps with the perspective in those moments. It’s easy to kind of spiral when you have a sick kid at home and everything feels like it’s crashing, and I just think it’s a nice — I don’t mean to be preachy about it. I truly say this to myself all the time. “Aren’t I lucky that this is not my normal baseline,” and at the same time, it is okay to be really stressed out by it. I think both can be true, and I think you can hold space for both of those. And so, I just throw those out there for you. I think being told to be grateful when things are hard is just very aggravating and sometimes unhealthy.
So I think you have to have a balanced approach here, but I truly, genuinely feel lucky when my kids are sick that we’re normally not dealing with this, and I think that’s really important to keep in mind, and I bow down to parents who deal with medically-complicated kids day in and day out because I feel so weak when three days of having a sick kid at home feels like it’s breaking me, and I just bow down to parents who do this day in and day out.
My grandmother has a saying that she says: “If we threw all of our problems up in the air and saw everyone else’s, we’d snatch our own back real fast.” I know she didn’t say that, but she says it frequently from somebody else, and I just think there’s a lot of validity in that. If we threw all our problems up in the air and saw everybody else’s, suddenly our problems don’t look so bad and we’d grab for them really quickly, and they can be really hard. It’s still hard. and so, just know that. If you’re in your third illness in three weeks, it’s so draining and defeating and exhausting, and you can try and hold both.
I want to share what some other parents wrote in on this, and one person said: “I got nothing. This is hard,” with a little exploitative in there.
Somebody else said: “The truth is, we don’t know how to manage, and it’s awful. There’s just so much stress.”
Both of those things can be true, and I really just, ugh if you’re in it, a big hug. I have been there, and I will be there soon again I know.
Tip #9: Things Get Better – 28:15
The final tip is something that I do think is really helpful to remember as well. Things get better. One mom said that remembering it’s temporary really helps her a lot, along with therapy and sleep meds. Another mom sent this other message. She said:
“Someday they will both be in school. It will happen, and they won’t get all the bugs. It happens when they are little because they have never had them, but elementary age is so much healthier. No more croup, hand-foot-and-mouth, endless ear infections, etcetera. We get occasional strep, but that’s about it. But then you get sport schedules, but I can plan for that and use my many-colored Google calendars.”
I love that. I think that it’s really important to see the light at the end of the tunnel, to know that this isn’t forever because it certainly feels like it’s gonna be forever. For me, that is the best thing to hear and remind myself. I have started to see the light in that tunnel, knock on all the wood. I have a five-year-old and a two-year-old. The two-year-old has been in daycare since she was twelve months old. She did get tubes in her ears, so I know that that’s saving us from a lot of ear infections. So we do have tubes because of all the ear infections she’s got. But they started school basically somewhere around September first, and it’s October eleventh as I’m recording this, and so far, knock on all the wood, as I said, they have not missed a day of school. And so, because they’ve had this immunity built up (at least that’s what I’m telling myself), they’ve been in school for this period of time. Again, I’m sure next week they’ll be home sick, but for now, I’m starting to see the light at the end of that tunnel, and it really does help.
So I share that with you, I share the words of the more experienced mom with you because they certainly help me, and just starting to see that come to fruition is helping me as well.
Recap – 30:02
So, to wrap it up, that’s it! It’s terrible and it’s temporary. But it’s the temporary that feels like a really long time when you’re in it. I know that none of these strategies are magical. They’re not gonna solve the problems or the stress. But I hope they provide you with some relief and a nugget or two that will help you feel more empowered and in control as you manage it to the extent you can be.
So good luck! Please feel free to send me more strategies. If you’d like them to be included in the article, I’ll link the article in the show notes again just so that if you want to check it out there as well, and if you want to share this podcast episode with anyone, go for it! I think we could all use the support, and I really appreciate it, and I will catch you in the next episode!
[Upbeat Outro Music]
