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Diana Rene: 0:06

You're listening to The Decluttered Mom podcast, a podcast built specifically for busy moms by a busy mom. I'm your host, Diana Rene, and in 2017, I had my second daughter and it felt like I was literally drowning in my home okay, not literally, but I felt like I couldn't breathe with all of the stuff surrounding me. Over the next 10 months, I got rid of approximately 70% of our household belongings and I have never looked back. I kind of feel like I hacked the mom system and I'm here to share all the tips, tricks and encouragement. Let's listen to today's show. Welcome to another episode of The Decluttered Mom podcast. I know that basically every episode I say this, but I'm very excited for this episode because I got a new mic and hopefully you can tell that I got a new mic. However, I just recorded a bunch of things for you and realized that I forgot to turn said new mic on. So it's a learning curve at all times in my journey, but apparently it was a very large learning curve today. In my defense, the little light was on the microphone, but it just meant it was charging because it was plugged into my laptop. It did not mean that it was actually on and recording anything that I was saying to you. So we have that fixed now.

Diana Rene: 1:39

I recently posted on Instagram asking you guys just for feedback on the podcast. Really like open-ended. Just give me all your feedback. Do you like the topics? Do you like whatever? Do you hate it? Just tell me the truth, right? And one thing that I got over and over was that the audio quality was just hard to listen to, and that 100% is my fault, because with my ADHD brain, there will be many days where I record episodes in my car on my phone, and I got to snap out of that. I got to stop doing that. So I researched, like, what is the best podcasting mic if you don't have, like a studio that you're recording in? Because I don't have, you know, a big fancy recording studio with video and all of that, I'm just like in my house, and so I found the best mic. Hopefully this is helping and hopefully my producer will be much happier with me also because it'll be easier to edit or adjust for all of these sound issues I have or like the trains going by in the car. Anyway, I am just you're probably not nearly as excited about this as me, but I'm really hoping that this is helpful for those of you that do, or are sensitive to just not great audio quality. I get it. I think it can be like a real like. If it's something that you are sensitive to, sensory wise, I think it can be very difficult to listen to. So hopefully this is helpful.

Diana Rene: 3:13

Today, I want to talk about something that feels a little silly to talk about. Like, when I was writing down what I wanted to cover in this episode, I was like should I cover this? Is this something that will be helpful? I keep going back and forth, and so I'm just going to share it. If it's not helpful, that's okay. I have a feeling, though, especially if you do have an ADHD brain like me, this might be helpful, because it took me a while to kind of figure out a system for this, and if you don't have a brain that works like me, you might be like, what, like why is this even a thing?

Diana Rene: 3:53

So what I want to talk about is having a high energy list, and this could look really any way you want it to look For me. It's just a note in my phone called high energy list, and this list is just anything like that I want done around the house, in my life, through work, just really anything that I know is going to take higher energy levels to complete. And if I am in a time where I don't have high energy, it ebbs and flows right. And so, like there are seasons where I have really high energy, there are seasons where I feel like I can barely get out of bed or I can, like it's like my executive functioning is barely there and like it's hard for me to just do like the very basics in my day to day and like normally that's not like a you know, one week I have all the energy in the world and the next week I can't function. It's more so on like a 24 hour cycle, like there are different times during the day where I feel like I have a lot of energy and then there are times during the day where I feel like it's really hard to just get something done. And then I also think there are just like there are sometimes like there's a full day where I just feel like I could tackle anything and I think there's like a bajillion and one components to why that happens. But it just does. And if you resonate with that, then you get it too.

Diana Rene: 5:33

I've heard from you, from many of you, that you have moments like that, and so what I started doing is I created this list. It's just a note in my phone, like I said, and it's just things that I like when I am in that high energy mode and I'm like just smashing through my to-do list and I'm like looking for other things to do, I just open that app or that note and I just start at the top and I just work through the list, and it's things that when I'm not in that mood, I'm like, oh yeah, this is really important or I would really like for this to happen, but it's not something that I can add to like my daily life, right. And so I just opened the list and I actually thought of this episode, you guys, because I had one of these days today where I just felt like I could do anything and I was just knocking things out and I was like, oh yeah, this is a great thing I want to chat with you guys about. So I opened the list, I start working through those and then I give myself grace for the days that I don't open that note app, and sometimes it's like weeks that I don't open that.

Diana Rene: 6:45

And there are other times where I'm opening it a lot and it's just like I said, it's different seasons of my life. It totally like if I like really sat down and examined. It's probably like when I'm sleeping more, when the kids are sick less, when I don't have as much going on with work, like when I'm actually eating food that like gives me nutrition and doesn't just fill me up, like there are probably a lot of clues as to like when I have those higher energy days, but that's kind of a whole other topic for another day. So having this high energy list is just something that helps me to get more of what I actually want done when I have those high energy days, and I want to make sure that I'm like really taking advantage of it. There have been times where I'm like really want to get things done, so I just find stuff to do that like, yeah, it's great that I got it done, but there were other things that would have made a bigger impact in my day-to-day life.

Diana Rene: 7:43

Now I have some things in there that do really help my day-to-day life, for example, like prepping vegetables, prepping fruit, things that are going to make the lower energy days more easy.

Diana Rene: 8:00

That's not a real sentence, but you know what I mean.

Diana Rene: 8:02

So, like, if I'm like on top of the world one day and I have a lot of energy and I just am like in the mood to get stuff done, then that's the time for me to like wash and chop all of the vegetables into easy to access containers for the rest of the week when I'm lower energy, because I'm going to make my life easier in those lower energy days when I have the higher energy, then when I have those lower energy days, I also am just not as hard on myself if I'm not getting stuff like that done, because I basically like high energy, Diana is helping to take care of low energy Diana.

Diana Rene: 8:40

And so, like I said, this might not be something you might be listening to this like what in the world is she talking about? Or you might be someone who has a similar brain as me, with difficulty with executive functioning, and some days are easier and some days are a lot harder executive functioning, and some days are easier and some days are a lot harder. And so you get it and hopefully just this one little tip, this one little switch can help you to really take advantage of those higher energy days or periods of time, and make your life easier for those lower energy. I hope this was helpful and I will see you next week, mom, and send me a DM to say hi. I'd love to hear what you thought about today's episode. I hope you'll come back next week and hang out with us again.