When your spouse travels extensively for work and you’re left to run things yourself, you can feel overwhelmed, exhausted, and lonely. Even if you’re getting everyone fed, clothed, and meeting basic needs, trying to get everything done alone can be exhausting and cause tension between you and your partner.
Treat yourself well and don’t be afraid to ask for help, and with a little planning, you can better handle your spouse’s travel schedule and keep things running smoothly at home.
Keep Meals Simple
Keep meals simple by making things such as lasagnas, casseroles, DIY-pizzas, and other easy-to-throw-together dishes. Crafting up an ultra-fancy meal can be fun, but not if it makes grocery shopping, prepping, and cleanup more difficult than it needs to be.
Taking yourself and your children out to eat once or twice a week while your partner is away can also be a fun and simple way of cutting down on household cooking tasks.
Don’t Take on Extra
Avoid taking on extra school volunteer duties, staying late for work, or starting extra projects while your partner is traveling unless you feel like you have a lot of available time.
Understand that you cannot physically or emotionally tackle all of it on your own, especially not without piling onto your mental load. Ensure everyone is fed and clothed and gets to sleep, and consider everything else a bonus!
Keep a Routine
Stick to your normal routine as much as possible, especially if you have kids. Having a semi-normal routine will eliminate a lot of unexpected bumps in the road and help you anticipate what comes next and how to handle it. This will keep things calm and maintain order in an otherwise potentially stressful household while your partner is away.
Make sure you take time to practice self-care throughout the chaos of running a household while your spouse is traveling. Schedule lunches with your coworkers or friends, or carve out one evening a week to hire a sitter so you can go out and grab dinner or drinks. Have other friends that are going through something similar? Invite them and their kids over for a potluck-style dinner.
If you find that you’re running low on time spent with yourself, get the children to bed a little earlier and have a bath or make yourself a cup of herbal tea. Alternatively, getting up before your kids to practice yoga or meditation can help you see things clearly and keep calm.
Enlist Extra Help
Although handling your entire household yourself may be possible, you don’t want to stretch yourself too thin. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it, especially if your partner’s away.
You can hire a personal assistant to help with tasks such as running errands, grocery shopping, meal prepping, household tidying, and more to keep things running smoothly, especially while your spouse is out of town. Hiring a personal assistant will free up your schedule so you can spend more quality parenting time with your children and participate in some essential self-care as well.
Having a personal assistant available to help out on a regular basis and provide additional support while your partner is away can be extremely beneficial.
Pepper’s Personal Assistants can help you manage your household and keep things on track long term no matter your situation. We provide services such as meal prepping, grocery shopping, laundry, and running errands so that you can have more time. Contact us today and let’s see how we can help!
Are you doing your best in your day-to-day life, but still feeling unsatisfied? Sometimes when we try and take on too much at a time or get stuck in a routine, we lose sight of our passions and the ideas that make life truly rewarding.
In his 2010 book, “The Big Leap,” Dr. Gay Hendricks, Ph.D., discusses taking the jump from your comfort zone into your area of genius that’s waiting for its full expression. He urges you to “go beyond your internal limits, release outdated fears and learn a whole new set of powerful skills and habits to liberate your authentic greatness.”
Once you learn how to function in your Zone of Genius, you can find more happiness in your everyday life.
“The Big Leap”
Hendricks’s best-selling book “The Big Leap” discusses our self-built barriers that prevent us from reaching our full potential, and in turn prevent us from being truly happy and satisfied. Hendricks lays out a comprehensive plan to overcome these barriers and achieve success and fulfillment in your career, finances, and relationships.
Four Zones of Function
In “The Big Leap,” Hendricks outlines what he calls the “four different zones of function”:
The Zone of Incompetence is a zone of function where you are engaging in something you have no skills for, or do not understand.
The Zone of Competence is where you function with the same efficiency as almost everyone else, meaning your capabilities are not particularly unique or special.
The Zone of Excellence is the zone that most people aim to achieve and then stay static at. This zone allows you to perform extremely skillfully at something you are particularly efficient at, that you have practiced and cultivated over time.
The Zone of Genius is where you can capitalize and function at the highest level using your innate abilities, rather than the ones you develop over time..
The Zone of Excellence is good but not ground-breaking. A lot of individuals functioning in the Zone of Excellence feel stuck in autopilot, delivering quality work but not feeling as though they are fulfilling their highest purpose. Hendricks believes that we each have a unique perspective and gift that only we can give to the world, and that can happen only when we fully express our genius and commit to bringing it forth.
The Zone of Genius is where every highly successful person should aim to function at, according to Hendricks. Most intelligent individuals function in the Zone of Excellence, but ultimately don’t feel as fulfilled with their lives because they aren’t pushing further.
When you function in the Zone of Genius, you find inspiration and produce work that is innovative, creative, and completely unique, excelling in your area much more than others around you. Yet pushing yourself to find your Zone of Genius is a lot easier said than done.
The “Upper Limit Problem”
In “The Big Leap,” Hendricks brings up something he calls the “Upper Limit Problem.” This issue suggests that we create our own internal glass ceiling that limits our fullest expression of self. We do the best we can but stop ourselves from pushing forward for fear of consequence or failure.
In order to enter your Zone of Genius, you have to take risks and make the leap from your familiar life into working with your unknown realm of genius. You will not only be more successful, but entering into your Zone of Genius will also make you happier, more creatively energized, and more socially magnetic.
How to Enter Your Zone of Genius
Turn the hours of the day into chances to express your best, creative, and most energizing self. Hendricks recommends meditating or journaling starting at only 10 minutes a day to brainstorm where your Zone of Genius lies. He suggests asking yourself these few questions that can help you begin your journey towards your zone:
What work do you do that doesn’t seem like work?
In your work, what produces the highest ratio of abundance and satisfaction to the amount of time spent?
What is your unique ability?
Think about your answers to these questions and how you can push internal boundaries and release your anxieties. Once you master your Zone of Excellence, you can then go further into your Zone of Genius, living your most passionate and engaged life.
Although you may be functioning in a Zone of Competence (or even Zone of Excellence!) doing activities like laundry and grocery shopping, we think your time is valuable, and could be better spent in your unique Zone of Genius.
Let Pepper’s Personal Assistants help you start your journey toward your Zone of Genius by giving you the gift of time. We can assist you with tasks such as spring cleaning and running errands so you can begin meditating on what you’re innately gifted at. Make every hour count, and contact Pepper’s Personal Assistants today!
Whether you’re with someone long-term, only starting to date, or just friends, knowing how to communicate with a partner is an essential component to a successful relationship. In 1992, marriage counselor Dr. Gary Chapman wrote “The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts,” a book that would change how many people thought about how they express their love.
What Is a Love Language?
Love languages, as Chapman called them, define different preferences for the ways one shows affection and cares for another person. According to the five love languages theory, each person has at least one language that they prefer over the other. Understanding your partner’s language as well as your own is extremely beneficial.
With this love language, words speak louder than actions. Hearing words and phrases such as “I love you,” “You look great,” or “I appreciate you” makes you feel the most loved. Encouragement, kind words, verbal expression of feelings, and compliments build you up, while insults or arguments can be particularly upsetting.
Physical Touch
Hand-holding, thoughtful touches during conversation, hugging, and kissing — all of these are great ways to show care and affection if your partner’s primary love language is physical touch. Platonic touches such as patting someone on the back or more intimate, romantic touches are crucial, while the absence of physical presence can be detrimental and leave individuals feeling abandoned in the relationship.
Quality Time
For those who prefer the love language of quality time, nothing is better than simply being with your partner. Whether you are engaging in a fun activity that excites you both or relaxing at home without other distractions, this is the best way to show deep and unwavering connection to your significant other. Individuals who relate to this love language can be particularly hurt by a distracted, distant, or extremely busy partner.
Acts of Service
Taking out the trash, helping them with planning family events, or doing anything to ease the responsibilities of someone who prefers acts of service as their love language will speak volumes. These individuals feel the most loved when their partner helps them lighten their mental load and understands when they’re stressed.
Receiving Gifts
This love language doesn’t rely on spending a bunch of money on lavish gifts — it’s more about the thoughtfulness and effort of giving. The key gesture could be picking up flowers on your way home from work, making a pot of coffee for them before they wake up, or grabbing their favorite snack at the grocery store. These gifts and gestures make those who relate most to this love language feel appreciated and special.
What’s My Love Language?
Think about how you express love and how you enjoy receiving expressions of love. Do you value long conversations, intimate touch, small tokens of appreciation, or simply being with your partner? You can also take the official quiz on Dr. Chapman’s website to determine how much you value each love language, and to learn more about each one. Open up this discussion with those around you and begin putting that love language in practice, and you might find yourself becoming closer with your partner and feeling more connected.
How Does Understanding Love Languages Help My Relationship?
In some relationships, miscommunication happens when you don’t understand your partner’s love language. They can be expressing love in their own way, but without understanding which love language they prefer, you might not realize it. Most partners have different love languages, but understanding them and deciphering which one you and your partner respond to the most will help you communicate and keep a lasting, loving relationship.
Is your love language quality time, but you never seem to have enough space on your schedule to simply relax with your partner? Contact Pepper’s Personal Assistants and let us clear up that to-do list so you can create some loving memories together. Maybe your preferred language is acts of service. We can assist by taking care of household tasks, cleaning, and errands for you and your loved one.
Whatever your love language is, Pepper’s Personal Assistants is ready to help ease your mind and free your time to nurture your relationship.
We’ve all experienced stress at one time or another, but do you know what stress actually is?
Stress is your body’s reaction to any demand or change in your environment that requires you to respond or adjust. Stress-provoking changes are often negative (such as a job loss or death in the family) but can also be positive (such as a promotion or a baby being born). Whatever the reason for stress, your body reacts to it with mental, emotional, and physical responses.
Here are a few more things you should know about stress, how it affects your health, and how to keep it under control.
Not All Stress Is Bad
We often think of stress in a negative way, but it’s not inherently bad. Stress is actually part of the body’s built-in fight or flight response, which causes physiological changes (quickening pulse and breath, tensing muscles, increased oxygen supply to the brain, and so on) that prepare your body to face a challenge. In emergencies, this stress response could help you survive.
Stress can also help encourage you to achieve something: It might prompt you to prepare for an upcoming job interview or trip.
Stress becomes problematic when it turns chronic. The source of your stress may be constant, or you may continue to feel stressed even when the stressful situation has passed. Routine or constant stress is especially hard to notice, as your body gets no signal to resume normal functioning and a strained state becomes your new normal.
Whatever the cause of your chronic stress, the same physiological responses that help during fight or flight situations will start to affect your health negatively. Different people experience stress in different ways, but side effects often include:
Headaches
Upset stomach
High blood pressure
Chest pain
Sexual dysfunction
Skin conditions
Sleeplessness
Depression
Panic attacks
Anxiety and worry
Weight loss or gain
And while you may think that stress doesn’t affect you, stress is actually highly prevalent:
Between 75% and 90% of all doctor’s visits are related to stress-induced complaints.
43% of adults experience adverse health effects because of stress.
According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), stress is a hazard in the workplace and costs American industry over $300 billion every year.
Of course, one of the best ways to feel less stressed is to call in some help.
Pepper’s Personal Assistants can help when you’re overwhelmed with a messy house, family visiting, the upcoming school year, an approaching trip, or all of the above. In addition to handling chores, household management, and errands, we can organize, plan trips and events, and get your house ready for guests. Stressful situations are our specialty.
Contact us today for a complimentary consultation!
A personal assistant can take your life from unorganized and overwhelming to structured and manageable. However, this change won’t happen overnight: You’ll first have to invest in communication to show your personal assistant how they can best help you.
In the beginning, this may mean spending 80% of your time communicating in order to get 20% of your time back. The more you communicate, the sooner you’ll be spending just 20% of your time communicating to get 80% of your time back.
The investment is well worth the initial time commitment: Open communication helps build an environment of trust, one in which your personal assistant can feel confident enough to take ownership of your household tasks, and you can feel confident in their ability to do so. You’ll enjoy peace of mind knowing that your to-dos are getting done without having to oversee them.
But as straightforward and beneficial as this environment of open communication may sound, many people still fail to provide the feedback that’s necessary to achieve it.
To promote successful relationships between our clients and personal assistants, Pepper’s Personal Assistants recommends the approach of Radical Candor™.
Radical Candor™
Radical Candor™ is a new management philosophy that involves caring personally while challenging directly and providing guidance that is kind, clear, specific, and sincere.
This approach can be challenging for a couple reasons. First, we often assume that feelings have no place in a professional environment. But building a strong relationship with someone requires caring personally about them. Both of you should feel safe and comfortable enough to show vulnerability, such as admitting when you’re having a bad day.
And second, the saying “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” has probably been ingrained in your mind since you were old enough to talk. But successful client-personal assistant relationships require providing feedback, and providing feedback requires challenging directly. Rather than coming across as a criticism, challenging directly shows your personal assistant that you care about them and their success in their role.
Remember that your personal assistant wants to make your life easier, so if they aren’t, they want to know. Realizing that the feedback you give your personal assistant allows them to improve their work — and thus gain more satisfaction from it — allows you to reframe your feedback as a gift.
What does Radical Candor™ look like? If you want your personal assistant to complete a task differently or in a specific way, let them know right away. At the same time, your personal assistant should be open with you if they are uncomfortable performing a certain task or uncertain about how something should be done.
Radical Candor™ may be hard to put into practice at first, but understanding what is not Radical Candor™ helps:
Obnoxious Aggression™: When you challenge someone directly without showing that you care about them personally, you exhibit Obnoxious Aggression™. Often referred to as front stabbing or brutal honesty, Obnoxious Aggression™ may be a valid criticism but isn’t delivered kindly.
Ruinous Empathy™: When you care personally but don’t challenge directly because you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings, you exhibit Ruinous Empathy™. You may feel like you’re being nice, but your lack of specific feedback isn’t helpful in the long term.
Manipulative Insincerity™: When you neither challenge directly nor care personally, you exhibit Manipulative Insincerity™. Manipulative Insincerity™ is often called passive-aggressive behavior or backstabbing, and could manifest in the form of insincere praise or flattering someone to their face but criticising them behind their back.
Let this framework guide you as you interact with your personal assistant, but remember that everyone exhibits the above behaviors at one time or another. They aren’t personality types — just a compass to help guide you toward Radical Candor™.
Final Tips and Takeaways
To embrace Radical Candor™, we encourage our clients to offer their personal assistants feedback on a regular basis by scheduling a standing weekly meeting, either in person or via phone. Clients should also send notes in Slack as soon as an issue arises. Think of feedback as a tool that will help grow your relationship with your personal assistant and build trust.
Of course, we always appreciate positive feedback as well! Letting your personal assistant know what they’re doing well enables them to continue doing it that way in the future.
For more help embracing Radical Candor™ with your personal assistant, contact us. We are dedicated to cultivating client-personal assistant relationships that are both positive and productive.
Summer flies by, and you have to think and act fast in order to make the most of every moment. Unfortunately, time is limited, and planning and organizing your summer can easily get in the way of actually enjoying yourself.
Hiring a personal assistant can help you avoid this dilemma and spend your summer the way you ought to be.
Planning Vacations, Summer Camps, and Other Events
Summer is a time for getting away, exploring, and being active. Of course, most of this requires time-consuming planning.
Whether you’re going on an international vacation or just camping a couple of hours away, your personal assistant can make reservations, purchase tickets, create itineraries and packing lists, and make sure you have everything you need with you. If you need to sign your children up for summer events, such as a summer camp or childcare, your personal assistant can also research your options and organize all the necessary details.
The result is a summer of doing, without having to think too much beforehand.
Time doesn’t stop while you’re away having fun: At home, your flowers still need watered and your dog still needs walked. While you can ask a friend to do this for you, you’ll still have to face coming home to an empty fridge, dusty home, and piles of mail. Your personal assistant can go the extra mile to create a welcoming home for you to return to.
The sun is shining and you’re yearning to feel its warmth; but your chores won’t do themselves, so you’re stuck inside.
As an alternative to this dismal scene, your personal assistant can handle your errands, household management, and chores so that you don’t have to. Imagine coming home from work to a home that’s tidy and organized, and a meal that’s prepped and ready to be cooked. Nothing’s stopping you from soaking up all the sunshine you can get.
If you have kids, you know that summer ends as soon as back-to-school season starts, when you have to start shopping for school supplies and getting organized for the new school year. To make summer stretch just a little bit longer, your personal assistant can handle the necessary preparations for you, such as picking up supplies, scheduling necessary appointments, and even planning and prepping for school lunches.
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