What is the most stressful part of your day?
My guess is that straight away you can say what it is (for me it’s always the morning school rush!) or maybe it’s getting dinner on the table every evening, or maybe it’s that the kitchen table is ALWAYS covered in clutter.
Whatever it is, my next question for you is – what are you doing about it?
We tend to know what annoys us, maybe in a burst of anger declare we are doing something differently but after a couple of days tend to fall back into the same system that wasn’t really working for us and we just accept that it is what it is.
What is a pain point?
A pain point is an area of your life or your home that is recurringly stressful or annoying. It’s not just a one-off stressful event or something that happens once every few months or years, but something that quite often is stressful for you and makes your life harder than it needs to be.
It doesn’t need to be a big thing, it can be a small thing but if it annoys you then it is a pain point.
So what can we do about it?
Step 1 – Get a sheet of paper or open a new note on your phone
First we need to get a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle of it to make two columns. Label column 1 with Pain point and column 2 with Solution.
Or if you are a digital kinda person, open a new note on your phone and add a table to it with two columns and label them.
Step 2 – identify your main pain points
Next we need to identify what our pain points are.
Some things are going to be really obvious and just stand out for you – like the morning school run, or what to eat for dinner is an issue every evening or maybe Tuesday evenings are busy with after school clubs etc and it’s just a stressful evening for you every week.
Write them down in your first column in a list.
Step 3 – Identify the other pain points
For this step we are going to identify the not-so-obvious pain points.
Walk room by room around your home and write down any you identify.
For example, maybe in your daughters room every time you open the curtains it knocks something over. Write it down.
Maybe your shopping list isn’t in a very good place and it means nobody is bothering to write things down as they run out. Write it down.
Maybe the laundry basket lid is a bit broken and it keeps clattering on the floor and waking up the baby. Write it down.
Maybe your fridge is always empty on a Saturday morning and you hate going to Tesco on a weekend – write it down.
Maybe you never know what to make for lunch on a Saturday afternoon. Write it down.
Remember you are not making a todo list, if something needs doing but it’s not actually causing any issues regularly, just add it to your normal todo list, not your pain point list.
Step 5 – Identify even more pain points
For this next one I want you to think about these areas of your life and see if anything comes up for you.
- Paperwork & email
- Weekly schedule
- After school clubs
- Work
- Appointments
- Childcare
- School run
- Meal Planning
- Replying to messages
- Birthdays
- Budgetting and Money
- Groceries
- Laundry
- Cleaning your home
- Cars
- Garden
- Days out with the kids
- Self Care
- Me Time
There might be some areas you can think of, write them down!
For example, maybe picking up the kids on a wednesday and taking your eldest to swimming clashes.
Maybe your garden stresses you out every time you walk through because it’s a mess.
Maybe you always send birthday cards late because you never have any in the house.
Think of what comes up for you and write it down.
Step 6 – Make a plan
Once you have your list of areas that are pain points for you, grab a cuppa and sit down when you have some peace and quiet and brainstorm solutions for the things you have identified as pain points.
Example:
| Pain Point | Solution |
| Laundry basket is broken | Buy new laundry basket |
| Never know what to make for lunch on a saturday | – Meal plan lunch on weekends – Make a list of ideas for lunch |
| Shopping list in awkward place | Find a new place for shopping list |
| School run is stressful | – What about it is stressful? – What can I do the night before? – Make packed lunch night before – Get uniform and bags ready night before – Wake up earlier |
| School run difficult on a Wednesday | Ask another mother for help Is there an after school club? Can you share lifts? |
Step 7 – Pick one thing
Tackling everything on that list is going to be completely overwhelming and you will be back where you started in no time.
Make your way through the list one pain point at a time.
It doesn’t matter which you choose – maybe you could start with the easiest one? Or the one that is going to give you the quickest feeling of calm? Or maybe you choose one of the hardest ones but the one that is going to make the biggest impact on your life.
Just choose whichever feels right for you.
And just think how much less stressful your life will be in a few months if you keep chipping away at each pain point and identifying new ones as they come up.
Which of your pain points are you choosing first? Let me know!
Beth x
