I don’t think women have ever had more options than we do right now, which is incredible. But somewhere along the way having more options started to feel like we were supposed to choose all of them. Our grandmothers lived in a time when women were largely expected to take care of the home and raise their families. Our mothers’ generation saw women continue pushing further into careers and independence, while convenience became a bigger part of how families managed everything at home. And now we’re here. 

We’re supposed to raise emotionally healthy kids, have a career or start a business, maintain a beautiful home, cook nutritious meals, exercise, take care of our marriages and friendships, remember every appointment and spirit day, volunteer at school, drink enough water, have a nine step skincare routine (that I’ll never give up) and somehow we’ve circled all the way back around to making the sourdough from scratch instead of buying it. And then we’re supposed to post about it on social media. I say that jokingly, but, well… look around. For a long time, I felt chronically overwhelmed, that was literally in my Instagram bio. I identified as a person, with being overwhelmed. I was raising young children, running a business, managing our home and carrying what felt like a never ending rotating list in my head. But the hardest part wasn’t necessarily how much I had to do. It was my relentless perfectionism underneath it. I wanted to be an amazing mom. A high effort Pinterest mom (you know the one, makes her kids birthday cakes and Halloween costumes) I  wanted to be successful. I wanted a beautiful home, spotless home. I wanted to cook for my family, take care of myself, be a good wife and friend and still have an identity outside of motherhood, while obviously maintaining my impeccable ever evolving personal style. 

But every time I was crushing it in one area, I felt like I was dropping the ball somewhere else. There wasn’t really a roadmap for it, either. The world we’re raising families in is completely different from the one our mothers and grandmothers knew. We have more opportunities, more information and more tools than ever before, yet somehow so much of managing a family still lives inside a woman’s head.

Then I lost my aunt Jenny.

Jenny was one of those women I looked at and thought, she's got it. She was beautiful, fit, oh so funny, lively, an inspiring Pilates instructor, an amazing mom and someone I admired tremendously. One of the things we connected over was our mental health after having children. When she lost her battle with mental health, it fundamentally changed the way I looked at my own life.

I kept thinking that if someone as incredible as Jenny could be struggling that deeply, then none of us are immune to it. I couldn’t keep treating chronic stress, overwhelm and the feeling that I was never doing enough as the price of being a good mom or an ambitious woman.

Something had to change. I didn’t need to figure out how to do more. I needed to figure out how to carry less.

So I started creating systems for my own life. I wrote down our schedules instead of trying to remember them. I organized meal planning, our family’s favorite meals, school information, activities, appointments, home maintenance, finances, travel, holidays, parties and all of those tiny things that don’t seem like much individually but together become an enormous and frankly, an unbearable mental load. The systems worked. The problem was that they were everywhere. Some in my phone, some in my 8 planners, some on my fridge calendar, some on the school calendar, some in my Pilates app, kids doc appts in my email, sons hockey practice in the sports app, text after text with client appts, invites on the fridge.

I couldn’t find one product that reflected the way my life actually worked. Traditional planners were great at telling me where I needed to be Tuesday at 2:00, but Tuesday at 2:00 was only one tiny part of what I was keeping track of and that became Well Kept.