Tips from top women

Our friends from Jan Magazine recently posted a list of tips from top women in business to make our lives easier. I'm sharing them with you and checking if they work for me.

1. Sleep as little as possible

Top women find sleeping a waste of time and it is, of course. The idea is to reduce your eight hours to five and a half hours. If you sleep less than that, you are no longer productive. But with five and a half hours, you should be fine. Well, that works out well. Once you have children, you really never sleep longer than six hours. So I've already fully woven this tip into my life...

2. Cook everything double

If you're already busy, you might as well make a lot and freeze it. My beloved cooks a huge pot of bolognese sauce once a month. He hides all sorts of healthy things in there that completely dissolve into the sauce while simmering on the stove. And our poor children think they are eating a delicious unhealthy pasta. Ha!

3. Give birth often and close together

This one comes from Mona Keijzer, still CDA, huh? But there is some truth in it. Once you're in labor, you might as well keep going. If it's all given to you, huh. It's total chaos anyway; whether you have one, two, or three little ones running around. If you have many children, they will also take care of each other and always have company.

4. Think ahead

There is seriously a story of a businesswoman who put her children in their school clothes for the next day in bed. That saved a quarter of an hour of dressing in the morning. That really goes too far for me personally. But when I fold the laundry in the evening, I do fish out the items they can wear the next day. That saves folding (read: seven crucial minutes that I can otherwise use to Instagram or do something else wonderfully unimportant) and moreover, I already lay out their outfits so we don't have to break our heads over that the next morning.

5. Forget about dinner

Dinner is such a hassle. I don't know how it is for you, but I can be very tense and overheated cooking ‘a healthy meal’ that my children then turn their noses up at. If you've been busy, you can easily serve a bread meal in the evening. A cucumber on the side, some slices of tomato, an egg, and if you're really diligent, some fresh soup they can dip their bread in. Or maybe you had some frozen lying around.

6. Combine work and private life

I just took Josselin home last week to review her layouts and new sections. Both with a few kids on our laps; useful and cozy. Next Saturday, we are having a nice shoe sale from Mart Visser at our editorial office. You understand that I will happily take my girls with me.

7. International school

Now that's a brilliant tip. Our primary schools are the best, but I sometimes wonder if the teachers realize that we might also have a job. Or we want to nitpick lice / put up Christmas decorations / cook for the Christmas dinner / help with computer lessons / stay over once every two months... And I haven't even mentioned the study days and early releases due to Christmas and other irregularities.

International schools don't do that and take care of your child all day long. Moreover, they are educated bilingually. That can never hurt.

8. Know no shame

A too funny story from Sheryl Sandberg. She believes that as a working mother you have to do everything, but you don't always have to be honest about it. For example, she could calmly hold conference calls while she was pumping her breasts. When the machine started beeping and her conversation partners asked what on earth that sound was, she said: “Oh nothing, that's the fire station across the street.” Our friends from Jan Magazine recently posted a list of tips from top women in business to make our lives easier. I'm sharing them with you...“