FOR WORKING PARENTS OF YOUNG KIDS
Give your family your best, not your leftovers.
You lead all day, then walk in the door and the second shift starts. Dinner, laundry, tomorrow already tapping you on the shoulder. I help you get that load out of your head and into a simple system that runs your home, so when your kid says “look,” you actually look.
Less on Your Mind | Present at Home | margin for what matters
YOU’RE HOME. BUT YOUR BRAIN IS STILL RUNNING EVERYTHING.
You give your best all day. To your team, to the people counting on you, to the problems nobody else can solve. Then you walk in the door and the second shift starts.
The meat still needs defrosting (oops, you forgot). Today’s lunchboxes are still sitting on the counter (fingers crossed they actually ate their food), and the clothes and snacks for the morning need to be set out. The laundry’s still in the washer. And tomorrow is already tapping you on the shoulder.
Your kid says, “Look!” And you hear yourself say, “Wait a minute.” Patient with everyone all day. Short with the people you love most by 5:52pm.
IT’S NOT ABOUT WHO DOES THE DISHES.
IT’S ABOUT WHO THINKS ABOUT THEM.
The appointments. The school forms. The grocery list. The birthday gift. The oil change that’s three months overdue. It all lives in one place: your head. So even your day off isn’t really off.
And underneath it all, there’s a fear you don’t say out loud: that these little years are going by in a blur, and your family is getting the leftover version of you.
YOU’RE NOT FAILING. YOU’RE MISSING A SYSTEM.
At work, you’d never run the whole operation out of your head. But at home, nobody ever gave you a system. That’s not a love problem, and it’s not a character flaw. It’s a system problem. And home was never supposed to get your leftovers. It’s supposed to be where everything else overflows from.
MY STICKY NOTE HAD 57 THINGS ON IT. HIS WAS BLANK.
Three weeks before our daughter was born, I sat my husband down at the dining table and handed us each a sticky note. Sixty seconds. Write down everything on your mind.
Mine had 57 things on it. His was blank.
Not because he didn’t care. He just couldn’t see what I was carrying. Honestly, neither could I, until I saw it all on paper.
That night, one question wouldn’t leave me alone: What kind of business would I have if I ran it the way I was running my home?
I’d spent years inside the Chick-fil-A world, watching good systems and real connection work together. Content calendars. Community events. Hospitality checklists. Thoughtful decisions made once, so the day runs on what’s already been decided. I just hadn’t brought any of it home. So I did.
Today I’m building this with a 6-year-old and a 2-year-old at home. I’m not writing to you from the other side of this season. I’m in it with you, and I built every piece of this around the same limits you have.
Maybe you’re carrying your own 57. It doesn’t have to keep living in your head.
WHERE THIS COMES FROM
Mentored at 21 by S. Truett Cathy, founder of Chick-fil-A
13+ years inside the Chick-fil-A world, as a Restaurant Marketing Director and later a social media strategist for Chick-fil-A restaurants
Trained in the Gottman Method, Levels 1 & 2
Helping families make time for what matters since 2011
“I would call myself a raving fan of You and Me Time.”
“In today’s fast-paced world, You & Me Time is an excellent way to enhance marriages and family relationships. I highly recommend this approach to creating meaningful relationship experiences.”
THREE STEPS TO MAKE ROOM FOR WHAT MATTERS MOST
You don’t need more hours. You need less living in your head.
1
START WITH YOUR SEASON, NOT YOUR TO-DO LIST
Most advice starts with a list. We start with a question: where are you? What season is your family in right now, and who do you want to have been when it’s over? You can’t decide what belongs on your plate until you know what this season is for. Get clear on that first, and the rest gets easier.
2
STOP TRYING TO GET CAUGHT UP
“Caught up” is never coming. So put everything on the table, not just your calendar. The open loops. The decisions you keep putting off. The small yes that turned out to be a big one. Then let it go, pause it, hand it off, or redesign it to fit your season. Nothing has to fall apart. You choose what you carry.
Not a new life. The same one, just lighter.
3
DECIDE ONCE. THEN STOP DECIDING.
Your brain was made to think, not to store. So mornings, evenings, and weekends get decided once. The small stuff gets handled as you go, before it piles up. And a short weekly reset keeps it all fitting as the season changes. Not a rigid system to keep up with. One that flows with you.
SAME KIDS. SAME MARRIAGE. COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TUESDAY.
If nothing changes, the load keeps running on you. Your day off still isn’t really off. And these little years go by in a blur of “wait a minute.”
But picture this instead.
It’s 6:30 on a Tuesday. Dinner’s already decided. You made that call on Saturday, so nobody’s standing in front of the fridge. The lunchboxes go straight to their spot. The clothes for the morning are already set out. And for once, you’re not running tomorrow’s list in your head.
Your kid says, “Look!” And this time, you sit down on the floor and say, “Show me.”
The pancake breakfasts come back. The laughter at bath time. Sunday feels like Sunday again. Not because life got easier, but because your home finally runs on a system instead of on you. And there’s finally room left for the people you’re doing it all for.
No longer consumed by doing more and more at home. Finally able to just be there.
PRESENT. RESTED. ACTUALLY HOME.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN LEADERS FINALLY HIT PAUSE
You & Me Time began as one-of-a-kind experiences for couples, each one planned around their story. Here’s what some of them said.
I’VE SPENT MY WHOLE LIFE TRYING TO ANSWER ONE QUESTION.
When I was eight, my dad told me, “Sayuri, relationships are like flowers. If we don’t water them, eventually they’ll die.” A few months later, I came home from school to an empty closet. The hangers. His toothbrush. His books. Gone.
And one question followed me for years:
Why couldn’t they just water it?
Here’s what I know now. It wasn’t a lack of love. When life fills every inch of space, you can pour bucket after bucket of water and it runs right off. Nothing soaks in. That’s not a love problem. It’s a margin problem. And margin is never found. It has to be made.
S. Truett Cathy once told me I was turning my pain into purpose, and my bitter experiences into better experiences for others. “We serve a good God,” he said, “who turns our scars into stars.”
That’s why You & Me Time exists. So no child has to come home from school and find empty hangers in their parents’ closet, and no family has to figure this out alone. We help parents of little ones create margin for what matters most, so they can water their marriage and enjoy their kids’ childhood, not blink and miss it.
MAKE ROOM FOR THE MOMENTS YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS.
The Saturday morning pancakes. The laughter at bath time. The conversation that goes deeper than “Who’s picking up the kids?” That’s You & Me Time: the moments that make everything else worth it.
But those moments can’t soak in when your life has no room for them.
LighterLoad creates the margin.
You & Me Time is what you do with it.
If you lead all day and come home running on empty, starting with your season, not your schedule, is the right next move.