JaslyNGroup Mobile Magazine Vol.01

ABOUT

Insurance is just a product.
However, when deployed thoughtfully and carefully,
it has the ability to save lives, provide stability,
and even look after you during your golden years.
This ensures that you can have peace of mind to enjoy
your life without worrying about tomorrow.

JASLYN NG

Content

01PG How Successful Women MAKE
THE MOST OUT OF THEIR TIME
03PG Create and Adhere
to Schedules
04PG Learn to Delegate
and Outsource
05PG Learn to Compromise
and do Trade-offs

06PG Learn to Look at
Things In Perspective

07PG Wake up at 5am Daily to Create
Additional 2 Hours of Me-Time
08PG Summary

Successful Women

Make the

Most Out of Their Time

I am a working mother to 2 young kids, Claire who is currently 5 1/2
years old, and Caydren who will be turning 4 in two months' time.

"Can we, working mothers, really have it all?" This question has been
weighing on my mind for awhile now. We have read so much on the
epitome of highly-successful working mothers such as Sheryl
Sandsberg who wrote Lean In, and Laura Vanderkarm, the time
management guru and the author of I Know How She Does It: How
Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time.

However, I cannot help to feel that the reality is a far cry from these
highly capable working mothers who seemingly can have it all. The
brutal truth is that many of us are simply ordinary working mothers
rather than time management gurus.

Anne-Marie Slaughter - the first woman director of policy planning at
the US State Department working with Obama - deemed to be the role
model of many women, published the article "Why Women Still Can't
Have It All" which highlighted her own personal struggles in
managing family and work-life balance. I resonate strongly with
Anne-Marie's viewpoints. I was in a corporate HR role for the past 11
years and switched out to turn self-employed this year. Back then,
certainly my job demands were not as high, complex or stressful as
Anne Marie's, given that she was concurrently the Professor and the
Dean of Princeton.

01

My good friend, who knew that I was going to write this article,
joked in jest and said "I really hope your answer is no. Only
change to yes if certain boxes are checked.". And yes, I concur
with her viewpoint that this is only possible if certain boxes (the
following prerequisites) are met:

1 Marry the Right Partner.

2 Have Strong Family Support or External

Help, Especially in Terms of Exigencies.

3 Have a Job that Allows Us to Control 2

and Manage Our Own Schedule.

With the above prerequisites in place, I foresee the success rate
of a working mother having it all is significantly higher as
compared to a working mother who is lacking in any of these 3
criteria.

For some of my working mother friends who are based
overseas and do not have family support, it is extremely costly
and logistically challenging to find backup support such as
stay-at-home nannies.

02

Personally for me, I am very blessed to be able to check off all of
these 3 prerequisites to further increase the success rate of having
it all, I also believe that it is important for us as working mothers
to strategically adopt any of the following recommended
suggestions in accordance to your own situations:

Create and Adhere

to Schedules

For me, this is a crucial step for me to
remember both work appointments and
important personal events such as school
party dates, closure dates, dating time with
my husband, social activities, etc. With so

many daily competing demands, I no
longer want to rely on my memory due to
two main reasons. Firstly, it is to prevent

any slip-ups due to occasional memory
failure and secondly, I would rather
leverage on my brain to do more

analytical work than to recollect trivial
details which can simply be stored on the

schedule planner.

03

Learn to

Delegate and

Outsource

Having been an Individual Contributor
for most parts of my career, this is
something which I am still grappling
with but yet constantly reminding
myself to do.

In terms of domestic household chores,
my husband and I had recently engaged
a domestic helper to relieve us of the
day-to-day mundane chores so that more
time can be freed up to spend good
quality time with our kids.

In terms of my own work context, I
frequently find myself strapped with
many multiple projects. Therefore, I
have learnt to outsource part of the
work, especially in areas which I am
relatively weaker in (e.g PowerPoint
presentation slides) to my very own
competent team of administrative staff
so that competitive advantage can be
achieved for higher quality work and yet
not engulfing too much of my precious
and limited time.

04

Learn to

Compromise and

do Trade-offs

I first learnt this term "Trade-Offs" from Lynette
Ng, a very dynamic and yet charismatic working
mother whom I admire a lot. I first met her more
than 9 years ago. Back then Lynette was already a

very successful working mother and I was
aspiring to work for her. Just last year, we
reconnected in a HR panel session and I asked her
about how she seemed to have it all. She told me
the key is to do trade-offs and yet come to peace
with ourselves. I have since internalised this tip
and applied in my own context. My current job as
a financial consultant requires me to meet up with
clients usually after working hours, which could

be weekday evenings or weekends.

After all,, these would be the prime hours when
most of the people who are employed are

available. Therefore, I have learnt to compromise
and do trade-offs. Yes, weekday evenings might
be busier when I have appointments but I would
try to keep weekends free as much as possible so
that the kids know that Mummy is still there
every Saturday and Sunday.

05

Learn to Look

at Things

in Perspective

One good personal example to share was my decision to be an
exclusive-pumping working mother instead of the conventional
latch-on-demand breastfeeding mother. Back then, I would receive
some lamenting comments that bottle-feeding the baby lacked the
mother-baby nursing bond. For me, I had to learn to disregard and
filter out the comments. Otherwise I would be completely
overwhelmed by emotional guilt.

I learned to reframe and rationalise to look at things in
perspective. The breastmilk and nutrients are the same. It was only
a different form of feeding method but I chose to adopt this
approach because I knew I would eventually return to work after
the end of my maternity leave. And I did not want my babies to
reject bottles and starve themselves until I returned home. On
hindsight, I am glad to have made that compromise which resulted
in me being able to successfully breastfeed my babies fully until
they turned one year old each.

06

Wake Up at 5am Daily
to Create Additional
2 Hours of Me-Time

I am highly guarded of these precious morning
hours. I started this habit more than 6 months
ago so that I am able to make use of these
additional 120 minutes to embark on activities
which I had never been able to do so

previously. I alternate among various activities
such as reading, exercising, strategic business
planning, journaling and writing articles. And
yes, the first draft of this article was penned at
5am. The level of productivity and efficiency

in these 2 hours between 5am and 7am is
simply unrivalled compared to any other

2-hour block in other parts of the day.

07

In summary, I would not proclaim that I have
achieved the pinnacle of having it all. I honestly
still think it is extremely hard to achieve the
optimal balance and it is a constant balancing act.
Ultimately it also boils down to every individual's
expectations of what it means to have it all.

Each of us has different benchmarks and
standards. What it means to successfully "have it
all" may also be different for you and me. And my
best friend nailed it perfectly in her comments:

Summary Why need to it have it all?

It is subjective. Some are happy
being a SAHM and some are happy
earning just enough and yet still able

to spend time with their kids.

There is no perfect answer
that fits everybody.

Just do what you think is
perfect for your family!

For me, as years go by, I gradually reckoned that to
be able to have it all, it also requires ourselves to
be contented, not to be so harsh on ourselves and
know what is most important to us so that we can
do the necessary trade-offs when times call for it.

08

Successful Mothers
Are not the ones that
have never struggled
they are the ones
that never give up,
despite the struggles.
by sharon Jaynes

www.jaslyngroup.com