A Mother's Rule of Life

My last post ended with a confession: the system I’d built to reclaim myself was working too well. I was staying up late, losing sleep, and the 15-minute Build sessions were turning into hours. The thing I’d designed to help me be a better version of myself was making me a worse version of a mother.

While Maintain-Improve-Build gave me the time and space to pursue something of my own, I was dropping things I shouldn’t be, but I couldn’t name exactly which ones, or why they mattered more. So for sprint 3, I decided to focus on my Holy Vocation: Mother. At the end of the sprint, I’d have a sort of Truth Doc I could use to organize my life.

What I read

I went looking for answers. I read articles by Catholic mothers about motherhood as a vocation. Many described it as harder than a corporate job — which resonated — but they stopped short of explaining how to make it good. They affirmed the struggle without offering a way through it.

I browsed the Bible. I sat with it.

And then I read a book called A Mother’s Rule of Life by Holly Pierlot. It was written by a Catholic mother whose struggles were strikingly familiar. The book divides life into five P’s (Prayer, Person, Partner, Parent, Provider) and builds a schedule around them, in that order.

This reframed everything.

The Five P’s

I’ve been prioritizing. I know I only have so many hours per day, so I sit down now and then to clarify my top 3 priority buckets. As a mother, I know I can only take good care of others when I’m taken care of, so the number one thing I’ve been prioritizing is my sleep and exercise. My latest 3 buckets were:

But these weren’t cutting it because within them, nothing was prioritized. I was spending more time on side projects because they’re fun, but they were cutting into sleep and other buckets. I also spend a lot of time reading scripture and praying, which was unaccounted for in my priority buckets.

Viewed through Pierlot’s five P’s, two of my priorities fell into Person and one fell into Provider. Nothing for Prayer, Partner, or Parent. That imbalance explained exactly how I’d been feeling.

And most of what overwhelmed me — the meals, the cleaning, the house — falls under Provider. The fifth priority. The last P. And yet I’d been treating it as the first. I think most mothers do. It’s the most visible category, the one Instagram rewards, the one that makes you feel like you’re doing something. But it sits on top of four other layers, and when those layers are shaky, the providing is just performance.

This also answered something I’d been struggling with. I’d tried other frameworks like the “five types of wealth” (time, spiritual, physical, social, financial), but they’re designed for managing one person’s life. As a mother responsible for children and a household, my scope is larger than taking care of myself. The five P’s fit the shape of my actual life.

I’d also been toying with the idea of Good Enough, On Purpose, accepting that some things would fall and being at peace with it. It felt right at first. But after reading about the five P’s, I realized it was the wrong frame. The five P’s don’t ask you to accept the mess. They tell you why the mess is there — and if something keeps falling apart, that’s not something to make peace with. It’s a design problem to solve.

Making it mine

The framework is from the book. But filling it in is my own work, and it pushed me further than I expected.

The process itself sounds simple. You list everything for each bucket and carve out time for them on a repeating schedule. I’d been doing versions of this already, listing tasks, blocking time. But I was always building the schedule from scratch, deciding what mattered each day. The five P’s removed that decision. The priorities were already set. I just had to follow the order.

As I filled in the buckets, it forced me to think about what kind of Person I was growing into and what kind of children my husband and I are raising. I realized how Parenting isn’t something simply directed at your kids. It happens all the time at home — in how you behave (Prayer, Person), how you interact with your spouse (Partner), and how you design the environment (Provider) to allow for the flourishing of these souls. What kind of persons are you really forming - not just taking care of their needs and teaching them phonics?

To keep me focused, I found myself going back to my north star — the most important commandment: love your God and love your neighbor as yourself.

Where this leaves the sprints

Sprint 3 answered the question I ended the last post with: how do I balance the Build time with everything else?

The answer was to lay it all out, all the needs across the five P’s, and create time for them within the day. Building lives in Person, the second P. It’s not a guilty indulgence. It’s part of the foundation. But it has to coexist with everything else.

I’m starting sprint 4 now. This time, with a clearer conscience.