This guest post features a good friend of our company, Patrick Spear. Patrick is the President/CEO of GMDC|Retail Tomorrow.

I have some good friends – a husband and wife team, I’ll call them Tony and Kim – that own a very successful small business in Nashville.  Tony travels quite a bit, driving revenue and customer relationships, while Kim manages the office and the financials, and keeps the home and work “trains” running on time.  They have three terrific daughters, and all the scheduling challenges that school-age children represent.

Last week, Kim had to travel to the west coast for a multi-day trip in support of the business, while Tony held down the fort, both at work and at home.  I had to chuckle when I saw his Facebook post last Thursday night, which read, verbatim; “Ready for my working Mr. Mom status to be over.  Kim, you win.  You are the better half, and everyone knows it.”

As the husband of a very driven, very organized, and very accomplished wife and mother, it seems only appropriate, on the cusp of Mother’s Day, to recognize – and appreciate – the daily efforts of women like Kim, and my wife Lisa, who accomplish so much on a daily basis, both at work and at home.

Everyone’s busy, and the macro-economic challenges of the last few years have only reinforced that reality.  We all have to do more with less.  But working moms have an extra burden.  The pressures that come from caring about and nurturing the family unit, coupled with the demands of part and full-time work, magnify the demands that arrive with the morning alarm.

I can’t claim to know the secrets of success, nor can I offer any particular insights as to how working moms get it done.  Quite frankly, it amazes me.  I travel on a regular basis with my job, and I marvel at how smooth everything runs in my absence.  That’s not to say it’s easy, but Lisa, and I suspect our friend Kim, like all working moms, have a knack that is apparently hard wired.

Seminars and books about time management and multi-tasking abound, and we’re always only one visit away from the iTunes store and the latest list-making, time-tracking, task-managing app that promises liberation from the scheduling stress our daily lives foist upon our order-craving selves.  But working mom’s have been getting it done for more multiple generations, so these latest tools are just the latest spin.

As we welcome the month of May, with Mother’s Day right around the corner, let’s take a moment to appreciate all the mom’s who make it look so easy, without any software gimmicks, or how-to books, while guys like me search for a miracle time management cure and the latest “how-to” gizmo to get us through our work week.  Said differently, “Thank you for making it look so easy, when we all know it isn’t.”

Looking for ways to make managing your life a little easier?  Take the ConvergenceCoaching Time Management self-study course at www.convergencelearning.com and try these resources:

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/main/newMN_HTE.htm

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/time-management/wl00048

Happy Mother’s Day!

- Patrick