Name: Jessica Bachus
Location: Colorado
Company: Dolls for Daughters and Kenzi’s Kidz
Professional Industry: Non Profit
Job Title: Founder and Executive Director
WIXII-ISM™ FROM JESSICA:
“I wanted to be home with my living children and to continue to honor Kenzi by giving back, so I started my own nonprofit that I run today.”
JESSICA’S STORY:
Meet our featured Wixii™, Jessica Bachus. She is in her later 30s and the mother of four children, “three that walk and one that soars.” Her daughter is 8 years old and her sons are 5 and 3 years old. She received her undergraduate degree in English with a minor in Secondary Education from Metropolitan State College of Denver and her master’s degree in Information Technology with an emphasis in Library Science from University of Colorado-Denver. She is currently the Founder and Executive Director of Dolls for Daughters and Kenzi’s Kidz, a non-profit organization that serves underprivileged children. Her husband is a trial attorney.
JESSICA’S CAREER PATH:
I was a high school English teacher and in graduate school when I lost my second child. After graduate school and two more pregnancies, I decided not to return to teaching. I wanted to be home with my living children and to continue to honor Kenzi by giving back, so I started my own nonprofit that I run today.
JESSICA’S MINDSET AND WORK-LIFE MIX:
I am an optimistic person who sees the best in people and believes that all people are inherently good. I am a perfectionist who does not like to fail. I want to make a difference in the lives of as many children as possible in as many meaningful ways as possible.
I run my organization from home and try to work in the “office” two days a week and at meetings/conferences three days a week. The two days in the office allow me to work and do things at my house that need to get done. My husband is a trial lawyer who puts in a lot of time. I take my kids to school and pick them up, I attend their activities and volunteer at their school as well. I exercise 5-6 days a week and feel that I am a much better person and mother when I do. I make time for friends and family and am very outgoing and social. I enjoy making a difference in the lives of others.
Describe a “day in your life” from waketime to bedtime:
6:00-6:30am: up with kids—breakfast, clothes for them, get the puppy, let her out and feed her.
7:00ish: get dressed, pack lunches.
7:45am: out the door, drop off the boys, then Bailey at school, check the PO Box for work. If it is a Monday, crossfit from 9-10am, grocery store from 10:15-11 then home to work and do laundry, make calls, etc. Tuesdays-Thursdays I have meetings and appointments while my children are in school.
2:30pm: leave to get the boys from school, and then get Bailey from school.
3:15pm: home, Bailey does homework, boys play, wrap-up work/home stuff. On Fridays, all of my kids wrap-up school at 12:15pm so the afternoons are spent with them.
5:00pm: make then eat dinner.
After dinner—work for a limited time, time with family, ensure kids are ready for the next day. If my husband is home for bedtime, he will put the kids to bed.
7:30pm: sons to bed.
8:30pm: Bailey to bed.
9:00-10:00pm: Work/bed.
What specific actions, choices, steps and/or decisions have you made (or would you like to make) to better manage your work-life mix?
One of the best decisions I made was to time block this past year. I need to get better about not working once my kids are home from school. I need to make sure they know I am “present” in their lives when they are home from school.
Also, when I went back to teaching after my oldest daughter was born, we hired an au pair. My daughter was born prematurely, and we did not feel comfortable having her in a daycare setting, plus having an au pair allowed us to have more flexibility with the hours we had her (and then our other children) in childcare. We had au pairs until our middle child was one-year old. For our family, it was a way to expose our children to other cultures and give us the control over the care of our children.
Please share specific tips for effectively managing your time and schedule.
I time block each week. I use to set meetings 5 days a week and felt that I was not able to get things done at home and for work that needed to be done. I no longer meet for meetings on Monday or Friday and that also allows me to get in the workout that I want on those two days. This scheduling strategy allows me to better manage my work-life mix, and I don’t feel like I am driving and meeting all the time. I also try to set as many meetings as possible in one location on the same day so I am not spending hours moving from one meeting the next.
What advice would you give an earlier version of yourself?
The advice that I would give myself is that everything does not have to be perfect 100% of the time as long as you do your best. Sometimes my best isn’t 100%, but it is my best. I am my worst critic.
