Kids. Cooking. Cleaning. Working. Husband. And keeping sane. Being a working mom can one of the toughest jobs. Figuring out how to best balance family and work-life is a challenge especially when there are so many aspects to this “job” or life. We need to implement time management strategies to keep it all flowing.
Most days I have it under control. The family is happy, work is going well and my house is somewhat tidy. But there’s always those unpredicted periods where things fall apart and it’s hard to keep up. We all have those days Mama! On those tough days – I remember what I’m grateful for, what I’m trying to work towards and then I keep treading along. I have these time management strategies that I have in place that help me balance family and work-life. When I hit these ruts, these strategies help pull me along.
Before I present my time management strategies – I want to touch base on one thing. Determine and understand what is important to you as a working mom. What sort of things do you want to achieve by the end of the day? What are your goals for the month, year, 5-10 years? I highly recommend putting together a vision board (paper or digital) that you can see daily to remind yourself what you are working towards or what your goals/dreams are.
Alright, let’s do it. Here are my time management tips on how to balance family and work-life:
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Self-care
The number one strategy is to take care of yourself. To perform optimally, you need to feel your best. Allow time each day to do things for yourself – whether it is to exercise, read a good book or take a hot shower, this “me time” will help you feel better. We are most efficient and effective if we are well mentally and physically.
Related post: 10 Self Care Tips for Moms
If there is ONE thing you had to choose for self-care – I would recommend getting optimal sleep. We’ve all been there with the sleep deprivation. We feel like crap, cranky and our mind is just not with the program. SO…. getting optimal sleep is so important! Take a look at this post “The Power of Sleep” to get some tips on how to achieve optimal sleep.
It takes time to develop good habits and to change a daily routine. Start with one lifestyle goal and go for it!
Get help
You can’t do it alone. Period. Allow people to help. Ask for help. Come up with a plan for your family to pitch in more. Ask your partner, kids and extended family. Consider hiring help (babysitter, nanny, house cleaner etc). Reach out to other mom friends for ideas and support. There is only so much you can handle in one day and so as one of my time management strategies – allow others to help.
Most kids are willing to put in a helping hand. Give them small tasks to do and it allows them to have a sense of responsibility. Younger kids require a lot more of our time and thus teaching them to be more independent earlier will allow more time to be freed up. They can do simple tasks such as putting their toys away, dumping their dirty clothes into the laundry basket, packing and unpacking their own school bags, wiping the table, taking out the garbage and unloading the dishwasher.
Check out: “5 Must-Know Time Management Tips for Kids.”
Related post: 12 Childcare Options for the Working Mom
Schedule
Digital Calendar
Managing a family’s schedule requires some sort of calendar. Nowadays mostly everyone has a smartphone and thus using a digital calendar makes sense. My husband and I use the free Google Calendars app of which we are are able to access the same calendar on our phones. For example, if I enter a doctor’s appointment for our daughter on the calendar, he is able to see it on his phone. We are all on the same page (that’s if you look at the calendar!) Thinking ahead to when my kids have cell phones – I’m sure we will all be using the Google Calendar to manage our schedules!
Planners
In addition to the Google Calendar, I have a physical planner. I use mine for my blogging projects. Perhaps you can use one for work or other projects. There are so many beautifully laid out planners out there!
Rachael at Healinghome.co presents a great way to use a planner for work and home life through her post: 3 Ways to Separate Work and Home in Your Planner.
For my Canadian readers – Winner’s/HomeSense has a great selection and affordable planners that are available late fall.
Erin Condren has these beautiful planners. My favourites:
Do it list
I use the Google Tasks app on my phone to help me organize my tasks and my “do it” lists. Easy to use. I highly recommend it. Instead of holding all of those thoughts in my head on what I need to do – I dump it into the Google Tasks. At the beginning of my day – I take a look at my tasks and prioritize what I need to do for the day.
Here are a few of my lists in Google Tasks:
- 3 things to do today
- A running “do it list”
- Grocery lists for my favourite stores
- Christmas gift list ideas
Eliminate
One of the most effective time management strategies is to eliminate. Eliminate anything that is a distraction to your family and work. Eliminate the clutter in your home, say no to activities and people that don’t add value to your life, family or goals (refer to your vision board!) Simply put, the more you eliminate – the more time (and money!) you can free up for yourself and family.
Kid activities
Beware of FOMO. As a parent, we are always on the alert for fear of missing out. Parents talk to other parents and compare what their own kids are doing. You hear about the newest and greatest activities and the next thing you know you got your kids enrolled in it. Kids’ activities may take up a lot of time. Their activities involve a cost, time to attend the activity and time to get them there and back. Be selective in what you enroll your kids in to ensure it’s worth your family’s time. Eliminate activities that are not beneficial or align with your family’s goals.
Work and activities
I recently read “The 4 Hour Work Week” by Tim Ferriss. He presented many very eye-opening thoughts about how to eliminate things in your life in order to be efficient and effective with your time. The strategy is to do and finish your work efficiently so that you have more time to do the things you enjoy. Great advice!! Check out his book to discover how to do this.
Batching
The only thing I “batched” growing up was cookies. As per the Oxford dictionary batching is “arranging things in sets or groups.” On top of just batching cookies, we can apply this “batching” process as a time management strategy.
It takes time to prep and set up most activities. If you do things in groups it saves you the prep time each time you have to do a certain activity. Here are my favourite batching activities:
Meal planning
Meal planning is a great example of how batching can help save time. If you plan out all of your meals for the next 1-2 weeks, do the grocery shopping in one shop and then pre-cut/prep food for the week – will save you a lot of time! Batching any of these activities will help save time. Meal planning prevents the stress of figuring out what to eat daily and help you from resorting going out to eat.
Chores
Batch those chores! Dedicate a period of time each week to do household chores. Laundry, toilets, cleaning floors, taking out the garbages etc. Even better yet – get everyone in the home to help!
Gifts
Buying gifts. Take a look at the gifts you have to buy over the next few months. Make a list and then shop (online or physically at the store) for them all in one session.
Finances
Dedicate a short period of time each week to manage your money. Use this time to pay bills, review accounts, invest and any other money tasks on your do it list.
Finding pockets of time
You definitely can find some time during your busy day to do things for yourself – whether it is to work on a passion project, self-care, or doing something that you enjoy for yourself.
Here is a podcast episode on Smart Passive Income on how to find time in your day to do things for yourself and the importance of it.
“Finding Fringe Hours and Work Life “Balance” with Jessica Turner on Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income podcast
Jessica Turner suggests using pen and paper as a method to track your time – to see where are the “pockets of time” in your day that can be used more effectively. One great advice she made is to wake up before the kids get up. I have been doing this in the past year and it is a big game-changer. I use this quiet time to get things done (blogging and finances) while enjoying a cup of coffee. By the time my kids are up, I am ready to take care of them.
There are so many things that need to be done as a working mom and there is only so much time in a day. Using the time management strategies of self-care, getting help, scheduling, eliminating and batching will help balance work and home life. In addition, these strategies will help to carve extra time in your day to be doing things that you want to be doing.
You got this mama! Go for it!
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Thank you!
Self care, asking for help and eliminating are the things I struggle with as a full time mom and entrepreneur. I suffer from the ideology that I must do it and do it alone. I’m working to change that because it is not effective in the slightest. Thank you for the reminder.
I feel like a lot of moms are in the same boat and we need to let others help!
This post has a lot of great ways to plan your day and make life easier. I don’t have kids either and I can barely take care of everything I have to do much less lead a productive day with children. Awesome post!
Being more intentional with our day will allow us to do more things that we wish to get done – even for people who don’t have kids 🙂
Firstly, I just want to take my hat off to all the working mums out there balancing work and family life. It’s a tough gig. I don’t even have kids of my own, except for our dog, and I struggle with productivity already lol. But what helps me is time blocking and putting my phone away. Thanks so much for this great list of tips!
Time blocking and putting the phone away are awesome tips! I need to remember to do that more often!
Awesome list! The thing that spoke the most to me was to eliminate. Brilliant!
Thanks Nikki!
This is a great and very useful post. I love the idea of finding the pockets of time. We usually have and utilize them anyway, but I believe that by better noticing them, we may improve our mental and emotional well-being. If you sit down for 5mins. thinking how tired you are, you won’t rest. But if you sit down for 5mins. thinking “wow, I can relax for 5 mins. now!” it will bring a totally different effect on how you’re feeling.
I love what you said! A lot of it has to do with our mindset and how we view things.
Such great time management tips! So true about self care needing to be your number 1 and sleep is huge! I’ve never heard of the Google Tasks app I will have to check that out.
Thank you Shannah! Getting enough sleep has made a huge difference for me! I’ve noticed how my afternoons are more productive when I’m not nodding off and wanting a nap
These are all wonderful ways to ensure that time management is front and center in our lives. I like how you put getting enough sleep as front and center. I have learned over the years that when I don’t get enough sleep it tends to mess up my level of productivity.
I’m such a bear when I don’t get enough sleep! I’m cranky, slow and possibly loud (from shouting!)
This is a great post. Some really great advice, especially the meal prep. I find this really helps me x
Thanks Jo! Yes, I found meal prepping to have made a huge difference in our lives! More time and money saved
I’m so glad you highlighted that we need to eliminate the things we don’t really want or need! Saying “no thanks” has made a huge difference in my life, freeing up time and energy for things that are truly important to me!
More “nos” will definitely allow more intentional “yeses” to things that we most value in life!
Time management is such a struggle. Great post!