5 Time Management Tips for Busy Moms
Time management almost seems impossible for busy moms - and it might seem challenging, but with the right approach, my time management tips for busy moms can make this impossibility within your reach. Here is what I did...
Being a working mom with a toddler and a business, I often find myself battling the clock and feeling overwhelmed by everything I need and want to do.
Between taking care of my son, managing household chores, and trying to find a little time for myself, stress is a familiar companion.
However, by adopting a few key strategies, I was able to reclaim my time and significantly reduce my stress levels. Let me share with you the methods that transformed my daily routine.
1. Strategy One: Prioritizing and Planning
Working towards better time management, the first strategy I adopted was prioritizing and planning. Here's how you can implement it:
- Create a Daily Schedule: Start by listing all the tasks you need to accomplish each day. Break them down into smaller, manageable steps and prioritize them based on urgency and importance. Rating things based on importance and urgency is based on the Eisenhower matrix. You can look more into the Eisenhower matrix here.
- Set Realistic Goals: Don’t overload your day with too many tasks. Be realistic about what you can achieve in the time you have. This helps in avoiding the stress of unfinished tasks. Prioritize the top three tasks that are important to you, not necessarily important to someone else. This will help you feel more accomplished even when there’s still more to do.
- Allocate Time Blocks: I’m a big fan of time-blocking. To to it, just divide your day into blocks of time dedicated to specific tasks. For example, set aside time for household chores, playtime with your child, and personal time. This structure helps in maintaining focus and ensures you allocate enough time for each activity. Depending how young your child is, time-blcoking might not be possible due to their unpredictable schedule. But as they get older, time-blocking is one of my face time management tips for busy moms!
By following these steps, you can create a structured plan that allows you to focus on what truly matters, reducing the feeling of being overwhelmed.
Feel guilty when you need to prioritize your work over playing with your child, even for a couple of hours? Check out my FREE Letting Go of Mom Guilt Journal and start building different beliefs about how you should spend your time. Sign up below or click here.
2. Strategy Two: Delegating Tasks
The second strategy that propelled me towards better time management was learning to delegate. Initially, I struggled with letting go of control, but sharing responsibilities made a huge difference. I learned to stop the maternal gatekeeping and ask for help!
- Involve Your Partner: Share household and parenting duties with your partner. Open communication about tasks and their distribution can significantly lighten your load.
- Seek Help from Family and Friends: Don’t hesitate to ask for help from family members or friends. Whether it's babysitting for a few hours or helping with errands, support from loved ones can ease your burden.
- Hire Help if Possible: If it’s within your budget, consider hiring help for tasks like cleaning or childcare. Professional assistance can free up significant time, allowing you to focus on other priorities. I don’t have the budget for this, but if you do, go for it! Since neither I nor my partner drive, ordering our groceries online has been a big time-saver for us!
- Store All Your To-Do’s and Ideas in a Platform (e.g., Notion): I like to call this delegating to my second brain/future self. Many of us claim we can store our to-do list in our heads, but that takes up so much space in our brains, leaving no room for relaxation or creativity. Store your tasks somewhere else and review them regularly. You can do this with ideas as well (we all daydream from time to time). Chances are, you have a lot of ideas for projects you want to do only to never think about them again. Write them down and do your future self a favour!
By delegating tasks, you can alleviate some of the burdens, giving you more time to breathe and reduce stress.
3. Strategy 3: Self-Care and Mindfulness
One of the time management tips for busy moms you might not have thought of is doing your best to reduce stress and knowing when you need to take care of yourself so you can be more productive. Here are the strategies I found effective:
- Incorporate Self-Care into Your Routine: Make time for activities that help you relax and recharge. This could be anything from taking a warm bath, reading a book, to engaging in a hobby you love. Going to therapy can also be a very healthy and helpful form of self-care. You can learn more about my self-care routine in this blog post.
- Practice Mindfulness: Mindfulness techniques, such as meditation or deep-breathing exercises, can help you stay present and manage stress better. Start with just a few minutes a day and gradually increase the duration. I find it easier to practice meditation at night time when my little one is a sleep, but if you get up earlier than your child(ren), that’s even better!
- Stay Connected with Loved Ones: Maintaining social connections can provide emotional support and reduce feelings of isolation. Regularly schedule time to catch up with friends or family, even if it’s just a quick phone call. I FaceTime my friend and my mom almost every day and this helps me stay connected to other adults on my days off of work.
By integrating these practices into your routine, you can create a buffer against stress and enhance your overall well-being.
4. Strategy Four: Simplify Your Routine
Another crucial strategy for managing time and easing stress is simplifying your routine. I talk more about why you should simplify your to-do list and share some simple tips in my previous blog post as well. Here's how you can do it:
- Declutter Your Schedule: Eliminate unnecessary tasks and activities that don’t add value to your day. Focus on what truly matters and get rid of urgent and non-important tasks as fast as you can.
- Embrace Minimalism: Apply minimalist principles to your home and lifestyle. Reduce clutter and keep only what you need. A simpler environment can lead to a clearer mind. I can’t be full-blown minimalist but I did significantly reduce the clutter around our home by getting rid of clothes I don’t wear and kitchen utensils we don’t use.
- Automate and Batch Tasks: Use automation tools for repetitive tasks and batch similar activities together. For example, meal prepping for the week can save you time and reduce daily decision-making stress. If your work involves a lot of email writing, spend a block of time doing just emails. Writing one email makes writing others a lot easier.
By simplifying your routine, you can create more space in your day and reduce the mental load that contributes to stress.
5. The Best Time Management Tip for Busy Moms: Letting Go of Mom Guilt
From my experience, guilty feelings get in the way of productivity and time management.
We waste so much time harping on whether we should go to the gym or stay home to clean the house. This creates slowness.
Remember that you need time for yourself to have the energy to take care of your responsibilities. The research shows we're the foundation of most households, no pressure.
So I promise that you don't need to feel guilty for wanting time to yourself. Follow your plan and your routine. I'm sure you create lots of space for your kiddos and if you haven't been, go ahead and do that.
I’ve put together the Letting Go of Mom Guilt Journal to help you streamline your journey towards better time management and other behaviours you’ve stopped due to guilt.
This quick journal is designed to guide you through reflective exercises, helping you identify and release feelings of guilt and build new beliefs on how you should spend your time as a mom.
The journal includes:
- A space where you can brainstorm all the bad thoughts you have about yourself.
- A space to reflect on what triggers your thoughts and how the worst thought about yourself impacts your feelings, actions, and results.
- A space to work toward having thoughts you can use to create better results in your life.
By using this journal, you can quit thinking you're a bad mom and feel more empowered to prioritize your needs and still take care of your family.
By taking 10 minutes to fill out the journal, you can create the mental space to enjoy motherhood with less stress.
Conclusion
Realizing better time management is a journey filled with learning.
But armed with the right strategies, you can turn your aspirations into reality.
Ready to follow my path to success? Start your journey today by downloading the Letting Go of Mom Guilt Journal.
By adopting these time management tips for busy moms and using the journal, you can transform your daily routine, minimize stress, and enjoy the precious moments of motherhood without the burden of guilt.
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