Being a mother is not an easy job; it’s not less than being a superhero. On top of that, if you work, maintain your house, and have your own life, you will need some major time management skills to achieve balance.
However, a lot of time, keeping up with everything can get too much, and without even knowing, you get messed up.
To help you out, here are some tricks for keeping your time management as a mother so you can enjoy your life alone.
Get Enough Sleep to stay Active.
Mom tends to lose sleep; it’s a straight fact. However, that’s not right for your health.
When you lose sleep, it causes sleep deprivation, and it leads to :
- Causing the hypertension
- Heart attack and stroke
- Diabetes
- Weight gain and obesity
- Diabetes
- Memory loss
- Faulty brain function
- Depression and anxiety
- Immune system deficiency
Well, for mothers, taking care of their kids, especially when they are young, gets hectic, and they tend to compromise on their eight hours of sleep.
When you do it for years, it takes a toll on the heart. In the end, you feel like you are just too tired, feeling guilt and loneliness along with irritability, stress, and anxiety.
That’s why you need to take a healthy hour of sleep to make sure it doesn’t cause you sleep deprivation.
For this, you can adopt different tricks to catch up on lost hours of sleep to rejuvenate yourself.
Here are some of the tricks that will help you :
- Even though you don’t feel sleepy, lie down to relax and stay off your phone. Keep it for half an hour to feel relaxed.
- Help for the nighttime feedings; use the bottle of breast milk so you can take some time for sleep.
- Keep your baby close to you so you don’t have to wake up every hour to check on them.
- Be choosy on the guest; visitors need the effort to entertain, prepare food, etc.
- Don’t get too much coffee which affects your sleep.
- Use the time when the baby naps to take some time for your rest.
Keep Your Diet Healthy And Stay hydrated.
For mothers, it’s important that you look after their nutrients so they won’t affect their health, productivity, quality of life, and efficiency.
According to studies, the intake of mothers’ nutrition is linked to their kids’ health. Not just that, kids copy your eating habits. So focus on your meals, so the kids don’t put their meals aside in the future.
Also, your diet is linked to time management, as you can’t manage time when you’re hungry.
Also, high energy levels need healthy food, so add foods like meats, fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain to your diet.
Not just food, but stay hydrated too as it affects your body and makes you feel energetic to get work done faster.
Plan Your Week In Advance
Your family might have some of the activities that you are accused of every week, such as going out for dinner, playing soccer games, or visiting parks on Sunday.
Also, you might have some new activities which are not in your routine. That’s why you need to be ready to handle the work and deal with all of these things.
So make sure you plan a week in advance. Consider the activities you need to deal with and make sure you have a plan.
You can also get the weekly planners who can make it easier to have a weekly plan ready.
Plan Your Day And Adjust Chores
When you are a mom, you feel like the hours are running away at the speed of light, and it gets difficult to control.
That’s why you need to plan your day and adjust your chores to do when you have free time in hand, so you don’t have to give separate hours for doing them.
Here are some points to plan your day and adjust chores.
- List all the important tasks, and do the three important one
- Use your nighttime for preparing the next day.
- Keep your morning routine consistent, and have time for doing things like reading, having a quiet breakfast, exercising, doing some work, etc.
- Use the shortcuts to do the tasks which are occurring on a daily basis.
- Have an actual schedule for yourself, and add things you need to do.
- Use a planner to organize your day and tasks.
- Use reminders, timers, or alarms to set the time for tasks.
Learn To Delegate Your Work
Even though you feel like it’s your house and kids, it’s important to remember that it’s not your solely responsible for doing everything.
So if you have a partner, you can share the duties, and if you have grown enough kids, share some tasks like setting the table or doing the dishes.
It’s important that you create a system where your family is also involved instead of you doing all the work on your own.
This will help you in saving your time, which you can use on some other tasks. Also, keep your energy and motivation as you have more people to depend on.
And for that, here are some of the points which can help :
- Split up your chores, like assigning one task to one, and have set goals with deadlines.
- Arrange for childcare, so you have more time, or you can ask family members to do that for you.
- If you need professional help, do it, as there are grocery stores that offer pickup and delivery options, you can purchase email kits, etc.
- Ask friends or extended family members to help with some tasks.
Buy Your Time
Well, when you are a working mom, you get into a situation where you need to watch kids but have important meetings to attend.
Sometimes, you can’t take help from your partner; maybe they are busy with something and have a jam-packed schedule.
In such situations, you need to choose where to put your time. And here, you can use the alternative for buying your time.
So you can outsource some of your work, get some professional help, and get some time to focus on things that actually need to be done.
Considering daycare for your kids, you can ask your parents or younger family members to take care of the situation.
Don’t Get Into Perfection
Mostly women are indoctrinated that they chase perfection since growing up, you might have gotten messages through your family, society, and movies.
Also, it was set to a higher standard which is unrealistic to meet. And even though you want to be the best mom, remember that you don’t have to be perfect in everything.
Don’t have the chance to be a perfect mom every time, the best listener, best professional, best friend, etc.
If you do, it will lead you to feel more invested. For this, you will compromise your self-care, and this will cause burnout and feelings of mom guilt.
Focus On Practicing Mindfulness
Mindfulness is proven to be beneficial for your emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.
It helps in alleviating different aspects of your health, it includes :
- Controlling the stress
- Maintaining the blood pressure
- Decreasing the chronic pain
- Boost the heart health
- Enhancing the sleep
- Dealing with depression
- Intersessional the conflicts in a healthy way
- Boosting the control over anxiety
With the help of meditation, you can also help in staying in the moment and grounded. Also, meditation helps you in getting into your daily routine and experiences miraculous results.
This can help you better connect with the kids and resolve the experiences.
You can also be better at handling the challenges that arise with parenting and dealing with other things in your life.
You can use it for doing it, by doing simple meditation techniques, such as breathing or yoga, to make you feel calmer.
Limit The Multitasking
As a mom, you might end up doing more than one work at one time. Here you get forced to juggle a lot of work.
This can be managing the kids, doing cleaning, taking a work call, cooking, etc.
Bouncing them all at once, you might feel it’s fine to multitask.
Also, it’s glorified but with several hidden or not-so-hidden drawbacks.
This leads to damaging mental health, increasing stress and decreasing work quality, etc.
Not just that, it steals the focus and strains the relationship.
So it’s important that you don’t multitask. It’s important to keep it limited even if you have to do it.
Identify What Waste Your Time
A Lot of the time, you have busy work which is not as busy as you believe. There are a number of things that invest time but have little or no value to add to life.
This can be anything; it can be spending time on social media scrolling, sessions with gossip, attending meetings that are unplanned, etc.
This can be an activity that might eat time and detract from what you should be doing.
Have Your Me Time
When you have a lot of responsibilities, especially when you are a mother who needs to handle the work obligations and social responsibilities
You might end up stretching yourself, adding more responsibilities and work which demands effort.
And as long as it goes, you might get the burner and forget your individuality.
The wake-up calls when you feel the exhaustion beyond and hopeless and resentful.
It’s important that you don’t beat yourself over this and have the time. It’s not a selfish move, but it’s needed to have a healthy life. Not only is it good for you but for your kids and your work as well.
But to find it, here are some of the ways that can help:
- It’s important that the chores related to the house are not just limited to you, but it should be a family affair.
- Adjust your sleep schedule; it will help you in getting enough time to sleep and feel well-rested.
- To save time on preparing meals, you can use the services and offers out there.
- Choose the right work yourself; if it’s possible to make it simple and easier for you, do it so it won’t add a burden.
- Find time to exercise and it can help you in keeping a clear mind and active body to be more time-managed.
- Know what triggers your irritation and burnout, take some time, and breathe.
Make Your To-Do List
Being a mother includes so many things in your life; there are small to huge things you need to do on a daily basis.
From taking care of your family to maintaining a healthy lifestyle, there are necessary things to do every day.
So you should have your to-do list; this will help you in knowing what you need to get done today before you get into bed.
It’s not important to do every single thing, but you can get most of it done, still manage your time well and be more productive.
You can make a list regarding everything, such as :
- Grocery shopping list
- Bills to pay
- Household items
- Kids activities or chores
- Vacation or travel planning
- Chores or errands.
Know What’s Your Priority
The key behind having good time management is that you should know the right way of prioritizing.
Well, when you know what’s actually important, the rest can wait, and it will help you in staying more active without wasting time.
According to the expert, you can divide the to-do list into three important secretions :
- The first should be the things that need to have your attention immediately and get done as soon as it can be possible,
- The second should be those tasks that are important but can be done anytime in the week
- The third includes the works which are for long-term or ongoing projects.
Automate What You Can
There are a lot of things in your planning that can be automated. And by doing this, you can save a lot of time which can be used for doing something else.
With this, you get much more effective time management, which helps you in getting what can be possible into automatic.
Simplify what you are doing, so you can put less effort and save time as well as energy.
There are different things that you can automate, it includes :
- Meal prepping services
- Grocery delivery
- Pet supply delivery
- Carpooling with other families to save time
- Automating the bill online
- Prescription delivery
You can subscribe to the various services which help you in sending the items you need on a monthly basis.
Use Time Blocking To Simplify The Schedule
Time blocking is one of the effective ways to be more time managed, block out some set amount of time for accomplishing the tasks you have on the list.
During the dedicated time, to work and be focused on those tasks only. Leave the destruction and keep your focus on the particular tasks.
However, do take small breaks before you switch to the next task.
Well, you can start with 15 to 30-minute blocks. Once you get in the habit of it, you can increase the time.
Learn Saying No Is Okay
When you are a mother, it gets really hectic to deal with everything. And as moms, everyone wants to be super involved with their kids and help as much as they can.
But it’s okay if you want to step away for a minute. Especially when you have more work then you need to learn the skill of saying No.
As a mom, you feel like you have to be a part of every activity, but it’s not true.
Also, it’s key to helping you in keeping your time more managed.
Get the Worst Task Done First
For this, you should have your to-do list ready, so you know what you need to do in your day.
When you are making a list, you will have some tasks that are not your favorite, but it’s extremely important. It can be paying bills or folding laundry.
Here you can do the things you hate first, so you don’t have to expend the mental energy to do the task, unconsciously or even consciously wasting time on it.
It will help you in keeping more produce and help in more time management.
Have Your Back Up Plan Ready
Regardless of how much you plan, there will be something that life will throw at you, and it will make the whole thing lose its balance.
It can be something like your kids getting sick, a car battery dying or a dog getting urgent medical attention, etc.
There are a lot of things that will not go to your plan. So instead of feeling frustrated, be ready with a backup plan.
Have some go-to plans ready, so it will save you time. For example, if you forget to thaw chicken for dinner, have chicken nuggets, veggie burgers, or ravioli in the freezer. That will save the problem,
Do Cleaning As You Go
Doing massive chores like cleaning, especially when you have tons of other work to do, can be hectic.
So instead of writing it to pile up, do the cleansing as you go. Do it right away instead of putting it off.
For example, when you come back home, change the coat in its place, and Wipe the dinner table after the meal so it won’t get too dirty.
Not just that, right the chores with their due dates. Also, it’s not your alone responsibility.
Make a cleaning list and divide it among everyone in your family. For example, if your kids are big enough, they can wash their dishes and clean their room.
Also, you can ask your partner to help in doing dusting and cleaning
Expect What You Can’T Do And Changes Around You
One of the reasons is that you feel like running the same race over and over, this happens because you don’t make the changes.
It feels much easier to complain regarding the situation and to blame. But unless you decide to take chances, it will not change the situation.
That’s why instead of feeling scared of those changes, understand the requirements and what is good for you.
Being a mom is a huge responsibility, and it affects the rest of your life choices. It can be changing jobs, finding something you can do, going for exercise, or even training your baby to sleep.
You have to expect what change you want and do it.
Don’t Ruin Your Routine
Routines are important, especially for time management, And it’s the first thing that gets ruined after you become a mother, as you have a baby to take care of and a job to handle.
Even though it’s important to have time fixed, make sure you have a routine for yourself, so you know what you are doing the whole day, which does not just involve the baby and job.
It will help you be less stressed and more manageable in life.
Keep Yourself Flexible
It’s extremely important that you keep everything flexible. It should be enough so you can accommodate things that were not in the plan.
Having the rhythm for the day, along with a time cushion and backup plans, will help you much in control and be less stressed.
When you are a mother, you need to keep things flexible so you can adjust according to the situation without letting the goals get ruined.
Keep Your Working Hours Sane
Being a mom means you need to take care of your baby no matter what, and also, you have more commitments. That way, you should keep your working time sane.
Make sure your boss and coworkers know when you are available to attend to their calls and respond to emails.
Keep yourself updated and the rest of the team, so everyone can work without getting interrupted.
Also, having sane hours will help you in managing your rest time much better, here you can give time to the family too.
More To Explore:
- Most Effective and Proven Time Management Tips, Techniques & Strategies
- Time Management With Newborn Tips: Juggling Responsibilities
- 25 Time Management Guide For Working Mothers (Doable)
- Guide On How To Be Professional In Doing Time Management
- Beginner’s Guide For Time Management In 2023
“Vision, strategy, and inspiration – these three words describe me the best. I am the founder of “TheLeaderboy” dedicated to leadership and personal development. As a self-taught practitioner, I have been studying the principles of effective leadership for the past decade and my passion lies in sharing my insights with others. My mission is to empower individuals to become better leader