Whether you are a working mom or you stay at home, time is always the one thing there never seems to be enough of. There always seems something forgotten, something put off, something cancelled because time just ran out. When you have a family it is suddenly not only your time you are managing but you find yourself time keeper and scheduler to your children as well.
There are a few things you can do to slow the hamster wheel down a little and allow you to feel like you can get everything done.
You need to have a weekly plan of action. It needs to be a proper plan that is written down or scheduled on your phone – whatever tool you use, you do need to be able to see the week ahead. If you try to keep it all in your head you will forget something. Your weekly plan doesn’t need to detail every minute of the day but must include things like sport matches, coffee dates or other events.
Once you have your week planned you can plan your days, doing it every evening works well. Include everything you need to do during the day – work meetings, gym, homework time.
If your day is looking overwhelming, prioritize. There will be certain things you can move to a day that is less cluttered or things you can postpone to another day. Use your weekly planner to see which days aren’t as busy.
Delegating doesn’t mean you have failed, it means you understand that you simply can not be everywhere at once. If you have family support, ask grannies and grandpas to watch soccer matches or dance recitals that you can’t make. Dad’s can also get involved and take over some of the daily tasks. If your budget allows, an au pair can make your life so much easier. Even if you find someone who can just collect the children from school.
Say no. Stay at home moms may battle with this a little more than their working counterparts purely because the assumption is they have more time but this is not necessarily the case. Helping out a friend is one thing but taking on more than you can handle to ease someone else’s load is also not ideal for anyone. Help out if you can but if you can’t then say no.
Block out distractions. If you have scheduled two hours of work, shut out all the noise. Close Facebook, put your phone on silent so you make the most of those two hours and get as much done as you need to.
Be flexible and learn to let go. Some days are not going to work out like you planned. Meetings run late, children get sick, cars break, it happens, it is part of life. Work around the challenges. If your kids have to wait 10 minutes for you after school, is it that bad?
Managing your time will not miraculously make you be able to fit 30 hours of work into a 24 hour day but it will make your life easier and a little less stressed.
Author bio:
Laura is a mom to four which means she spends most of her day driving kids from one activity to the next. She lives in Pretoria with her husband, the kids, a dog and a bird. Laura blogs over at HarassedMom (www.harassedmom.co.za) and runs a small party planning business (www.journey2joy.co.za), Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Journey2Joy/10150128530740425 and twitter https://twitter.com/Journey2Joy
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