How do I get it all done? Hint: I don’t! But I do have some ideas to make things easier. Having more people and tasks to manage means that you have to figure out how to get as much out of each day as you can, without completely burning yourself out. When I had our fourth child during my husband’s year away in Okinawa, I started seeing how disorganized my life was. I had no idea how to manage it all. As I began leaning into homemaking and making things more from scratch, I started experimenting with different things to make my days more fruitful. Now that I am expecting our seventh living baby, I feel like I have things way more easily managed than I did with 3 or 4 kids at home. Is it perfect? Absolutely not! There are still 8 people living in our house. But I do think things run more smoothly now.
Create Your Rule of Life
Holly Pierlot’s book Mother’s Rule of Life helped me to determine my priorities in the topics of the 5 Ps: Prayer, Person, Partner, Parent, and Provider. With my rule, I clearly defined goals for each obligation in my household.
Make a Routine
I get up at the same time every morning, take essential meds/supplements, feed my sourdough starter, make coffee, and start breakfast. I know what to expect to start each day, which helps me to do have a handle on it as kids wake up throughout the morning.
Time Blocking
I really like time blocking. I know that I will be working on a particular task at a certain time, and I even set an alarm so I don’t feel tempted to run over. If I finish early, I have some downtime. If I run out of time, I put that task away and continue the next time that block comes up.
Be Aware of Your Season of Life
If your baby or toddler is still waking you several times a night, a 5 am wakeup is not going to serve you well long term. No matter how many people tell you to get up before your kids, you will burn out quickly without rest.
WHEN YOUR STAGE OF LIFE ALLOWS, Wake Up Before Your Kids
I know, I know, I basically just told you that waking up before your kids is overrated. The truth is, when I was able to get more than a few hours of sleep (read: before my current toddler started teething again), waking up even just 15 minutes before everyone else added a lot of peace for me. A quiet cup of coffee with my rosary in hand helped me feel like I started my day right.
Keep Distractions Away
It can be so difficult to reduce distractions in the technology age, where everyone seems to expect you to be available at all times.
- Use things like do not disturb mode as much as you can and turn off notifications for non-essentials
- Remove apps that draw your attention away without adding to your productivity. I no longer have social media, email, or shopping apps on my phone. If you don’t feel like you can completely cut them out on your phone, at least use your phone settings to set time limits for yourself. Just be conscious of how easy it becomes to hit that override button for the 3rd time.
- Use an alternative, like a desktop computer or laptop, for as many essential tasks as possible. I do my banking, research, and handle emails from my laptop because I know that if I start doing one thing on my phone, I will be pulled into a million other random things and forget why I even opened it to start with.
Allow Natural Slow Periods in Your Day
You can’t keep going at 100% all day and expect it to last for a long time. Adding times that you know you can sit down and open a book, work on a hobby, pray, or even close your eyes for 20 minutes adds a lot more value than you might think.
Avoid Multitasking
If you can avoid multitasking, do it! I know some of us (ME!) struggle more than others, especially when it feels like there are always so many things to manage, but there are things you can do to help… like keeping lists
Keep Lists
I have a running list pretty much all the time. If I can’t get a thought out of my head, or something I need to do, but I can’t or shouldn’t pull myself out of the current task, I write it down- otherwise I WILL forget or it will distract me too much to focus on more important things.
Get Help
If there is someone you can delegate a task to, utilize them! This can be a spouse, a child who is old enough to complete the task, a parent, or a good friend. Sometimes we just need a little help.
Declutter
More things in your house means more things to manage. This leads to more time taken away from tasks you would rather prioritize because you are picking something up for the millionth time.
Choose A Planning Day
We plan meals twice a month (I schedule it with the pay periods) because that makes the most sense for our family. We do a big annual plan for school once a year, which is very broad, and then toward the end of each month, we plan for the new month in a little more detail. Our finer planning happens each week, usually on Saturday or Sunday.
Track Tasks You’ve Accomplished
Few things make me feel as accomplished as seeing what I have finished written out. If I’m having a particularly challenging day, I might write down things like drink coffee or feed the kids just so I have something to check off. Sometimes productivity requires a “fake it till you make it
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