Episode 140: 7 Time Management Tips for the Work at Home Mom

Full Episode Transcription:

(00:07):
Hey, hey y’all. Welcome back to another episode of Quick Tip Thursday here on the Ditch the Classroom Podcast. Today’s question is about managing your time as a work-at-home mom. It can be really challenging trying to juggle having your kids around all the things we have to do for them and for our spouses and for the household, and juggling your virtual assistant business or whatever you’re doing working from home. So in today’s episode, I’m gonna share with you seven time management tips for the busy mom who’s working from home. So let’s just jump right in.

(01:50):
Tip number one is to work from a planner. If you’re just sitting down trying to fly by the seat of your pants when you’re working, you’re gonna be so much less productive and you’re gonna waste so much time. So have a planner that you’re working from. This can be a paper planner, this can be a digital system. I personally do kind of a hybrid of both. I have my paper planner that kind of gives me like my daily outline of when I’m doing different time blocks and like when appointments are and things like that. But then when I have my work hours in my planner, I actually go to a program called Trello, T-R-E-L-L-O, and I use my weekly planner template there that has the tasks I’m gonna be doing in my business. I do have that free template for you guys where you can get my exact weekly planner template on Trello. So if you just go to ariannavernier.com/free-weekly-planner, you can grab that there and that link will be there for you in the show notes as well.

(02:55):
All right, the second time management tip for the busy work at home mom is to set boundaries. This is both with yourself and with others. So if you are just working whenever all the time, you might find yourself missing out on those important moments with your kids, with your spouse, and you might realize that you’re working way more now than you ever did when you were teaching or in your nine-to-five. So you have to set boundaries with yourself of when you’re gonna be working, and then when you’re not in work mode, turn those apps off. Use the focus mode on your phone and make those apps not even open. So you can’t check email, you can’t be messaging clients. All the things. Set those boundaries and then also set boundaries with your clients so that they know when they can expect to hear from you. They’re not, you know, just thinking that you’re working 24/7 for them and hold to those boundaries so that you’re not a slave to your business all the time.

(03:56):
The third time management tip I have for y’all is to prioritize when you have a to-do list. You guys know as moms and just women in general, our to-do lists are never ending. So you have to prioritize what are the three most important tasks. There’s a quote, and I never remember who it’s from, I really need to look this up. And it says, “Think of your day or your to-do list as like three layers of cake” So you have your three main tasks that you’re gonna complete each day, and then anything additional that you get done is just sprinkles on top. So you have to have those three main tasks that you’re prioritizing, that you’re getting to, and just let the rest wait.

(04:40):
All right. Tip number four is to beware of time zaps. So if there are things that are just taking so much energy, so much time from you, how can you eliminate those? How can you simplify whatever process you’re using for that? How can you delegate it out? What do you need to do to save that time? You have to ask yourself that question.

(05:05):
The fifth time management tip for the busy work at home mom that I have for you is to block out time slots for each activity. So I mentioned this briefly in my tip number one of working from a planner, but you wanna have time blocks that you’re working from. So you might have your morning routine block where you’re reading your Bible, and then you transition into getting yourself ready, getting your kids ready, eating breakfast, and then sending them off to school or daycare.

(05:35):
That could be your morning routine. Then you might have your working hours, and that’s a time block. You might have an evening time block where you are making dinner and all of that, and then a nighttime routine block where you are getting ready for bed, maybe cleaning up a little spending time with your husband, all of those things. So you need to be using time blocks that kind of help you transition throughout your day so you’re not just kind of floating all over the place.

(06:05):
Okay, the sixth time management tip is to recognize and avoid distractions. So if you find yourself overwhelmed and your first reaction is to grab your phone and start scrolling for an hour, that’s a huge distraction that you can avoid. I recommend turning on your time tracking capabilities on your phone and take a look. Don’t just ignore it. Go take a look and see how much time you’re actually wasting every day on social media. And if it’s not social media for you, what distraction pulls you away? Is it a messy house? Is it laundry? Sitting around? And then think about what systems you can put in place to have those not be a distraction for you. So maybe you have, you know, two 10 minute bursts throughout the day where you’re cleaning up, or you have 15 minutes where you bust out as much laundry as you can. What can you do to eliminate those distractions?

(07:05):
Okay, the seventh time management tip that I have for y’all today is to be okay with saying no. You do not have to say yes to everything. If you say yes to everything, then you’re saying no to what matters the most because you cannot do everything. So even if you try the things that really matter, like your family, your faith, your health, those are gonna fall by the wayside. So you have to have to have to be okay with saying no to the things that don’t help your family, help you grow spiritually, help you get healthier, help grow your business. If they don’t fall into those categories, it is okay to say no.

(07:49):
All right, I’ll let me recap for you really quick. My seven time management tips for the busy mom who’s working from home. Number one is work from a planner. Two, set boundaries. Three, prioritize. Four, beware of time zapps. Five, block out time slots for each activity. Six, recognize and avoid distractions. And seven, be okay with saying no. All right. If y’all have anything that you would love for me to answer here on the Ditch the Classroom Podcast, go to our free Facebook community that’s at facebook.com/groups/ditchtheclassroom. Scroll to our quick tip Thursday post. Leave a comment with a question you would love for me to answer, and I would be more than happy to do so. All right, y’all, I love you so much, and we will see you next time.