Don’t have time for yourself? Feel less frazzled by being clever with managing your time. Allowing some time from your day to help you manage your time may feel like a luxury but this will allow you to be more time efficient, have more time to enjoy your kids and to have some much-needed time for yourself. Here are some great ways to start:
Delegate:
You are not an island. Allow people in your support network to help you and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Delegate responsibilities at home to your partner and even your children once they are old enough. With your kids, this may begin with them putting their own toys away and could progress to setting the dinner table. While this isn’t always easy at first, once your family gets into a routine it will help you and also provide your children with a sense of responsibility and pride.
Priorities list:
Start each day by making a list of attainable daily goals. This should start with things that absolutely need to happen followed by one thing that would help you manage your time for the rest of the week and then one thing that is optional. You may think that you haven’t got time to do this, but by taking just 5 minutes at the start of your day it will make you more efficient in managing your time and expectations.
One calendar:
Keep only one calendar and make it do the work for you. It’s easy to wind up with a desk planner, your wall calendar, a school dates sheet on the fridge, birthday book and then appointments in your phone. Bringing this all together in one place will mean you don’t miss anything and gives you a sense of control. An ideal way to do this is using a google calendar on Android phone or IOS calendar on iPhone.
Spend some time adding birthdays, anniversaries and other annual dates to start with. This may take time but will only need to be done once ever. When using apple devices this can be linked to your iPad and computer via the iCloud and to other family members using family sharing. By colour coding you calendar you can create different categories for activities like work, school, family and personal. These all show in the same calendar but give you control over who can see what.
Save time by adding events directly from email, text messages and even apps. Make use of Siri or Google Now when on the go to add appointments to your calendar quickly. Yes we all feel silly talking to our phone but this will take half the time of manually entering appointments.
Use technology:
Don’t limit the use of technology to just your calendar. Apps can be helpful for productivity from telling you what time to go to bed, to online shopping. These things do take a little more time to set up, but once complete you can spend just 20 minutes doing your weekly shop from home or even pay someone on Airtasker to trim that hedge you have been getting around to.
Batch cook and freeze:
Cooking real, nutritious food takes some time and effort. Having to start from scratch ever night can be painful, especially when you or the kids have activities on. So, when you do have a little more time to cook double the recipe you are doing and portion it up and freeze it. It doesn’t take much longer to do this; the washing up is the same and you can save money by buying in bulk. Then, when you’re extra short on time just pull this out of the freezer in the morning, reheat and add some steamed veg or salad. Our favourites for making ahead and freezing are spinach and ricotta cannelloni, chicken gumbo and fish pie.
One more wear:
Sometime when we are under the pump its easy to end up inadvertently doing more work by trying to work quickly. One example is clothing. How often do we just shove something in the laundry hamper because we have worn it once? Could you wear it again? Could the kids wear theirs again? On the weekend when the kids are playing outside and get changed 3 time because they are dirty, maybe they could just keep playing out in that top with some orange juice on it for a couple more hours? This won’t just save you an extra load of washing a week but also prolong the life of your clothes and save on water bills.
Flexibility and saying no:
These things can kind of contradict each other but it is important to be able to do both. Don’t feel obliged to do things because you feel you should if they are going to put extra pressure and stress on you. A good way to look at this is to make a list of priorities for the day. If you haven’t reached all of these then consider saying no. Even if you have finished your list, sometimes it’s good to take some time to yourself to just do nothing. Don’t be afraid to say no as in the end it might be what’s needed.
Equally being super structured can inhibited some exciting opportunities for you and your kids. Maybe saying yes to that last-minute play date is a good option. However busy you feel sometimes having a little escape from routine and being spontaneous feels great!
Allow time to sleep.
If you do nothing else, prioritise sleep. What spare time you do have is very well spent sleeping as this will help maintain your efficiency, health and mental wellbeing. Don’t feel guilty about having a lie in on the weekend if you can, or a little nap in the afternoon while the kids sleep.
For your chance to win some compulsory time to yourself, enter our Mum’s Day Off competition here by telling us ‘what advice would you give your new Mum self?’
