Creating a working mom daily schedule that makes you more productive will make you less stressed out and improve your work life balance. Productive day routine is my kind of routine. And by productive, I don’t mean full of tasks and to-do lists. But a day that I can look back at, and feel a sense of accomplishment. As working moms, we juggle a lot of things. And sometimes it is easy to get lost in all those responsibilities. We are constantly doing something – but sometimes at the end of the day it can feel like we have not really accomplished much.
So let’s talk about a productive day routine that will help you get things done and be successful – however you define your success.
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How do Working Moms Manage their Time?
I think every working mom would agree that time management is a skill that we all desire and want to constantly improve. It’s not that it’s harder or easier than managing your time as a working mom versus a stay at home mom. But it is different in some aspects. The idea is to learn how to navigate through your roles as a mom, wife/partner, employee, friend, and a community member (and all the other roles you may have) in way that allows us to dedicate time to each.
There is no right or wrong way. But there are certainly things we can do to make it easier on ourselves to manage the time we have.
How do Working Moms Plan a Day?
In order to make your days more productive, you have so spend some time planning it. The type of planning that will let you decide on the main things you want to accomplish that day. Having an organized working mom schedule will help you stay on top of things.
Brain dump is key to a productive day routine
Have you ever tried a brain dump? This is the easiest and most effective way to declutter your brain. If you want to have a productive day, brain dump should become a part of it. You can do it daily or weekly – depending how cluttered your mind gets. But it is such an easy and effective tool to help you gather your thoughts and make some space in your head.
It is hard to concentrate on your work or chores when you have hundreds of thoughts running through your mind. When you are constantly thinking about what you need to do and when you need to do that.
So instead of struggling, take out a piece of paper and just dump all your thoughts on it. I will usually divide my page into a few sections, like home, work, side business, and any other major project I might be working on at a time. And I just write down all my thoughts and things I want to accomplish in a given category.
Don’t overthink it! Everything that is in your head needs to go on the paper. Regardless if that is something you can do that day or in a month.
This is so therapeutic and I promise once you are done, it’s like you just woke up from a long nap. You will be much more energized and your mind is no longer preoccupied with all the other things. You will be able to concentrate on a task at hand and get it done much quicker.
Decide on your priorities for the day and week
It is really hard to have a productive day when you don’t know what you actually want to accomplish. Now that you have done a brain dump – you have a list of things that you need to work on.
Remember, we don’t want to be busy – we want to accomplish things. So the first thing you need to do is to write down what your priorities are for the day. I suggest listing your top 3 to 5. I usually break it down into 3 work priorities, 1 home priority, and one priority for my side business.
Those are going to be the things that you want to accomplish before the end of the day. Think of it this way: if all you can accomplish that day is your priorities, then it will be a great productive day. Writing down your priorities will help you get and stay focused. You will not be distracted by a million of things that are on your to-do lists that you would like to get done. These are on the ‘it would be nice to get done’ while your priorities are ‘must get it done today’.
RELATED: Best Planners for Working Moms
Create time in your daily schedule to think and plan
When you are planning your day as a working mom, you need to have time to actually do that planning. Sometimes we try to rush through that process thinking that there are so many other productive things we could be doing.
But a good planning session will go a long way to make your day more productive.
Depending on whether you are an early bird like me or a night owl like my husband, set aside some time each day to do those planning sessions we have talked about in the previous points.
Be realistic
This is often when the daily schedule of a working mom takes a hit. We put so much on our plate each day that we make it impossible to achieve. You have to be realistic with the time that you have.
Start letting some things go. If they are not on your priority list, they don’t have to be done. Productive day off schedule will look differently than your productive working schedule.
Daily Routine of a Working Mom
Establishing your daily schedule that works for you is your key to success. As a working mom your schedule includes two main categories: work hours and outside of work hours. That alone provides you with some basic blueprint for your day. Now you have to add it by creating routines and systems to help you navigate through the day.
Divide your days into blocks
The idea with creating blocks of time during the day it to help you organize similar types of tasks and responsibilities into blocks. You are essentially batching your tasks.
The main block of your day will be your work block, which you can also divide into morning work block (before lunch) and afternoon work block (after lunch).
Then you have two more blocks: before work and after work. Before work block, which is your morning block is when you get ready for the day. After work block is your evening block. This is when you take your kids to after school activities, prepare dinner, help with homework, and decompress from a long day.
If you have a side business or need to catch up on some work, you can create another block for yourself, which would be late evening block.
The idea is to help divide your tasks into those buckets of time. That will help you be more efficient with your time and more effective with completing the tasks.
A great resource to learn about time blocking as a working mom is from Jordan Page.
- Morning Block (getting ready, breakfast, workout, miracle morning routine, packing lunches)
- Morning Work Block (working on priority tasks)
- Afternoon Work Block (meetings, administrative tasks)
- Evening Block (picking up kids, after school activities, homework, dinner, getting ready for bed, relaxing)
- Late Evening Block (additional work time, side business, hobby)
RELATED: 10 Time Management Do's and Don'ts
Create morning and evening routines
If you have been following me for a while, you know that I thrive on routines. And I don’t mean a rigid schedule but a set of activities that get done each evening and morning to make things run smoother in your household.
Morning and evening routines for working moms will help you get ready for the day. They will also help your kids know what to expect out of the day. It prevents meltdowns because they don’t want to get dressed in the morning or because they don’t think they should go to bed in the evenings. When you have routines, kids know what to expect and get used to it quickly. I promise it will make your days run much smoother. Check out my morning and evening routines videos to get an idea of what routines look like in my household.
Establishing a good morning and evening routines will definitely improve your daily schedule as a busy working mom.
RELATED: Miracle Morning Routine - Why I Wake up at 4 am
Figure out your cleaning schedule
Your daily schedule as a working mom will go so much smoother if you have a cleaning routine in place. Our physical space has a huge impact on our productivity and the overall state of mind.
Physical clutter creates mental clutter. And mental clutter makes it difficult to concentrate on the task at hand.
This is why you should establish a cleaning routine for your home. It needs to be one that will work with your schedule and your life style. But knowing what cleaning tasks you should be doing each day will help you make your daily schedule much more efficient.
RELATED: Practical Cleaning Schedule for Working Moms
Typical Daily Schedule of a Working Mom
Now that you have some tips on how to create your daily schedule as a working mom, let me share how my typical day looks like.
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