Secrets to Getting Things Done as a Stay At Home Mom
1. Realign your priorities
God has given you these kids and He has given you the opportunity to stay home with them. They are your priority. It is so easy to fall into the trap of evaluating your day to day and feeling like you have nothing to show for it. That is simply a lie. You clean, cook and care for your children 24/7 and that is not a small thing.
If all you get done in a day is loving on them, then it has been an extremely successful day. Some days your kids need you a little extra. They need you to sit down and play. They often crave extra face time with their mama. Embrace it. Enjoy the days that they are craving your attention. It won’t last forever.
So I’ll say it again….
If all you get done in a day is loving on your children, then it has been an extremely successful day.
I find that the times that I am most frustrated with my kids and their constant dependance on their mother (haha) is often when I feel pressure to get other things done and there is simply not enough of me to go around. God has taught me over and over in the last year and a half that my precious children will only be little for so long and I need to cherish these moments. There is no other thing that is more important than dedicating my days to raising them.
Realigning your priorities is something that needs to be done often, some times daily and that’s ok. I began praying each morning that God would order my steps that day. I asked Him to guide me and show me which tasks are most important and let the rest fall away.
2. Write down a list of what you want to accomplish in that day.
You may not know what the day holds or when you’re actually going to accomplish these tasks but writing them down is a start. There are often times that I have a free moment that I waste because I do not have a plan. The kids are fed and are playing great together. They don’t need me. And what do I do…. sit down and I end up just scrolling on my phone and wasting that time away. For the moments that I have a little less brain power working for me, having a list has been a life saver. Let me encourage you to write it ALL down. The call to the pharmacy, the subscription you need to cancel, the grocery list, face mask, cleaning out the fridge, finally putting away the pile at the top of the stairs that you’ve meant to get to. WRITE IT DOWN. Then when you have 5 minutes to spare, you can cross something off your list. And if you are not a list person, let me tell you now, the pure gratification that you will feel when you can cross something off your list is one of the best feelings. It’s fulfilling and that feeling will carry over to other areas of your life.
Then at the end of the day, evaluate what you have left on your list and relocate it to another day.
3. Use a Block schedule
No day looks the same. There are doctor’s appointments and playdates. There is the occasional nap strike. You simply do not know what the day holds. This is where the block schedule has been so beneficial to me. This is how my current day is separated.
- Morning routine (which is hopefully done before the kids wake up)
- Morning routine for the kids
- Gym Time
- 1st Nap
- Afternoon
- 2nd Nap or quiet time
- Before Dinner
- Bedtime Routine
- Evening Routine (after the kids go to bed)
Some days the 1st nap and the gym time are switched and that is ok because I know exactly what I have on the agenda and I can adapt easily. Within each block, I have a plan of what I want to accomplish based on the day. My daughter also goes to school two days a week and those days look different as well.
I’ll have an additional post next week that goes into more depth of the block schedule process and how I break up my household duties and balance it with my work schedule.
- Realign your priorities
- Make a list of what you want to accomplish
- Use a block schedule
How are you doing mama? Tell me in the comment section. Which area are you going to implement? What has helped you most as a mom?