Time is running out: three tips to manage your mom’s time

Most moms have no trouble finding things to do with their time.

The problem is the opposite. There are too many things to do. The list of possibilities for the care, entertainment and education of children, in addition to family and home management, seems increasingly long, although the day does not exceed 24 hours.

Someone once said that women’s work is never done. Then someone else repeated it and somehow it became a regular cliché in our lexicon. Childcare, family management, and property management (ie housework) all combine to make time management challenging. Not only is it difficult to do everything, it is also difficult to find time for leisure, self-care and personal development.

In a typical workplace, a job description will define the responsibilities of a position. Workers, ideally, take on the work within that periphery, unless somehow, magically, the overtime appears. An employee who manages time well sets realistic expectations and takes into account unexpected events like sick days and fire drills, so a crisis can be more easily managed.

Job descriptions for moms, however, tend to vary from person to person. With endless media images of perfect moms floating through our minds, it’s easy to overreact and underestimate time requirements. Therefore, a critical examination of how we manage mom’s time can be very beneficial.

Work-at-home moms face similar time management issues as most self-employed workers. Here are three suggestions for ways to handle the dilemma: Our work is never done.

1. Decide what kind of mom you are and know that. Are you the clean house mom? Are you the mom who makes cookies? Are you the mom who finger paints the kids? Recognize that you can’t do everything, all the time. You need to set goals and priorities. Every business needs to find a niche. Find your mother’s niche and let the rest slide.

If anyone has experienced the combined power of theory and practice in time management, it’s Denise Wallace. Wallace, a training specialist and mother, teaches self-management skills, like time management, to workers in the industry. This energetic and optimistic professional is clear on how to avoid the trap of trying to be everything to everyone. “The first thing you have to have in mind is some kind of goal. What do you want to achieve in life? What are you here for?”
Wallace became a single mother after the father of her children died several years ago. “I just couldn’t keep it all together,” she said in an interview.

You set goals, prioritized them, and gave up items you didn’t value highly. “Once you start prioritizing, if your kids mean more to you, it’s more important to take them to the park for an hour than it is to spend six hours cleaning your house because you’re crazy about crumbs on the floor. .You need to learn to let go of some things.”

A former human resources manager before taking on the job of a full-time mom, Maryanne Niyogi agrees. This mom set clear goals for her break at her house. They include developing a strong support structure and establishing a sense of community for her two preschool children. She strives to “do crafts, walk. That’s the kind of point of view we’ll never forget as moms.” But with the daily grind of life, Niyogi agrees, “it’s easy to lose that.”

Wallace applauds goal setting and highly recommends writing and reviewing goals regularly.
“Your brain is a funny thing,” he says, “once you have an idea in there, as soon as you write it down, you have a better chance of achieving it. The more you revise it, the more your brain works.” in that idea to take you there, without you knowing it yourself. It is the law of manifestation.”
This is where the hard part of setting goals comes in. It’s easy to set too many goals for yourself.

If you’re having trouble getting all the things you want to do, you’ll need to remove some or get help, which brings us to the second tip:

2.Get help. Delegate. Find support.

If a clean and tidy home is what you absolutely need, but you can’t achieve it with your other goals, you may need to outsource this or get help from other family members. Teaching children to do some chores may be inefficient at first, but it will probably pay off in the future. Of course, this all depends on the age of the children and what is really possible for them at each age. In the book Pick Up Your Socks, parent educator Elizabeth Crary includes an excellent chart detailing the household chores children can participate in, at what ages, and until what age they require assistance or supervision (Parenting Press, 1990). Most moms easily recognize that they can’t and shouldn’t do everything alone and ask family members for help. At the same time, study after study acknowledges that more of the work of parenting and household management continues to fall on the shoulders of mothers. Part of any management strategy is delegation. Moms also need to acquire strong skills in this area.

Outsourcing is great, but it’s not financially feasible for all moms. Family support also varies from family to family. Wallace also suggests another time-management tip: get a friendly mom.
“When I was a single working mom, I didn’t have time to have fun until I found another mom friend at work,” explains Wallace, “that’s what I would do for the first two weeks of school: start making friends with moms.” . I would say, if you pick up the kids on Tuesday afternoon, I’ll pick them up on Thursday and they can come to my house or my children can come to your house. That’s how I would schedule my fun time, it’s making friends. with other moms so they can relieve that part of the duty for me on a given day.

“I’m in favor of it. [the buddy-mom system,]Niyogi agrees. Unfortunately, it can be a challenge to organize. For one thing, it’s easier with fewer children. mothers are willing to trade child care for one or two children, but find it more difficult to add three children.For Anderson, the solution has been to take the children to family day care one or two days a week, which allows her to complete his part-time consultancy works.

Niyogi says she has been surprised that more women can’t take advantage of the buddy-mom system. She is surprised that playgroups don’t usually evolve into a system of shared child care. She attributes it to a culture that emphasizes individuality over community, coupled with demanding workloads that result in a kind of crisis management planning style that leaves limited time for building long-term relationships. However, she continues to work to develop friendly mothers because she believes in the system to strengthen ties between women and families to forge a stronger sense of community affiliation.

However you do it, delegation emerges as an essential component of mom’s job and critical to time management. Once goals are set and delegation is taken care of, there remains an additional factor for effective time management for Mom.

3. Use time management tools.

Colleen Gibson, mom and home-based business owner, describes herself as a “lister.” Writing down what she needs to do to run her house, care for her two children, and her full-time beauty business helps her stay organized. She also helps her manage stress. “I can’t sleep if I have some things on my mind, so I worry.” Putting them on a list allows you to release stress. “At least she’s on paper,” she says.

Wallace says that stress management is a common benefit of list making. “People keep everything trapped inside and it starts to build anxiety. So the first thing they have to do is throw out the trash can.”
Wallace describes how one of his former students was able to handle his worries by making lists. This engineer had moved west without the support of his family, who had stayed behind to sell the family home and organize a subsequent move. As he struggled with a new job in a new city, he worried about his partner and his children back east. He decided that he would schedule worry time at the end of his workday. When an anxiety came over him during work, he would simply write it down, put it in his diary, and agree to give himself time to worry about it later, between 4:30 and 5:00. By “getting rid” of his fears, he was able to handle his more immediate responsibilities and was able to learn his new job.

Schedules and calendars are also helpful for moms, says Wallace. He has varied in the type of tools he has used over the years, from paper to electronic, but has now settled on a paper journal and a series of highlighters. “When I look at my monthly calendar, I can quickly see how busy I am, what clients I have, I can instantly tell how much money I made this month just from the colors. I color code everything.”

Wallace emphasizes that each mom needs to find the system that works best for her. Anderson also relies on her paper calendar to note her son’s upcoming speed skating lessons and other commitments and appointments for her family. For Niyogi, a weekly email review is key. Every Sunday night, she writes an email to herself to move the items she didn’t complete last week to the next week. She also reviews and reminds herself of upcoming appointments for the next week.

“Now when I get frantic, I go back and look at that list again,” she says. For Niyogi, the email solution eliminates the risk of paper loss. Her email stays safe in her folder.
Wallace’s diary includes entries highlighted in green, times that he has scheduled for his free time. In his life, the main leisure priority is sailing with his family.

The ultimate goal of all our work, paid or not, recognized or not, is to have fun and enjoy life. The ultimate goal of time management for moms is also to organize our time so that we get a slice of that ‘fun’ cake too.