Time management. How do you do it. I don't seem to get it right.
I work a 9-5 5 days a week. I'm a full tome solo mum (have great family support).
It's the little things I guess. Keeping up with the house work, washing etc. Keeping up with exercising our 2 dogs.
I would love to start to do things for me. I get 0 me time. I'm tired. But I have the house to clean groceries to do, spots to go to.
You know what I mean.
I would love to take my dog to obedience. I use do it with a dog I had as a teen and it was wonderful. The back of my mind says but you don't have that sort of evening time to do that.
I guess my question is how do you manage time, daily activities, appointments (we both have health issues and see drs a bit). I juggle these as much as I can with my work.
Does anyone have any great planners, or apps. Just something to make it not so overwhelming
7 Replies
Lower your standards. Go without things and hire a cleaner every once in a while. Be ok with not being able to do everything all of the time.
Schedule your week by the hour. Put in the things you want. Arrange the kids to get time for the things you want to do. Pay the money for the things you don’t want to spend time on, cleaning/shopping/cooking. Pay for the gadgets that make life easier - dishwasher, clothes dryer etc. dog obedience usually runs on a Saturday and Sunday, which you could get to.
You're lucky you have set hours and days its much easier to have a routine. Do as much housework as you can in the mornings and leave the evenings for dog walks, shopping, your child's sports, homework etc. Meal plan dinners that are easy with few dishes like stir fries, slow cooker meals, things that go straight in the oven like lasagne or chicken Kiev. If I have a list of daily meals to look at on the fridge then I will start preparing for the next meal early, like chop an onion, grate zucchini. It makes cooking so much easier. For stir fries I just use aldi bags of frozen stir fry veggies. The more you do on work days means the more time you have on weekends for fun stuff. Its so easy to save everything for days off and it just gets overwhelming and leaves no time for anything else.
I know and work within my limitations.
I'd love another dog, lost my last one during the height of covid lock downs. But I know I don't have the time to dedicate so I'd be pushing the care onto my family which is unfair. So I don't have a dog.
As long as the house is clean I don't care if it's tidy.
If it gets beyond me (especially times like now where I'm working 14 hour days) I'll get a cleaner for a few hours.
I batch cook and freeze meals.
And all adulting is done via alarms on my phone. From turning the sprinkler tap off, to paying the rego, to ordering gas bottles. They all have alarms.
I write a lot of to do lists on Notes on my phone and delete once done.
I unpack the dishwasher and re load every morning before work. I take my dog for a walk mornings at 6am rather than afternoon because I know I’ll be too tired. I have a lie down every afternoon before dinner time - about half an hour to rest and get ready for dinner and bedtime routine. I don’t stress (usually) about housework. I do have one week day off work where kids are at school so I am very lucky to get that day and that’s when I do a load of washing, small shop to get through the week and any errands. It keeps me going, bit of ‘me’ time if needed.
You may not get this day off kid free but you say you have family support (I don’t have that sadly) so I would be utilising that where possible.
No apps or anything but I try to plan meals as best I can and use left overs plus extra eg make extra rice and use for fried rice one night, then add chicken skewers with left over rice the next. We also get take away at the end of the week which helps to look forward to a night off cooking.
Cleaner one a week or fortnight. , take away a few nights a week. How old are your kids? Get them helping or they don’t do their activities.
Slot the time in for yourself and make everyone work around you. Get the kids to play with the dogs out the back for a good run around every few nights.
Online groceries order delivery. Get kids to help carry them and put away. Get a family member to stay once a fortnight and have a night out or away, anything even just dinner with friends.
Can you finish earlier one day a week.? 9-2? 9-5 is a lot for a solo mum.
Juggle what you can, I finally gave in amd got a cleaner once a fortnight so I don't have to clean just maintain the tidy house.
Freeze leftovers and prep things you can freeze to eat those a couple of times a week. I wash of an evening amd hang inside so I can put it away the next night, I find washing more regularly keeps it lower in my time of hanging up and my son puts his own away. He also has chores which might be small but make a big difference to me.
I also except that some days it just won't all be done.
Click and collect groceries too, I add to my online list as I think of things then submit my order amd arrange pickup on the way home or after sport.