Time Management for mums is a joke, right!!

Let’ s face it, it’ s ridiculously difficult trying to fit in time to take a shower let alone finding time to start an online business, start your own blog or find new ways to add money to the family budget whilst still grappling with your strong-willed 18 month old.

As we approach Mothers’ Day or Mothering Sunday, it’ s time for mums to have a break.

However, we all know children don’ t always work to a schedule so some days are going to be better than others.

Some kids have a long 2/3 hour nap in the day, whilst others are 30-minute nappers.

If you are lucky enough to have a child who has long afternoon naps.

My envy is creeping in as mine were children who took 20-30 minute naps randomly throughout the day.

This never allowed time for a cuppa of tea let alone writing a blog post or attending to important things I needed to get done that day.

time management make time work for you

5 Top Time Management Tips for Busy Mums – How to Avoid Distractions and Finally Get Important Tasks Done

Perhaps your child is a good sleeper at night time.

They are those dream children, they go down early and this gives you a few hours in the evening to get focused on building your online dreams.

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Time Management tips

Maybe you will find that this is the best time to chunk out a couple of hours to work on your home business.

As a mum, you may not have the luxury of the whole day to work on your goals and plans.

As a result, you will need to find creative ways of finding the time to fit all these tasks into your busy day.

I’ m going to show you ways that I was able to find time in my day and

How you can effectively block out time in your day

More importantly, how can you use those time blocks to get really focused on money making tasks?

I know what it is like trust me when I say I have been there and understand what it is like.

I remember juggling everything when my babes were younger and I was working fulltime.

Trying to find time was not so easy.

time management how to get more done

The best laid plans never seemed to go the way it worked out in my mind.

I remember back then sitting down to write a blog post, or write an email follow up, what would actually happen was :-

As I sat down to write, in the hour that I had set aside for my blog writing time.

The phone rang twice (distracted)

I had 3 Whatsapp messages (wonder who is messaging me — totally distracted)

4 notifications ( wonder what that’ s about — so totally distracted)

Door bell goes. Food delivery had been scheduled — slipped my mind – answered the door and unpacked the food.

All those unimportant tasks and distractions (well maybe not the food delivery we have to eat after all and needed to unpack it, no one wants dripping peas).

All these tasks ate into the time block and pushed back the tasks I had planned for the day.

I knew that if I was going to create anything meaningful, that I would need to find a way to change this.

I went back to a book I came across when I first started on this online journey,

Tim Ferris’ s The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich.

‘Effectiveness is doing the things that get you closer to your goals …

quote effectiveness is doing the things that get you closer to your goals

“Doing something unimportant well does not make it important”

quote doing something unimportant well does not make it important

“Spending a lot of time on a task does not make a task important.”

quote spending a lot of time of a task does not make a task important

Read those again — and really let them sink it.

These 3 simple messages, brought back my focus.

Mums need to be creative with their time

I realised just how little time I had to create an additional income online, all I wanted to do was spend time at home with my family.

But it just wasn’ t that easy.

This was because I was giving time to distractions.

How I was not completing tasks that were important.

If you haven’ t read this classic book, I would highly recommend getting started with it.

It made me think about the actual value of all the tasks that I had planned for the day.

And also about keeping those time blocks sacred.

This leads me on to tell you about Pareto’ s Law.

This is better known as the 80/20 principle.
increase your productivity

Now this wise guy Pareto realised way back then in years gone by, (he really was ahead of time) tells us that

80% of what we achieve is due to 20% of what we have put in.

If you are not a numbers person,

What this means simply is that you could be more effective using 20% of your time.

Here’ s what you need to do with your 20% of time in order to gain traction with your home business.

5 Top Time Management Tips for Busy Mums

 1   Time Blocks  

Setting aside blocks of time will help you to supercharge your productivity.

Whether you have 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 or 60 minutes.

Knowing what you can achieve with that amount of time will save you so much wasted time.

Here’ s what I do with a time block,

First I list out all the tasks that I need to do.

Then I segment them into house tasks, home business tasks and Must do at sometime tasks.

Beside each task, I give a time block as to how much time I will need to complete this task.

For example, to write a blog post, I know that I will need more time and so I will give this 60 minutes to get that first draft started.

Maybe I need to completed research again this is going to take time so I would allocate 60 minutes.

I will need images for my blog post — but I can do this in smaller time chunks if I have 15 minutes.  I can browse through Pexels and Unsplash and save images that I will work with the blog post I have planned out.

Maybe I just have 5 minutes, I could list out ideas of posts that I want to write in the future.

10   minutes — reply to an email

I hope that you are getting the hang of this as it will work with your mummy life too.

10 minutes — time to put a load of washing on

30 minutes — clean the living room

60 minutes — We’ re talking luxury here — prepare the meal

This time blocking can work in all areas and will help to keep you focused and if you have small chunks of time you can use this wisely.

how to finally get important tasks done

2 Each day write down the 3 Must Achieve Tasks for the Day.  

Ask yourself, if these are only things I Accomplish Today, Will I Be Satisfied with My Day?

Don’ t ever start your day without having set out your list of priorities for the day.

Don’ t start by turning on your email —schedule set times in the day to check this and then turn it off.

Decide which three tasks are your critical items that must be completed that day.

If you can’ t decide which is the most important,

‘Ask yourself what will happen if I don’ t do this?

You may find that it isn’ t as important as you thought.

 3 Place Reminders About the Task At Hand  

Place a Post it note or Outlook reminder on your computer screen to alert you at least three times a day with the question,

‘Are you inventing things to do to avoid the important tasks you need to do?’

Reminding yourself through the day about what you really need to do, is sometimes all you need to keep focused on your 80/20 task.

time management tips

4  Do Not Multi-task  

You know what I mean and I’ m sure we are all guilty.

Trying to watch a webinar, whilst writing a blog and doing the kids homework just isn’ t going to work.

Focus on three primary tasks each day.

Do them separately from start to finish and don’ t stop mid-way until each task is completed fully.

Stay focused on what you want to achieve with your blog

5   Reward Yourself  

As mums, we often end the day looking at the things that we didn’ t get done.

But we forget all the hundreds of things that we did get done.

If you didn’ t achieve everything you planned that day, don’ t fall into a slump.

Instead, write down one thing that happened today that made you smile.

Now go reward yourself with something you like to do.

time management tips

Conclusion

Here’ s what we covered in 5 Top Time Management Tips for Busy Mums
  1. Set out Your Time Blocks
  2. 3 Must Achieve Tasks for the Day.
  3. Place Reminders About the Task
  4. Do Not Multi-task
  5. Reward Yourself

If you have tips that will help others manage their time, then please feel free to share them below.

Here’ s to your home business success and living your dream.

The Digital Mum
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