There’s no magic trick to successfully juggle work and mom life. It’s difficult getting anything accomplished at work when you have things in your personal life that are constantly popping up.
On the flip side, you very possibly have work interfering with your time at home.
Both work and mom life can and will invade each other’s space and make it difficult to juggle.
Let me share some pointers with you on how to successfully manage your time and energy so that you are not feeling like both pieces of your life are falling apart.
Although I said there’s no magic trick to successfully juggle work and mom life, there are certainly steps and preparations you can take to feel relief.
Delegating To Your Children
This was such a hard thing for me to do for so long.
Picture this: I get home from work after nine hours. I pick up shoes off the floor that my kids left in the hallway leading up to the kitchen. The kids are telling me about their days and I’m asking them if they have any homework. All while I’m feeding the dogs. I pull up their teacher’s weekly emails because I don’t exactly trust them when they say “no, we don’t have any homework”. I’m putting their school laptops on the chargers while I’m figuring out what ingredients I have for dinner…
You can imagine how the rest of the night goes.
This was my life. For whatever reason, I felt I needed to do everything.
There are two problems with this:
- It’s impossible physically and mentally do everything and be successful.
- I am not teaching my kids valuable lessons that they will one day appreciate.
I felt like my kids had a long day too and I should do it all. It wasn’t until I was older that I discovered I had been doing it all wrong.
Kids need responsibility and to be held accountable. I failed at teaching them life lessons much earlier than I should have.
Start with something small. Ask your child to feed the dog when he gets home every day from school. When he does it, tell him how much time he saved you and how you love that he’s showing maturity by helping.
Delegating to your children isn’t being a mean mom. You are setting them up for future success. Praise your children each time they do something to help with the daily chores. Soon, you will see them doing more without being asked.
Delegating To Your Partner
The same situation that we applied to children could also be applied to your partner.
If you have a partner in your life, share your struggle to juggle work and mom life with them.
You should not be solely responsible for juggling work, the kids schedules, schoolwork, cooking, budgeting, etc…
Make sure that your responsibilities are equally shared. If they are not, have a talk with your partner and share your feelings.
Sometimes we need to be blunt and put exactly what we expect out there. If your partner isn’t sure what you are comfortable with them taking over, make a list of all the day-to-day responsibilities (taking out the trash, dishes, homework help, etc) and split them in a way that you both agree on.
When your partner does something that you previously took care of, make sure you don’t criticize how they are doing it. Positive reinforcement is the key to continued help. Learn to let some little things go.
Delegating At Work
If you have a team underneath you, make sure you are utilizing their talents properly. Praise them when they accomplish great things (and even little things).
You want them to continue to feel confident with taking on more.
Make sure you are not hoarding information. Empower those around you to make decisions and be proud when they do.
You may not be responsible for a team that you can delegate tasks to.
But if you have an unmanageable workload, could you offload some of your responsibilities to someone else? Make a game plan and pitch it to others.
Perhaps a restructuring of responsibilities hasn’t been completed in some time and you’re up for the challenge to help you and your fellow co-workers.
Learn To Say No
A fellow blogger wrote about this a few weeks ago and I pondered on this for a bit.
I have never had trouble saying no at work, but at home it’s a different story.
Volunteer for office assistant one day a week? Yes.
Bring 20 bags of pretzels to school at 12pm on Friday? Yes.
Let’s go on a random trip to Target? Yes.
I don’t regret spending time at my childrens’ school while they were younger. I’m thankful I had the ability to leave the office and they knew I would always be there.
Say yes to the important things in life.
Say no to the ones that are going to mess up your schedule and have you stressed.
In the office, do not take on more than you can easily manage.
If you say yes and you fail, it looks incredibly worse than you saying no in the first place.
Automate As Much As You Can
What could you possibly put on auto-pilot and take off your plate?
If there are some monthly bills you trust putting on auto-pay, do it. I have to say that I have trust issues with putting some payments on auto-pay using my checking account information. However, I have no issue with these accounts being on auto-pay with my credit card.
This works as long as you are paying your credit card balance confidently in full every month.
What else could you automate in your life?
Auto feeders for the dogs? Automatic cat litter boxes?
How about things like a smart thermostat with pre-programmed temperatures so you don’t have to ever think about it? (I love my Nest. Saved me tons.)
Think about the simple things you do daily and if there’s a way to get back valuable minutes.
While we’re on the topic of making your life easier, consider placing all of your bills on paperless. This will save you the time from opening the envelope and having the paper floating around. Staying organized electronically is so much easier.
Plan Your Entire Day At Home And At The Office
We all know how I feel about being organized with a to-do list with time blocks.
The key to holding yourself accountable is setting goals for yourself. A to-do list is step one. If you can start there, you’re ahead of majority of your peers.
When a to-do list feels like a regular part of your life, take it one step further. Put yourself on a schedule with blocks of time.
For example:
- 8:00 – 8:15 – Check and respond to emails as necessary
- 8:15 – 8:45 – Work on Pages 1-3 of presentation
- 8:45 – 9:15 – Staff Meeting
- 9:15 – Break
- 9:30 – 9:45 – Complete new article
- 9:45 – 10:00 – Catch up on emails
- 10:00 – 10:10 – Check in with boss
Schedule your entire day with blocks. Leave plenty of time to complete each task so if something pops up, and it will, you’re prepared and it doesn’t throw your whole day off.
Not always, but sometimes, I create the same type of blocked to-do list for myself at home.
Unwind With Your Favorite Hobbies
Find time for you!
You are not all work or all mom or even all both – you are so much more.
You’re a complicated and confident individual with all kinds of quirks and hobbies.
Find time to do what you love – yes, you love your family. But you love yourself as well.
It wasn’t until my kids were a little older that I found my love for video games again.
Do you have a favorite hobby that has perhaps been sitting, waiting for you to have time for it again? It could be something simple like reading or painting. Be sure that you are not neglecting yourself and your wants.
Plan Your Meals For The Week
I plan all my meals for the week on Sunday.
This isn’t a chore for me. It’s actually an automatic thing I do every Sunday, just like getting up and brushing my teeth.
I use eMeals to help me plan, which has completely changed the way we eat at home. We eat more often now than we ever have and I enjoy cooking dinner. For more information on my meal planning, check out my article on food budgets.
Back to how to juggle work and mom life. Knowing what we are eating every single day when I wake up is such a huge weight off my shoulders.
I’m not stressed about it. I used to glare at my children when they asked what was for dinner because I had no idea. Now I happily have the answers all prepared on Sunday. Sometimes I let my kids pick which meals we will eat for the night, so the nights aren’t necessarily planned, but seven days worth of food is.
Full disclosure: At least two nights are leftovers.
Have A Budget
Are you squinting at this heading because you have no idea what a budget has to do with juggling work and mom life?
The idea here is that the less items you have to stress about, the less stressed you will be.
If you do not have an emergency fund set up, you may be concerned about what could go wrong next.
If you have a budget that you are sticking to, it helps take something off your plate so you aren’t checking your finances as often and have less worry.
A budget isn’t meant to keep you in chains or bring on more stress. It’s actually meant to help you plan better so that the unexpected doesn’t catch you off-guard.
Spending 5-10 minutes a day monitoring your budget is one of the keys to successful balance.
Check out NerdWallet’s article on Budgeting 101 if you need help getting started.
When I say “shared”, I mean a calendar that others can see and add to as necessary.
At home, I have a calendar I keep in the kitchen. My husband takes a picture of it as soon as I put it up and again every few days because there are items added and things change. I appreciate him doing this is for a few reasons.
First, he doesn’t have to ask me about anything going on.
Second, he can easily identify days he can help with something.
My kids are free to add anything they need to add to our family calendar and I appreciate them doing so and helping us keep track of the day-to-day.
At the office, I have a shared calendar that everyone can take a look at to see when I’ll be out of the office or when we may have important visitors for example.
My personal Google calendar contains all of my daily responsibilities from 7am – 10pm. This includes work, kids, appointments, everything.
When scheduling appointments for you or your family members, be mindful of the time of day.
I always do Wednesdays. I don’t mind if it’s Wednesday afternoon or Wednesday morning, but I know that my workload is pretty light on Wednesdays and I can come in late or leave early 95% of the time and it all works out.
At one time, I had a calendar for personal use and a calendar for work and that completely failed on me. Sometimes work and personal overlap and if you are keeping them on two separate calendars, you’ll never know until that day creeps up on you.
Final Thoughts
If you are struggling with the juggle of work and mom life, never feel to proud to ask for help.
Don’t wait until your breaking point. It’s not fair to you and not fair to those around you that only want to see you succeed.
Spending a few moments to organize your week on Sunday or any day that works for you, will help you manage these overwhelming times.
Know that your kids are only little for a few years. Improving on your organizational skills and putting tasks on auto-pilot will allow you to do more of the things that you love.
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