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5 Productivity Hacks for Busy Working Moms

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5 Productivity Hacks for Busy Working Moms FIVE PRODUCTIVITY HACKS FOR BUSY WORKING MOMS R E D E F I N I N G M O M . C O M ABOUT My name is Monica and I live in Buffalo, NY with my ME husband and our toddler daughter. First and foremost, I am a wife and a mom. After 10.5 years in Corporate America, working in Channel Marketing for a Fortune 100 company, I quit my job to work for a small company where I negotiated flexible benefits. I am a working mom and that is something I take a lot of pride in. Redefining Mom came about after one too many google searches I made in the early months of my daughter’s life that resembled something like: “balancing work and being mom” “mom guilt” “jobs for stay at home moms.” In other words, I felt a bit desperate and I decided starting my own blog would be a good way to connect with other women experiencing the same feelings. In July 2013, Redefining Mom was born and since then I have met so many wonderful (and powerful) working moms! It has also allowed me to write for one of the most popular working mom blogs on the internet, Working Moms Against Guilt. Now that I am three years into this mom gig, I have found a chaotic balance and stopped worrying about if working is the right decision for me because it is. That is not to say it isn’t hard or that I never experience guilt, I’ve just learned how to cope better. I truly do believe I am happiest when I am challenging myself in difficult ways and that includes excelling in my career and being an awesome mom. I’ve been featured on Fox News and been invited to the White House to talk about working mom issues in the United States. I hope you find the tips I share here useful for your own journey in motherhood! There is no way that a busy working mom can stay organized without knowing your schedule. NUMBER ONE: SCHEDULE EVERYTHING Without an organized system to keep track of where you are supposed to be and when, you will waste precious time agonizing over decisions that should be quick and easy to make! Google Calendar Share a Calendar Paper Planner Centralize all your appointments Syncing your calendar with your Not ready to go digital? No into Google Calendar and sync spouse's calendar is almost just as problem! Not everyone processes your calendar to your phone. important as updating your own. information the same way. I highly This allows decision making on Being on the same page saves lots recommend the Erin Condren the fly to be incredibly easy. of headaches and fights. planners for busy moms. GOOGLE CALENDAR Calendar Apps: SUNRISE CALENDAR WAVE CALENDARS 5 NUMBER TWO: WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN I have a theory in my life, if I write it down then I am free to forget about it. It's a very liberating thought and one that keeps me sane. I love to-do lists! They give me the freedom to tuck a thought safely away without using extra brain power worrying that I will forget about it. Once I write it down I am confident it's somewhere I can go back to reference and I can let it slip from my mind for the time being. Our minds can only make so many decisions a day before being fatigued. This gives my mind freedom to make other critical decisions. PRODUCTIVITY APPS Evernote: This is a great catch-all tool, I use it to take notes at work, jot down notes to myself regarding things I need to remember to do and save important emails, PDFs and Word docs for later reference. You can break your notes down into notebooks and tags for easy searching. There is an attachment you can install in Outlook and in Gmail to make email integration seamless. Wunderlist: This app is great for managing tasks that require more than one person, whether that be coworkers or your spouse, you can assign tasks out and it's an easy way to let people know there is something that needs to be done. It also feeds my type-a need to click the checkbox when I complete a task. Other Apps: There are a ton of apps out there, so I encourage you to try a few out and see what works best for you. A few more suggestions include: Asana, Google Drive, Dropbox, and Todoist. T H E M O S T I M P O R T A N T T I P I C A N G I V E Y O U I S L E A R N T O S A Y N O ! D O N O T S A C R I F I C E Y O U R W E L L - B E I N G O R T H E H A P P I N E S S O F Y O U R F A M I L Y T O M E E T S O M E O N E E L S E ’ S A G E N D A . I K N O W T H I S I S E A S Y I N SAY T H E O R Y A N D H A R D I N P R A C T I C E , B U T T R U S T M E W H E N I S A Y T H A T P R A C T I C E M A K E S P E R F E C T I S E S P E C I A L L Y T R U E I N T H I S C A S E ! T H I S I S A H U G E S A N I T Y S A V E R ! Y O U D O N ' T H A V E T O D O I T A L L A L O N E . Y O U A R E N O T A F A I L U R E B E C A U S E Y O U A S K E D F O R NO. H E L P . F R E E D O M ! DELEGATE. W E H I R E D A C L E A N E R T H A T C O M E S E V E R Y O T H E R W E E K . M Y H U S B A N D D O E S T H E D I S H E S E V E R Y N I G H T . I T T A K E S A T R I B E , N O T A S U P E R W O M A N . NUMBER FOUR: CREATE ROUTINES I know everyone has heard before that it takes 21 days of repeating the same action to make a habit stick. I'm not sure if that's the same for everyone because frankly, that doesn't always work for me. Routines (or habits) can be really hard to stick with but I've found on the days that I follow routines, those days go a lot smoother. Preparation is key to keeping my life sane. Nighttime Routine (or Morning Routine): I'm not a morning person, so I've learned that nighttime routines work a lot better for my family. My nighttime routine includes making and packing lunches, organizing my work bag (when I worked in an office) and my daughter's backpack and never leaving a dirty dish in the sink. In the morning, I always wake up first and shower before anyone else is up. Simple tasks that are planned and consistent turn into mindless activities that can save a lot of time. 15 Minute Speed Cleaning: Take 15 minutes a day to rapidly clean the house by picking up anything and everything that is out of place and putting it away, wipe down dirty surfaces, sweep, fold clothes/blankets, etc. Do as much as you possibly can in those 15 minutes. You’d be surprised how much this helps. Grocery List: Each week I used to procrastinate on grocery shopping because I had no idea what we needed or what I should buy. I use my grocery store's app and I can go back and see all my past purchases and use that as a baseline for starting a new list within the app for that week’s grocery trip. BONUS TIP Amazon Prime: One day my headphones broke on my run and I had no time to get to the store and 2 days later the same exact headphones showed up on my doorstep. Christmas shopping? Yes, please. I did it from my phone, at work, in 15 minutes and had wrapped presents 3 days later. This is a working mom’s dream, a definite must have! NUMBER FIVE FIND TIME FOR YOURSELF and work doesn't count! EXERCISE READING TIME PAMPERING I am the worst at making Set aside 30 minutes in Go for a massage, watch a time for this, but when I do your nighttime routine for movie of your choice, get a make sure I fit 30 minutes silent reading time, its an mani/pedi, go shopping by in a day, I feel a lot better! I excellent way to shut down yourself or plan a girls use Runkeeper and your mind from the busy weekend! You should not MyFitnessPal to keep on day and read empowering feel guilty or let people talk track.
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