If you are like most working moms, you may feel like you are always a few steps behind the curve. You may even feel like you are constantly jumping from one task to the other in a cycle that will never end!
Perhaps you want to find a way to organize your life, but you are struggling to even find the time to organize your thoughts to even begin!
If all this sounds familiar not to worry! There are several ways that you can organize your life and make things easier! In this post, I will share a few of may favorite ways of getting more organized!
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Organization starts in your mind
In today’s society, busyness is glorified. It is countercultural to slow down and regroup. It is against the status quo to desire a slower or simpler way of living. But in order to truly see change and organize your life, you have to re-evaluate these limiting beliefs and mindsets.
You have to first decide that you want to see a more organized life. This starts by determining exactly what your ideal day looks like. Asking yourself questions like:
- Why do I want to get my life organized?
- What do I gain by organizing my life?
- What sacrifices am I willing to make to get more organized?
- What do I truly value?
Pondering these questions can help you clear the clutter in your mind and reshape your thinking so that the changes you make to get more organized can truly stick!
14 ways to organize your life
Once you are sure of the reasons why you want to get organized by decluttering your mind, its time to put these tips in place so that you can see a more balanced and organized life.
Here are 16 simple ways you can start getting your life organized today!
Create schedules and routines
One of the first steps you can take to get your life organized is to create simple daily schedules and routines. This can help you to better manage your time so that you are not wasting time on things that are not important.
By creating a schedule, you can decide ahead of time what tasks need to be completed and when. This can help to eliminate decision fatigue and make it easier for you to stay on track!
You can use a simple notebook or a daily/weekly planner to create routines for your mornings, evening, workout, cleaning, and even meal prepping routines.
Write everything down
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your memory probable isn’t as good as you think it is. In fact, you have probably forgotten at least one thought you were “supposed to remember’ while reading this post!
When life is hectic, it can be tempting to want to skip the time it takes to write something down and instead try to remember it. Inevitably tho, this often leads to missed appointments, overbooking, and forgotten deadlines.
It takes less than a few seconds to write down thoughts and tasks as they come. Having a running list of the things you need to do can significantly decrease this common roadblock to organization and productivity.
Prioritize tasks
In addition to writing down your tasks, prioritizing your to do list can significantly help you quickly determine what needs to be done by you and what can be offloaded to others.
When you are able to easily stack the importance of a task against others on your list you can set clear boundaries around your time and energy.
You can prioritize tasks based on your values, current needs, and urgency, you just want to make sure that you have a consistent way to prioritize.
Break down big tasks into smaller tasks
If you have ever felt completely overwhelmed by a big project you have to complete then this tip is for you. One way to organize your work life (could be home life too) is to be diligent about breaking big tasks into smaller tasks.
This allows you room to work through big projects slowly in bite sized chunks, and also makes sure that these big project do not become time sucks that take up all your energy.
Stop procrastinating
This is definitely easier said than done, but if you want to organize your life then you need to find ways to work through and eliminate procrastination.
There are many root causes of procrastination, so it is important to be honest with yourself about what might be holding you back from completing a task.
Once you know what is causing you to procrastinate, there are many strategies and resources available to help you work through it!
Plan your day the night before
Planning your day is an excellent way to keep your life organized, but when is the best time to do it! Many moms may plan their day in the morning, which isn’t a bad way to go about it, but have you considered planning the night before.
When you plan your day the night before, your mornings can be more productive, because you dive right into your tasks. Additionally you could pre-prepare the night before to increase efficiency and productivity.
Prioritize rest
There are so many benefits to being intentional about meeting your rest requirements, and yet, many busy women end up on E. We go and we go without slowing down long enough to realize we are close to burnout.
Prioritizing your rest ensures that your mind and body are restored and your working times are more productive.
That means more efficient cleaning, more intentional organizing, and better overall management around the house.
Have a place for everything
Do you have a junk draw, and an overflow closet, or an abundance of overfull storage spaces? These spaces where you put items that have no other place to go may seem like a good idea initially. But these overflow spaces only act as a bandaid.
The ignore the fact that having items with no home, means that those items will never have a home (read: these items may not be at home in your house). Having a place for everything helps ensure that you only maintain the items you need to maintain.
Meal prep
Meal prep isn’t only beneficial to those trying to maintain or improve their health! Meal prepping can be a lifesaver for overwhelmed and overworked busy women!
Consider the time it takes to cook one more elaborate meal? Now think of how easy it would be to prepare entire meals or prep for dinner time! Some simple ways to meal prep include:
- Creating freezer meals
- Freezing marinated chicken
- Prep regularly used veggies (onions, celery, pepper, etc) and freeze
- Pre-cook meat and cook sides throughout the week
Keep things simple
When life is simple, its easier to organize. Simplifying your life and your belongings can declutter your space and your mind. When you have fewer things, there are fewer things to organize and manage.
In addition to decluttering your physical space, you can also simplify your schedule. Ask yourself if every activity on your calendar is truly necessary. Can some meetings be held virtually? Do you really need to run errands to multiple stores?
Looking for more tips on time management? Check out all of our productivity resources
Plan your week
Looking forward to what your week will hold can help you divide your time wisely. Thinking through your week can help you see where pockets of time open up to get things done. It can allow you to space out difficult tasks that need to be done with adequate time requirements.
You may also be able to batch tasks together based on their location. For example, if you know that Wednesday is your day off from work, but you have a doctor’s appointment, running errands this day could make sense.
Also Read: 8 Tips for Planning Your Week as a Working Mom + Free Weekly Planning Templates
Declutter your home
Decluttering your home is another way that you can organize your life. As I have mentioned a few times in this post, having less things means there is less to manage.
Decluttering can help you see what you have, use what you have, and organize what you have more effectively.
When your home is decluttered, it can also help improve your mood and reduce stress levels. When you are able to find things easily, and your space feels open and airy, it can be a game changer for how you feel
Tidy your busy spaces each night
Creating a cleaning routine for working moms is all fun and games until you realize that most cleaning schedules are unrealistic! Instead of trying to emulate a routine that wasn’t created with the busy mom in mind, why not follow the simple process of functional cleaning.
Functional cleaning is basically tidying up your busy spaces to a functional level at night. For my family, that is the kitchen, the playroom, and my office. It includes clearing things off the floors, setting the dishwasher to run, and starting our roomba.
Learn God’s intention for Time Stewardship
Embrace a rhythm of working and resting and get more done! Take our Purposeful Productivity Challenge and find more time for the daily tasks that matter and quickly begin creating routines that prioritize rest.
Create a family calendar command station
I love command stations! Its nice to be able to see everything that needs to go on in the family in one place! What has been cool is my son now knows that this is where mom is most likely to look for things, so he leaves permission slips, bookfair catalogs, and notes in our command station basket!
Let go of unrealistic expectations and limiting beliefs
If you use Pinterest as the rulebook for organization instead of just inspiration, then you are doing it all wrong. You can get some amazing ideas from Pinterest, but then you have to take those ideas and model them for your life.
That means making sure that the ideas are sustainable for your unique situation. Even the advice in this post should be taken and adapted to what organization looks like in your life!
Delegate, outsource, and automate
If you haven’t realized yet, the theme of this post is organizing your life requires you to let go of some things. When looking at our to-do lists. Organizing it starts with offloading.
There are 3 basic ways that you can offload tasks. They are to:
Delegate – which could be done with chore charts, and having serious heart to hearts with your spouse on the needs of the household, then dividing them amongst the two of you.
The important thing here is once you offload it, you also need to allow space for other expectations. You can’t micromanage.
Automate – with this, you essentially create systems and processes that run on their own. Think subscription services for ordering toiletries, or auto billpay etc.
Outsource – Outsourcing takes into account the fact that there are people who specialize in tasks outside of yourself. This could be cleaning, groceries, laundry, lawn-care, birthday parties, and an endless list of other items.
With each of these you just want to decrease your to-do list so you have more space for what’s important.
Get organized and stay organized
Now that you understand the importance of being organized and some of the benefits it can bring, it’s time to get started.
We hope our tips have given you a good place to start, but don’t forget that everyone is different and what works for one person might not work for another.
Be sure to experiment until you find techniques that fit your lifestyle and personality. And if you ever need more help, be sure to check out our Beating Busy Starter Guide.
It’s packed with more great tips on how to manage your time in a way that works for you! Thanks for reading!