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Having a productive day as stay at home mom requires a lot of energy and effort. It can be challenging to manage your household while taking care of your children. The days are long and the week is a blur.
You can’t seem to see any progress made on some of the projects you needed and wanted to get done. You were busy doing stuff but you somehow have nothing to show for it. Leaving you feeling exhausted and defeated.
However, with a few simple productivity tips, you can have a productive day as a stay at home mom.
What is productivity?
According to the Webster dictionary, productivity is the quality or state of being productive. Productive means yielding results, benefits, or profits. Or yielding/devoted to the satisfaction of wants or the creation of utilities.
Simply put, productivity is completing the tasks or projects that were set forth. Achieving the milestones that help move whatever project to move forward. Whether at home, at work, or on personal goals being productive will allow you to achieve your goals.
How do I have a productive day as a stay at home mom?
In order to have a productive day, you must first define the project(s) you want to tackle and complete. What does a productive day look like to you? What does a productive week look like to you? What would make you the happiest to complete today, tomorrow, or overall?
Let’s take a look at the steps of what it takes to be a productive person:
- Write it down
- Set up the night before
- Get up early
- Plan your day in blocks
- Have a morning routine
- Have a chore routine
- Get dressed
- Choose goals wisely
- Have discipline
Combining all of these ingredients for a productive day only creates positive results. Are you ready to finally take charge of your day-to-day life? This post is all about how to be productive day as a stay at home mom.
Write it Down
According to Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at Dominican University in California, you are more likely to achieve your goals by 42 percent just by simply writing them down. You’ll take it more seriously when you jot it down on a piece of paper. How can you know the project you want to tackle if it forever lives in your head, only wanting to work on it when you remember?
I found myself feeling more motivated and excited to tackle the day when I had a goal list. There is something about checking things off that makes me feel like my day wasn’t wasted. My day had a purpose besides just surviving the day.
Next, take that project and break it into manageable action steps. Ever heard the phrase, “How do you eat an elephant; one bite at a time.” Set daily intentions by having outlined your action steps to work towards the finish line, that way the project isn’t as overwhelming.
Take a notebook and planner (yes, you NEED a planner) and set up tomorrow’s tasks and to-do’s.
Quick Tip: Brain dump everything in your mind in your notebook. Take that list and plan out the tasks in your planner.
Set Up for Success the Night Before
Having a productive day starts with being proactive at night. This might sound backward because yesterday has already passed. However, your day is greatly affected by what you did and didn’t do the night before. Setting an early alarm won’t do a lot of good if you know your day starts cluttered by last night’s mess.
Create a “closing shift” checklist for yourself and do each task for the night. Set a timer for at least 1 hour and schedule it at a time when the house is most still. Clean up the kitchen, reset the living room, have the kids pick up their toys off the floor, etc.
This allows you to wake up to a freshly reset living room and kitchen. Which will fuel your motivation needed for the next morning.
I can not tell you the many times that knowing I was going to wake up to a clean kitchen was my motivation for waking up early.
Get Up Early
After your closing shift and getting to bed at a reasonable hour, you’re going to want to set a time to wake up. I am not a 4:30 in the morning person. I honestly hate waking up that early. However, waking up at 6:30 or 7 doesn’t sound too bad to me.
Know who you are and work around that. The key to having a productive day is waking up before the kids as much as possible. It is tough and not every day will look the same but it will allow you to be proactive instead of reactive.
You cannot give the kids (and life) a chance to dictate your every move. There’s a difference between managing their schedule and being mindful of things they have to do and letting them overwhelm you.
Plan Your Day in Daily Blocks
I once heard a perfect description of time blocking. Think about having to go to school. Whether it was high school or college, your day was scheduled by blocks. You had homeroom, math, science, etc. In those classes, you focused solely on those subjects within a specific chunk of time. You respected the class and the time it was scheduled.
Create a schedule in 2-3 hour chunks at a time. Have a morning, errands, kids naps, dinner, bedtime, or whatever categories that work for you and your family’s needs. Respect the tasks you schedule in your blocks as much as you can. Set alarms as reminders to help you stay focused on the tasks in that timeframe.
Trying to have a productive day as a stay at home mom requires structure. You ultimately get to decide what to fill your day with, it’s easy to lose track of the day when you have no structure.
[Freebie: Daily Time-blocking Printable]
Have a Morning Routine
You’ve chosen a time to wake up and start your day. Great, now your next task is to figure out what to do with the day. Would you work out, journal, or pray? Start a new book or podcast? Will you finally be able to work on that business you said you would start?
I had a dream of starting a blog and online business. I had all my courses purchased from the year before but never actually felt I had time to start one. What I was lacking, was a morning routine and never starting my day with some direction.
Define the most important tasks you want to tackle in the morning. Most people tend to have more energy in the morning and slowly decline as the day goes on. Leave the easier, less mentally tasking jobs for the evening.
Have a Chore Routine
In addition to having your morning routine, have a daily/weekly chore routine. Every day should have a new weekly task along with a daily task such as laundry & dishes. Create a morning cleaning routine and a night cleaning routine.
For example, every day you do wash clothes and dishes but every Monday you tackle the bathrooms. Every Tuesday is washing the towels and putting up the laundry you didn’t get to, every Wednesday you dust, and so on.
Plug those chores into the blocks that work best for you and your family.
When I finally sat down and outlined the chores I needed to do, my house had never been cleaner. I was already seeing results after ONE week. I can definitely tell a massive difference in the housekeeping when I don’t follow my chore chart.
Get Dressed
You read that right. Get dressed for the day however that looks to you. The trick is to get out of your pajamas and to look put together. The act of getting dressed helps inspire and empower, allowing you to feel good about yourself and the day.
You’ll wake up happier, confident, and ready to tackle your day. As cliche as it is, when you look your best you’ll feel your best. Feeling your best will make you put your best foot forward in achieving your goals.
I typically have on a T-shirt and sweatpants. My hair is never done and I don’t have any makeup on. When I put a small effort into my appearance, I feel better about myself and day.
Choose Your Goals Wisely
Imagine you have a dinner plate. You only have and get one plate. However, everyone wants to add a serving to your plate. You try to say yes to it all and ultimately you run out of space on your plate. Making no room for the food you wanted and having no game plan to finish the food you’re looking at.
The point? You cannot juggle it all or in this case, eat it all. And that’s okay. You have to choose the most important tasks or “food” and leave something on the back burner. You’ll get those managed when the time is right. You can do it all, just not all at once.
We teach our children to be patient and take turns, we must do the same with our goals. Remember, whatever you say yes to, you are simultaneously saying no to something else.
Have the Discipline
Forget motivation. Motivation is nothing more than a feeling. Much like anger, frustration, happiness, and sadness. Feelings come and go depending on your mood, environment, and circumstances.
What you need to accomplish anything in life is discipline and sometimes lots of it. Discipline is a learned skill. It is something you can practice and eventually get better at. Having the discipline will almost guarantee meeting every milestone you’ve set for yourself.
You have to continue to show up for yourself and your family even when life gets tough. Push through your lack of motivation and your productive day will manifest.
It is hard to show up for yourself and it is even easier to hit snooze and continue sleeping. I had a breakthrough when I finally learned discipline. The value it has added to my life is immeasurable and I want the same for you.
Note: This does not mean to ignore rest or to never take breaks, in fact, schedule breaks into your blocks as well.
Conclusion
Being a stay at home mom is hard, and having a productive day as a stay at home mom is even harder. Create a system that works with you to get things done. Start the night before to have a successful day tomorrow.
Get dressed and head into your morning routine. Break up your tasks into reasonable time blocks and have the discipline to tackle them all. Remember to not overschedule and take breaks when needed.
This post was all about having a productive day as a stay at home mom.
