The working mothers We all share the problem of lack of time. Between work, housework and the children’s education, there is hardly any time left for us.
Good time management is essential, and even more so, if we work from home. With a few simple techniques we can dramatically improve the results of our work and at the same time gain more hours to dedicate to our children or our personal well-being.
What I lack is a good planning of my tasks that takes into account all the components of my life: my work, my family, my personal life with my partner and the housework. The problem is even more serious because I work from home and on my own. There is no boss who tells me at every moment what to do. How can we get out of this situation that will eventually destroy our family’s happiness, our efficiency at work and our health?
1. Identify goals for each part of your life
What do you want to achieve at work? How would you like to improve family life? How can housework be perfected? How do you want to educate your children?
Only if you know where you want to go can you determine the path. Having goals and objectives is the first step to improvement in every part of your life. Sit down with a good cup of coffee, a sheet of white paper and write down for each component of your life where you want to go. Formulate it in the most concrete way possible. For example, “I want to be successful at work” is very general. It would be better to say “I want to have set up my web shop until the end of the year.” The second example describes a specific goal and defines a period of time.
2. Make a plan for each goal
What are the steps that will take you to your goal? To stay with the example of the website, the steps could be: find the best company for hosting, decide on a web editor, write the content, set up the page, publish it and plan an advertising campaign. With the identified steps it is much easier to do concrete planning. Weekly planning is ideal: if you take one or two small steps each day (such as writing a paragraph, analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of two companies of hosting), at the end of the week you will see surprising results and at the end of the month even more.
3. Do similar things in one go
Rather than answering an email, then making a call and then continuing with the email is much more effective if you do similar tasks in one go. Prepare a list in the morning with the things you have to do and then decide when you do it. For example, first thing in the morning, when you are still rested and fresh, you work an hour on a project that requires all your concentration. Then you dedicate yourself to your email. Try to finish this task as quickly as possible. So you avoid all these interesting links …
4. Make a meal plan each week
It seems like a trivial and tiring thing to do, but it can save you a lot of time. Imagine that in the morning you will not have to think “there is, and what do I prepare today”, nothing to run to the Supermarket at the last minute (because you have already made the purchase for the whole week on Monday).
You can even consider making two or three servings of some dishes such as spaghetti sauce or macaroni, gratins and stews and freezing what is left over. This way you will have days when you hardly have work with food. It’s not just that you don’t have to cook, you won’t mess up the kitchen either. How wonderful, no?
5. Focus on one thing only
A few years it was thought that especially women would have the ability to do several things at the same time. And while it is true that in some situations this skill is essential (you cannot let the children watch while you are preparing the food), you get better results concentrating on a single task.
All these techniques may not be revolutionary, however they can change your life!