Life is busy. If you have a spouse or children, you know how important it is to manage your time wisely. With everything from cooking to cleaning, carpooling and sports events, there are a few ways to make life seem more organized and manageable. Let’s face it. There just doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day to do what must be done. Let’s look at some ideas that can help organize your days and weeks. Let’s develop strategies to be proactive and help save you time and frustration.
Planning
There are several items that must be attended to each and every day. Make a list of daily and weekly activities. Study your list and see if there are any ways to consolidate activities. There are many ways to plan and organize your week. Many websites are dedicated to this problem. Millions of people suffer with the “rat race” trap. It is the feeling of waking up, eating, working, eating, and then sleeping just to start over and do it all again on the next day. We sometimes feel we are on auto pilot. We feel robotic. Research has shown that with the “rat race” feeling, people feel unfulfilled and unhappy with their lives. There is hope. New approaches are developed daily for people struggling with time management problems.
Calendars
Some researchers suggest using daily, weekly, or even monthly calendars to keep up with the many things that we need to do and remember. Find the calendar that works for you and your family. Some families use a family calendar and each person is a certain color and at the beginning of the week or month all activities are listed on the calendar. It is placed in a central location so everyone has access to it. This allows you to know what is coming for the following days and weeks. Color coding them lets you quickly assess who needs to be where and when. This also allows for carpooling schedules to be managed.
School
All children go to school. All moms know how hard the battle is when it comes to the issue of clothing. To alleviate the morning hassle of what to wear, plan what you are going wear for the week. Let children pick out outfits for the week as well. Hang them together in each person’s closet so that all that needs to be done during the busy morning routine is putting them on. This will certainly make your morning much less stressful. It also allows children to feel they have ownership of some of the decisions as well.
Meals
If your family is always on the go, meals can be difficult to achieve. Planning ahead allows for meals to be prepared ahead of time. It is always fun to get together with a buddy and prepare meals for the week or month. You wouldn’t prepare all of them, but you could surely knock out enough that the other days are less stressful. Plan your meals you want to prepare early, make a grocery list of items needed, and then choose a day to cook and prepare these meals. Many people like to schedule a week’s worth of menus so they know ahead of time what they need. This is great if you are organized. Preplanning your meals saves lots of time and allows for other activities in your busy week. It also helps you save money on eating out.
Carpooling
The art of carpooling is one of the greatest inventions of all times. Allowing others to help transport children to and from sporting practices and events or other activities allows you the freedom to do other things. Making a carpool schedule is very important. When you use a carpool schedule, make sure the people involved are responsible and punctual. Make a schedule that is fair and accommodating. Transporting children takes up major time so make sure to have enough responsible parents involved to make this easier on all.
Sleeping
Unfortunately, we as parents do not always get enough sleep ourselves because we are so focused on all our other priorities. If you’re like me and need a decent amount of sleep to #SeizeTheWeek, you know how crucial each and every hour of sleep is. Occasionally, I have trouble sleeping so I turn to ZzzQuil to help me fall asleep easily and wake refreshed the next day. Haven’t tried ZzzQuil yet? Click here for a coupon to get you on your way to a great night’s sleep. For more information on ZzzQuil and all things sleep, check out @ZzzQuil on Twitter and Instagram.
This post is sponsored by Vicks, although all opinions and views are my own.