Cleaning,  Cooking

10 Time-Saving Tips for Mom

June 22, 2011

Moms are busy. Plain and simple. Here are my time-saving tips to help you be proactive as a mom, because being RE-active takes twice as long. You’ll see from my list below that the main time killers in our household revolve around food & laundry. Haha!

  1. Meal planning – This makes things SO much simpler during the week. I already know what’s on the menu and what meat to lay out to defrost each morning. Without a plan, I’m more likely to get to 5:00 and realize I’ve totally forgot about dinner. Yikes!
  2. Grocery lists – I do not go to the grocery store without one. Otherwise, I end up wandering aimlessly around. I even try to make my list according to aisle to avoid any backtracking across the store.
  3. Cooking ahead – This has been a lifesaver especially during really busy times. It’s nice to be able to have a casserole ready when everything else has fallen apart during your day. Frozen casseroles are also helpful for benevolence meals. I also like to prepare big batches of pancakes, muffins, and breads in advance for quick and easy breakfasts.
  4. Laundry day – I got tired of feeling like I could never tackle the mountain of dirty laundry. I was washing almost every day. We now have Laundry Monday at our house. We stick close to home during the day and I just run one load after another and it gets all taken care of in just 1 day. In fact, I usually have all 6 loads finished & folded by the end of nap time. Yay!
  5. Universal laundry basket – I just implemented this not long ago and it saves me so much time on laundry day. I took away all the baskets in each individual room. Now, everyone is responsible for bringing their dirty items to the laundry room, which is conveniently located in the middle of our house. When Monday rolls around, I don’t have to spend the time sorting colors. I just get right to it.
  6. Vacation laundry sorting – When we are on vacation I go ahead and sort the laundry as I’m packing up. I put all the like colors together in separate suitcases. That way, as soon as we get home I can get started. Because, let’s face it, moms are usually more tired after vacation.
  7. Routine charts – I’m type A all the way so I love a good routine. We were having trouble getting our 4-year-old to cooperate with the bedtime routine so we made her a chart with pictures. She follows along with the pictures to see what comes next and now she has it down pat and gets in bed on time.
  8. News via social media – I’ll be perfectly honest here. I just don’t have time to sit down and watch the news every night but I like to stay up to date on current events. I make sure to follow the popular news channels on Twitter and Facebook. I figure if it isn’t good enough to get a tweet or status update then it wasn’t really newsworthy to begin with.
  9. Phone calls on the go – I’m not good at talking on the phone and folding laundry at the same time. Actually, I end up wandering around and pacing back and forth while I’m on the phone, which is the exact opposite of multi-tasking. I am, however, pretty good at talking and driving at the same time (handsfree of course). I reserve returning phone calls for when I’m in the car on the way to pick up The Little Girl from school.
  10. Task list – This is my all time favorite time saver (and another shameless shout out to Google). I love Google Tasks. I can have my to-do list with me at all times, on my computer at home, or on my Android smartphone. I’m never left wondering what’s to do next. You know as well as I do, that a mother’s jobs are never done.
So, that’s what works for me. What are the time killers at your household? Have any time-saving tips you want to share?
I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Starbucks blogging program, for a gift card worth $30. For more information on how you can participate, click here.

One Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *