Life sure can get busy with extra hands and mouths to look after and feed – let alone yourself and your partner! I don’t know about you, but before children I was usually running late and now with 2 children – I am even more so!

Working and being a mum is time-consuming.  It requires planning and organisation.  So, I’ve put together 5 tips for managing motherhood, career and life to help you retain time in your life.

Have you had situations when both your partner and you have double booked yourself on the same day?  By having a shared calendar and you both have it synced in your phones, it allows you to see what the other person has organised and allows you to accept an invitation or find an alternative day.  Also helps with multiple children and knowing who needs to be where.  Some people also use colours to identify activities for each person in the family.

You don’t need to use google, but a calendar that allows you to access from multiple devices & multiple people to be able to add an entry. ⠀ ⠀

If you have multiple children, you may wish to colour code the entries so they can quickly see which child is doing what on that day. ⠀

Suggested platform: Google calendar

The correspondence from childcare, school, and sports teams can be overwhelming. But sharing the email between both parents, allows everyone to have access to the same information and transparency across what is happening.  Removes the excuse “you never told me”.

Suggested platform: Google, Yahoo, or any of the big free email providers – you can also have the same account for your shared calendar.

Do you find that all correspondence relating to your children goes to you and not your partner (even if you ask for it to happen)? Do you end up forwarding the emails on? But then all too often you get the excuse “but I never received the email” or “You didn’t send it to me”. ⠀ ⠀

One way of overcoming this is to set up an email that both of you have access to then there are no excuses on not receiving the email. This also gives ownership to your partner to reply if required or put the event into your shared calendar whilst having full transparency on all correspondence. Remembering what child needs to be where and on what day contributes to the stress of managing the juggle. The shared email helps your partner be involved and share the load as well, not leaving it all solely up to you. ⠀

The evening can get pretty chaotic when people are coming home from school or childcare, work, and other activities before the evening bath and bed routine.  On the weekend, get feedback and contributions from the family on what they would like for dinner during the week before one parent does the weekly food shop (also could be done online).  Having all the meals planned out for the week also will save you money so you have purchased what you need for the week and saves the little shops where you often end up buying more than you need.  Have a whiteboard or notice on the fridge to write the weekly meals so everyone is able to see what is for dinner.  You may also like to include key events/information for the week on the board so it is front of mind for everyone.

Washing is something that never ends!

Laundry is one of those thankless tasks in managing a household. Just as you think you are on top of the washing and the pile is low, the very next day it grows again. 😭 ⠀

To help with the madness, try creating a system or a schedule that works for you. ⠀

It could be dividing your washing up into different piles i.e. colours, darks, whites, towels, sheets, sports / smelly clothes, baby/children clothes. Then, having a dedicated day for that pile. Give yourself at least one day off as you and your partner deserve it!

Another tip is doing the washing at night and hanging it out to dry before you go to bed or setting a timer and having the load finish early morning so you could hang it out before work. Washing in off-peak times (i.e. evening) also saves you money; “squeezing every penny” as my husband likes to quote the Simpsons. ⠀

Finding time during the week to cook can often be hard. Especially when you need to pick up the children from childcare, give them dinner & get them to bed. Turning around and cooking for you & your partner might be the last thing you feel like doing. ⠀

Batch cooking and then dividing it up into meal portions can help. This way you always have a meal handy and save money & have a healthier option by not resorting to takeaway or uber eats. ⠀

Would you like more tips? Listen to the Working Mumma podcast or join the Working Mumma Village membership today.