Organized Busy Mom’s Secrets to an Awesome Life.

Here is the thing (as I have mentioned a few times already) I am not an organized person by nature. This is incredibly troublesome for my husband who we will call “uber” organized, isn’t that a nice way to put it?

I have had a large project here (The Lab Bench), vacation, planning summer school, and being a wife and mom. I didn’t handle it well. When we got back from our vacation I was up against an intense deadline, but I didn’t take the time to plan my plan. I just threw myself in without planning to plan because I didn’t want to waste that time. As a result, things have gotten a little chaotic.

My poor husband!

When I was young and had few responsibilities, children, or gray hairs I had the working memory and limited actions that I could just keep most things juggling in my mind and all the plates kept spinning.

Things change and we must adapt…

Now we have a family of four children, 1 dog, several jobs, and other responsibilities and that working memory just can’t possibly keep ALL the things in check. As a result, I can spend a lot of time spinning my wheels. Do you ever do that?

There have been things I have mentioned before that have helped me in specific areas, like homeschooling. The problem is that I have lots of areas to get organized, plan for, and keep organized. I know you do too. Doesn’t it seem like we are all busier than ever?

I literally have to set aside time to plan my planning. When I was in my twenties, I would have thought I was crazy. I can now recognize that every time that I don’t plan my planning things start falling through the cracks and I begin to get:

overwhelmed
frustrated
and just not awesome to be around.

We don’t want a not awesome life, as the title of this post implies we are looking for awesome. If not planning to plan causes not awesome, then I have come to accept that planning to plan is what I must do.

How do I plan to plan?

It is all about getting organized in order to stay organized. You know me and you know that this is not my strong suit. I was lucky and found an awesome friend named Jenn and she owns HomebyJenn .

She is a productivity and time management guru that focuses on moms. She is all about going from chaos to becoming an organized busy mom.

I am so lucky, right? Jenn has helped me in so many ways over the last 9 months and I want to share a few tidbits. If you want to avoid the chaos (like me), you can grab a complete copy of The Organized Busy Mom’s Cheat Sheet by entering your email and name below and it will be sent directly to your inbox (for free).

Here are some of Jenn’s tips.

Know where your time is going…

You can’t know how to get a reign in on how you are spending your time until you know how you are spending it. This is something most people accept when it comes to budgeting, but completely overlook when it comes to time management. She suggests that you spend ten minutes writing down everything you did today.

Do not put things off more than a week….

Procrastination… my old frenemy. Her answer is to stop putting things off more than a week. She suggests listing 3 things that you have been putting off for more than a week. Start tackling those things immediately.

Set goals for yourself…

Not the I am going to lose 5 pounds in the next 36 hours type of goals. Goals help keep you motivated and push you forward. She suggests thinking of these first goals as a time to create a dream for yourself. Doesn’t that sound like a warm cup of tea? or wine? Whichever works for you.

That isn’t everything…

If you are like me and need all the help you can get, grab the entire cheat sheet. It has 5 more tips/steps to help you get more organized and begin to plan your planning that is purposeful and so you don’t run around like a chicken with its head cut off (that is imagery folks :-). Grab The Organized Busy Mom’s Cheat Sheet by entering your name and email and it will get delivered directly to your inbox.