5 Time-Saving Tips for Busy Moms
If you consider yourself a busy mom raise your hand (note my raised hand). Are you looking for practical ways to save time throughout your day? Do you often feel overwhelmed with your workload and wish you had more time in the day?
The children, the cleaning, the meals, the job perhaps, and ALL THE THINGS. Finding ways to save time throughout your day can be a lifesaver. I’m sharing five practical time-saving tips to help busy moms save time and reduce their workload.
Whether you’re a stay-at-home mom, working mom, or somewhere in between, these tips will help you streamline your day and make the most of your precious time. So, let’s dive in and discover the best time-saving tips for busy moms!
The Top 5 Time-Saving Tips for Busy Moms You Can Use Right Now
One of the reasons that time-saving tips for busy moms is so important is just finding a type of peace in our lives as mamas. We tend to feel overwhelmed and raising kids drains a bit of our energy, which means that making time and utilizing the time we have efficiently can help lessen the mental load.
Let’s look at the top five time-saving tips I recommend for busy moms:
Tip 1: Use Technology to Save Time in Your Day
Too often, we rely on that lovely little memory holder we have in our head. However, too often, that holder is overflowing, things spill out, and we never remember everything we wanted to. Moms, we waste so much time thinking and overthinking and trying to keep track of that to-do list in our heads.
There is a better way. And it will save you so much time and mental energy! Technology. We all have it. We all use it. Probably too often for wasting time. But technology can be a huge time-saver for busy moms. Here are a few ways you can use that little electronic device you hold in your hand all the time.
- Set alarms – for everything. This will free up mental space, which will, in turn, help you save time. You may be surprised just how much time you can save with something so simple. Just a few examples from my personal life are setting an alarm to pick up my kids from school, switching the laundry, starting the dishwasher when I want to wait until just before bed.
- Use apps – the possibilities are endless here. There are apps for time management, tracking newborn baby routines, family calendars, workouts, meal planning. Any areas you feel suck up your time, I’m sure you can find an app for it.
- Siri or Alexa can save busy moms so much time from ordering online to setting reminders, answering questions, and more.
- Automated bill pay – Many banks and credit card companies offer automated bill pay services. By setting up automatic payments for bills such as utilities, rent, or mortgage, busy moms can save time and avoid the stress of late payments.
Tip #2: Use Grocery Pick-up or Grocery Delivery to Save Time
This could possibly be one of the best time-saving tips for busy moms that live in a location that offers grocery delivery or grocery pickup. If you haven’t yet given it a try, you absolutely should. I don’t live close enough to a store to utilize the delivery option, but doing grocery pickup can still save me loads of time. Not to mention, it can also save you money because you’re not picking up random items you see as you walk through the store.
Now, I get it. Sometimes you need or prefer to go into the store. Especially if you’re a stay-at-home mom, that can be a distraction and outing you need to keep your sanity. And we all know those rare strolls ALONE through Target are not going to stop.
However, to save time regularly, use a grocery delivery or grocery pickup service. Or maybe give a meal delivery kit a try, which can save you even more time!
Tip #3: Meal Planning WILL Save You Time
Why do I capitalize the word “will,” you ask? For moms that don’t make meal planning part of their regular routine, it can feel overwhelming to get started. However, if you can get into a routine of creating a meal plan, I promise it will save you so much time, energy, and most likely money throughout the week.
Let’s look at an example. I do meal planning on Sundays for the following week. It takes me thirty minutes max to plan my meals for a week and write them down (I personally use an app on my phone). The rest of the week, I don’t have to worry or think about meals again besides the actual cooking. If I don’t create a meal plan for the week, I can easily spend a minimum of 15 minutes per day looking through my cupboards and fridge trying to decide what to have for dinner that night. That’s 30 minutes for meal planning versus an hour and a half or more wasting time throughout the week just trying to make a decision.
Meal planning can also save you time and money when grocery shopping because you already have a plan to follow and know exactly which ingredients you need to purchase.
If you feel too overwhelmed with trying to figure out how to do meal planning, check out my video trainings, “How to Make Meal Planning Work For You.” Just 5 days, 10 minutes a day, and you’ll be a pro!
Tip #4: Having The Kids Help Can Save You Time
Really, besides infants, there’s really no age of child that can’t help with cleaning the house. It may take some time and extra effort at first to walk alongside your child and teach them how to clean something the correct way. But once you’ve conquered that, having kids help with cleaning the house can be a huge time-saving tip for busy moms.
It’s true this will get easier as children get older, more mature, and can handle doing more things on their own. But you’ll have the most success if you start them out young. Then it will just be a normal part of your family life as they get older.
You can have your kids help you with cleaning and other tasks around the house in a variety of ways:
- Picking up after themselves (eg. play with blocks, then pick up the blocks right away before getting something else out)
- Putting their own dishes in the dishwasher after eating and taking turns wiping down the table
- Chore charts
- If they’re older, have them prepare one meal per week
- Feeding animals
- Mowing the yard, cleaning the car and other outdoor tasks (if age appropriate)
Chore charts are one of the most helpful things to get my own kids to help me with cleaning the house. It’s similar to meal planning. I set the chore chart once a week. As much as it helps me, it also helps the kids know what to expect throughout the week. If I don’t do the chore chart, I get busy when I get home from work, and before I know it, the evening is over, and I didn’t ask the kids to help me. Grab my free illustrated chore chart here if you’d like. It’s great for younger and elementary-age kids.
Tip #5: Outsource Tasks to Help You Save Time
This may be a time-saving tip that makes some of you feel a little uneasy. Often times, we feel the need to be a super mom and put this huge pressure on ourselves to do everything ourselves. But why? We’ve already established that we’re busy moms. That may mean you work outside the home like me, plus all the home things. You may have a newborn baby and are trying to function with little to no sleep. Or maybe you have little toddlers ravaging your home on the daily.
Whatever the case may be, it’s time to put the super mom cape away and ask for some help. Let me tell you a little secret. Those littles already think you’re a super mom anyway, even without a cape.
Here are some examples of tasks you can outsource to help you save time. Whether you pay someone or ask family or friends to help is up to you:
- Hire out house cleaning (even every other week can be a huge help)
- Use a laundry cleaning service
- Grocery delivery
- Meal kit delivery or pre-made meal delivery
- Lawn care
- Childcare
Time-Saving Tips to Help Busy Moms Save Time Throughout Their Day
As a busy mom, you are juggling multiple responsibilities. Implementing these five practical time saving tips can help streamline your day and reduce your workload. By using technology to your advantage, utilizing grocery delivery or pickup services, creating meal plans, and having your children help with cleaning, you can save time and make the most of your precious time.
What are some of the best time-saving tips you can share for other busy moms? Let me know in the comments below!
