Parenting moves the bar higher. Not only are you responsible for your everyday job, running a household, your personal activities and well-being, but you’re also responsible for the activities and schooling of your children. It can be overwhelming. It can be hectic. Above all, it can be time-consuming.
That’s why learning time management hacks would make every parent’s life easier. Fortunately, it’s not rocket science and everybody can incorporate those tricks into their everyday life.
Read carefully following pieces of advice on time management for parents and think about how you can apply them and include in your routine.
1. Know Your Priorities
When you’re overwhelmed with running your household, various personal obligations and different activities of your kids, you can easily lose track of your priorities. For this reason, it’s important to be aware of the things that are most important to you and have the most significant impact on your life.
Urgent-Important Matrix is a great tool that can help you put all pieces of the puzzle together. It is composed of four quadrants that organize your daily activities according to two parameters: level of importance and level of urgency. That way, you’ll determine your most important and urgent tasks and complete them first.
2. Plan Your Time
Knowing how to plan your time properly is a crucial skill every parent should learn in order to manage to tackle everything from their to-do list.
All you need is a planner with time slots and a pen. Plan your day the night before and schedule each task at the designated time. When you write down your plans, you’ll commit to them and manage your time more efficiently.
Besides, a planner is a fantastic tool to remember all kids’ birthdays parties, school and extracurricular activities. If you’re a traditional type, get a paper planner, but if you’re a more digital type, then you can download some mobile apps.
3. Delegate, Delegate, Delegate
The sooner you realize that you don’t have to do everything by yourself, the sooner you’ll create more time you can use to spend with your family or invest in some activity that is meaningful to you. Therefore, don’t shy away from delegating some of your chores or responsibilities.
There’s nothing wrong with a cleaner who can help you with your household. Consider it as an investment that will contribute to your wellbeing. However, if your budget doesn’t allow this expense, think about delegating some house chores, like making beds, dusting or tidying up to your kids.
Besides, consider where you could you use help the most and try to outsource it. For instance, if you’re a student parent, you could use help with essays and assignments. Luckily, there are platforms such as Assignmentholic.co.uk, term paper writing service, and Bestessays.com that can give you a hand and save your time.
4. Don’t Waste Your Time
How do you use your time while waiting in the car line at school or waiting for some appointment? Do you usually check your social media feed? Do you read some gossip magazine? Well, you should change this habit.
Instead of squandering your time on trivial things while waiting, try to use it more constructively. For example, you can leverage that time to get some of your work done, to send some emails or make some calls.
It is a perfect opportunity to cross off small tasks from your list and in that way get more time for your family.
5. Forget About Perfectionism
Sometimes, even when you plan every detail and manage your time wisely, not everything will go smoothly and according to plan. In such occasions, it’s vital not to stress out and keep a cool head. More importantly, don’t be hard on yourself; you did the best you could at that moment.
Instead, try to learn from your mistakes. Try to understand what went wrong and what can you do better next time. Embrace those small imperfections because they will help you enhance your time management skills and become a more productive parent.
Final Thoughts
Once you figure out your priorities with the help of Urgent-Important Matrix, you will be able to see clearly which tasks you can delegate maybe and which ones you should schedule in your planner.
Also, use your waiting time to get some of your work done and remember to forget about perfectionism because sometimes things won’t go as you planned, so there’s no need to stress out, but learn from your mistakes.
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