New Year, New Mom: Organization Tips

I am so happy to be starting fresh this year as a new mom, but there have been A LOT of changes. I went from couch potato pregnant to busy bee mom blogger 24/7 all in 6 months! My life has completely turned around (for the better). With all of this new responsibility (that I love), comes the stress of organizing my time and efforts. So for the new year, I have decided to organize all of these responsibilities into a planner! Whoa. I know I am not the first on to use a planner to organize my days, but I am approaching it a little different than I’ve seen before. Hopefully, these organization tips are something that can get you started off right in the new year!

Responsibilities…

Now I mentioned responsibilities earlier and what I meant was not only my new responsibilities that come with motherhood, but also some that I voluntarily acquired when I committed to starting this blog. Tack on my pre-mom responsibilities of maintaining my house, my marriage, and my doggos, plus working for my husband’s business; that makes me quite the One-Woman-Show! The interesting thing about it is that even though I am most certainly overwhelmed, I still want it all. I am excited to be a more productive person and role model for my daughter. It is possible to have your cake and eat it to with the right mindset and figuring out how to organize .

With that, here is one of the first organization tips: WRITE OUT YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES.

Brainstorm!

• DAILY – What are the things you need to do every day? The stuff that keeps you walking from one side of the house to the other only to forget why opened the refrigerator…
  • baby stuff
  • light housework
  • cooking
  • your job
  • exercise
  • pets
  • self-care*
    • *Don’t forget about you while you’re taking care of everyone else/ PUT IT ON THE LIST!

• WEEKLY – What do you need to get done at least once a week so the house doesn’t burn down? You are probably already doing these things last minute every week…
  • grocery shopping
  • meal prep
  • filing
  • emails
  • laundry
  • disinfecting
  • declutter
  • dusting might be on your list (not mine LOL)

• MONTHLY – What do you need to get done at least once a month so to keep yourself and your family happy? This is the year to plan ahead! … but allow yourself to be flexible.
  • pay bills
  • appointments
  • free up some space in your home and mind/ donate what no longer brings you joy
  • deep clean
  • date night
  • family activity
  • pamper yourself/ nails, hair, girl’s night, monster truck rally (I’m down!)

Now that you have taken a moment to think about all of things you have to do this month and wrote them down, give your brain a rest. It’s on paper and it’s not going anywhere. Don’t you feel a little lighter? I do!

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Calendar Junkie

Next on my list of organizational tips, you’ll want to, at least vaguely,PLAN OUT YOUR MONTH FIRST. Life is ever changing so again, allow yourself to be flexible. Start with planning out your monthly needs first because there’s nothing more frustrating that planning 30 days only to try and squeeze in those special occasions on top of an already full day. I know from experience! The best way I have found to do this is to use a regular block-style calendar; old school, I know.

Figure out what days are best for your out of the ordinary activities and space them out in a way that is most convenient for you. With chores it might be easier to plan them the same time every month, as opposed to a family activity or baby appointment that might have to be scheduled on a specific date.

Jot some basic notes in there that are easy to see quickly as you continue to plan for your week on the same calendar. I also recommend adding these to your Google Calendar or a calendar on your phone. That way you can easily make or change plans without dragging a huge, cute puppies wall calendar around in your bag.

So I’m all about multiple calendars. ALL. ABOUT. IT. Or at least color coding within the main calendar to distinguish between monthly, weekly, daily… and I’m not even Type A. I just love to go overboard.. HA! I have a content calendar for my blog that I can keep a schedule on but also get into details, I have a work calendar with weekly responsibilities, I have a dinner calendar to plan out what the fam is going to eat for the week, and now I have a daily planner with all of my to-dos; which brings us to the next of the organization tips. 🙂

Lists Are Life!

Of course I love lists. This blog post… is a list… essentially. MAKING LISTS are like the number one organization tip. Chances are you probably have a bunch of sticky notes plastered across your desk or refrigerator of things to do or remember. Lists within lists. So let’s go ahead and take all of that and put it into a neat list in your go-to planner; preferably one that also has a calendar in it. Leave a section or even a whole page just for a daily to-do list. Write down all of your daily to-dos while referencing your monthly/weekly calendar so you can plan accordingly. I like to plan for at least 3 days, for flexibility.

Mine is pretty simple. I draw little check box bullets on each line. I try to be specific enough to where I can easily check it off after I’ve done it. The part of this I really like is that it doesn’t have to be in any particular order. I just look at all of the responsibilities, I wrote down at the beginning of this process and write them into the list on whatever day. All of my responsibilities right there, ready to be checked off. Easy peasy.

“To Schedule Or Not To Schedule”

Being a new mom is my primary role in life right now and I’ve found that my lack of structure during the last 6 months has been keeping me from getting all of these things I want to do… done. So here is the last of my organization tips. MAKE A SCHEDULE IN YOUR PLANNER; just for the weekdays. It’s FLEXIBLE! Blocking out my day by hour makes it easier on my brain to know what things on my list to work on. For example, if the hour is scheduled for ‘Baby,’ I should be changing, feeding, bathing, or bonding with my daughter. If it says ‘Active,’ I should be doing whatever exercise I put on my list.

I don’t schedule everything down to the last minute but it does allow me to focus on a little bit of my day at a time, rather than constantly thinking about everything I have to do all day and figuring out when I am going to find time to do it. I never thought I would have to pencil in time for basic hygiene, but here I am as a new mom forgetting to brush my teeth everyday!

If your new to motherhood and feeling disorganized and stressed with all of your new responsibilities, I hope these organization tips help to start your new year off easier. Women are warriors; YOU CAN DO THIS MAMA! 🙂

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