Trying to squeeze everything into just 24 hours is hard! Our time is precious and we don’t want to spend all of it on simple household tasks. That’s why it’s essential to be as productive as possible in the little time we have to dedicate to our homes.
Over the years, I’ve discovered several time wasters that have caused me a lot of frustration. But today I want to share with you how I’ve avoided wasting so much time.
There are 5 things I’ve done in my home to get more done in less time.
1. Purge the Clutter
Clutter is one of the biggest time wasters in your home and you might not even realize it. When our homes are overfilled with more than we need we spend more time on them than we need. Everything will take longer. More to clean, more to organize, and more to maintain.
Purge the excess clutter in your home and gain back hours each week!
2. Organize Your Spaces
Studies show that Americans spend an average of 2.5 days each year simply looking for misplaced items. That’s 60 hours a year completely wasted! Living in a more organized space will help you find what you need when you need it.
Stop wasting time searching for the recipe before you fix dinner or the cleaning product you need before you can clean the bathrooms. Don’t spend your time looking for your shoes, purse, or keys before walking out the door. Getting your home organized will help you not only save time, but allow you to spend that wasted time doing more productive tasks!
3. Follow Routines
Routines can be one of those scary words for some. They might seem overwhelming. Maybe you’ve read too many blog posts about ALL. THE. THINGS. your favorite blogger does each and every day and you know there is no way you could do the same. Well, let me be the first to tell you, your routines should be SIMPLE!!
I follow a morning routine, evening routine, weekly cleaning routine, and meal planning routine that save me time every single week! Because I follow these routines, I’m not spending hours and hours every day to keep my home clean. Instead my morning and evening routines take about 20 minutes of my time each day. I spend about 1-1.5 hours a week cleaning. Meal planning is done in about 5-10 minutes a week and saves me tons of time each evening as I begin dinner preparations!
Do what you have time for! Work fast and avoid distractions. It will make such a difference in your home!
4. Create a Plan for Your Day
Having a plan for your day will keep you from wasting away hours each day on meaningless tasks. Sometimes our days can be like the mouse in the children’s storybook, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. We can jump from one thing to the next never really completing tasks. By the end of the day we feel like we’ve worked hard but accomplished nothing. Have you ever been there?
Instead, create a plan for your day! It doesn’t have to be elaborate. A simple to-do list on a piece of paper or in the notes section of your phone is perfect. Make a list of the tasks you need to complete that day. Star, highlight, or create a top 3-5 list at the top of the most important tasks on the list. Then each day, chip away at those to-dos one at a time. Complete one task before moving onto the next.
5. Use Time Blocking
I love using time-blocking for my days! But let me tell you, I’m not rigid with this at all. Time blocking is simply setting chunks of time for different types of tasks throughout the day. A regular day for me might look something like this:
2 HOURS (5-7am) - WORK
1 HOUR (7-8am) - MORNING ROUTINE
2 HOURS (8-10am) - WORKOUT/SHOWER/READY FOR THE DAY
2 HOURS (10am-12pm) - LUNCH/TIME WITH B
1 HOUR (12pm-1pm) - HOUSEHOLD TASKS
2 HOURS (1pm-3pm) — WORK
4 HOURS (3pm-7pm) - AFTERNOON/NIGHTTIME ROUTINE
3 HOURS (7pm-10pm) - BEDTIME ROUTINE/BOYS TO BED/RELAX
Giving yourself designated chunks of time for certain tasks will help you not spend all day on one thing. It will also give you the freedom to tell yourself, “That’s good enough” and move on. This isn’t going to work perfectly, but it will help you be as productive as you can on each task during it’s given time period!
Want to be even more productive?!
These 5 tips have been lifesavers for me. But even still…squeezing more time out of 24 hours a day is hard.
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Hello Kaitlin,
Thanks for these fabulous tips. Actually, I am a busy mom with 2 kids. Guess what is the condition of my bathroom? It’s being always messy as that is the play station of my kids. I already bought a door lock to keep my bathroom safe from my kids. Arrange a different playground for them. Your blog helps me more to separate my house spaces.
That’s a great idea! 🙂
Melissa says
Love this post! You just reminded me to declutter our board games cabinet:-)
Haha! Those pesky things can get out of hand quickly! 😉