Top Ten Tuesday - Ten Household Time Management Tips

The top ten tuesday blog carnival is hosted over at Many Little Blessings.   My friend over at Momma in Progress introduced me to this awesome weekly linkup, and I greatly enjoy participating when I can.  Go check it out here and perhaps participate yourself.  Afterall, top ten lists can be quite exciting.

This year's goal has me doing so much and so little at the same time.  In fact, I'm having loads of trouble actually sticking to it.  I'm going to blame the internet even though I know its my very own will power keeping me attached to laziness.  Example:  Coming up with just the idea of this post took almost an hour, and that entire time, I was reading blogs, googling things, and refreshing facebook.  Productive, right?  Ha.  None of those things brought me any new knowledge I didn't already know, nor did any of it lead to anything even lazy-productive.  So, in hopes of boosting my productivity this week, I think that if I write about all the things I should do but don't (and a few I do accomplish), it'll put things more into perspective.  Goal this month:  Get more done around the house



1.  Social media

The first step is admitting the problem.  The second?  Fixing it.  I realize the days I feel super unproductive are the same days I spend too much time on the computer.  Particularly Facebook.  Or Pinterest, though that one is much more productive than refreshing a page.  Either way, even though I do it fairly regularly, this is not in any way shape or form how I want to spend my days.  Time to step away from the internet for most of the day.

2.  Clean in your Routine

One thing I learned from The FlyLady is that routines are blessed things.  They hold the key to making my day go smoothly, and if I need routine to accomplish most tasks, why not cleaning too?  So I try fairly hard to build tasks such as dishes, cleaning bathrooms, laundry, and mundane things into these routines of mine for sheer ease.  If you do something every day for 21 days, it suddenly becomes second nature.

3.  Prepwork

Especially in terms of dinner, prepping things makes me feel like I've done so much more work even if I haven't, in a good way.  I feel on top of my game when a dinner that takes an hour only takes twenty minutes because all the hard part has been done already.  When you have the spare time, do things that would make future tasks easier, such as chopping carrots, gathering supplies, mashing bananas, mixing dry ingredients, and presorting laundry when you take it off.

4.  Video Games

These things may make a person feel better, but if you find yourself spending -all- day playing a game that will get you nowhere, then doesn't it feel like you've pretty much just wasted an entire day of your life?  Of course, there's nothing wrong with a little time spent enjoying a game, but be real.

5.  Involve the children

One of my biggest problems in getting things done is that the kids are always in the way, or I dont have time for this and them, or my most popular lately, "I can't do everything with you guys acting like tornadoes!" Why not involve them in the task instead?  Of course, this will take more time to complete it, but if its time together, then its well spent indeed, right?

6.  Plan ahead..  And do it.

I like to have my day planned out mostly, especially meals and activities.  If I say "I'm going to cook this for dinner, and we're going to make playdough," changes are I'm actually going to do those things instead of trying to find something to do that day.  No time spent wondering what to do.  Now, the catch with planning is that one must actually complete said planned tasks.  The entire point is moot if you aren't going to actually use it.

7.  Organize yourself

Last year, I made this nifty organizer (in which I lost the pdf page files!  D:) that helped, until it just got too...  papery.  Instead, I discovered a fairly expensive app called Pocket Informant.  Sure, the thing costs a fortune in terms of applications, but definitely worth it!  Write down your plans, menus, tasks, activities, appointments, and random other things because chances are, unless you're an elephant, you can't remember -everything- all the time.  Also, organize your things.   If you don't use it, it doesn't make you smile, or it isn't going to ever be used, why are you keeping it?  If you are keeping this thing, find it a home.  And keep it there when you're not using it.  This makes that thing so much easier to find and less time spent looking for it the next time you need or want said item.

8.  "You can do anything for 15 minutes."

This is one of the biggest most awesome pointers I learned from the flylady.  Need to get something done but feel overwhelmed?  Are those dishes piling over?  How about that paper you don't want to write?  Just spend 15 minutes doing it.  No, you probably won't finish it in that amount of time, but you will have fifteen minutes of work done.

9.  Don't overwhelm yourself

One of my biggest problems is that I plan and say, "I'm going to do this and this and this," except you realize that all those things will take -forever- to do and doing them all in one day is virtually impossible.  You can't do anything and everything all at once (or all on your own for that matter) so don't even try.  That's just asking for failure.

10.  Just do it.

Lastly, just do it.  Stop saying, "Oh I'll do it later."  Or, "I don't want to..." Or even, "Someone else will do it."  Chances are that said task will never be done.  Ever.  So why not just get the thing done?  Or atleast start on it.  Use that fifteen minute phrase to your advantage.

Do you have any useful productivity/time management tips to share?