5 Productivity Tips for Moms (or any busy person, lol)
Keep reading this post to learn:
⋒ What peaceful productivity is and why it’s important, especially in motherhood
⋒ 5 productivity tips to help you feel accomplished but not like you are adding more to your plate
⋒ Tangible examples on how you can implement these tips into your life
Alright, let’s get into it – 5 productivity tips for moms! In the month of May, I’m doing a “For the Moms” series here on the blog and on the podcast, but to be honest, almost all of these tips are applicable to women with full plates…moms or not!
So even if you’re not a mom, I highly recommend sticking around because I’m willing to bet you’ll still get some solid tips to take with you.
Before I start laying the productivity tips on you, I want to talk about my productivity philosophy.
I’m sure if you’ve been hanging out with me online for any amount of time, you know that I teach ~peaceful~ productivity – which to give you an overview of what that is… it’s pursuing your goals while prioritizing your mental health and relationships.
Some peaceful productivity principles are:
~ Our schedules and routines are tools, not chains.
~ Rest is not earned. We believe in living from a place of rest, not waiting until something is done before we rest.
~ Boundaries help us protect and show up for our priorities.
~ Our worth is not defined by how much we do or don’t get done in a day.
~ We get to decide what matters and how we’re going to show up for our lives.
And lastly:
~ Every season looks different and it’s okay (and normal) for your capacity to ebb and flow as your life changes.
I want to talk about that last one a little bit more.
Motherhood has different seasons within it. My daughter is around a year and a half old and even in that short amount of time, I feel like my season of motherhood has changed a few times – there was pregnancy, newborn days, starting solids, learning to walk, learning to talk – things are constantly shifting in motherhood and I think it’s important to recognize that.
When we accept that motherhood is a constant shift, we can be better at extending ourselves grace and having realistic and sustainable expectations for ourselves when it comes to productivity.
Listen, I’m here to tell you that you can be the best mom for your littles and still pursue goals outside of motherhood well. It’s just going to look different than how you pursued goals before you became a mom.
And the same goes for productivity. You can still tick tasks off of your to-do list when you’re a mom, it’s just going to look different than what you might be used to. We have to throw out the idea that our pre-mom productivity strategies are going to support us in our current season of motherhood. It’s like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole…it just doesn’t make sense. So instead of fighting that, embrace your season, focus your energy on meeting yourself where you’re at, and figure out what works for you right now.
All that being said – as I share these productivity tips for moms, listen with an open heart – know that these are strategies not life or death statements. These are things that have worked for me and many other moms I’ve spoken with. Maybe a few of them will work for you and a few won’t – that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with me and there’s nothing wrong with you. We just have different lives and different circumstances and different ways of doing things and that is amazing.
So take what works for you, tweak what you need to tweak, and leave the rest, cool?
Okay let’s do this – 5 productivity tips for moms:
01: Embrace splitting up tasks into different blocks of time
One thing I’ve learned as a mom is that you’ve got to get creative with how you get stuff done – and for me, a lot of the time that looks like doing things part way through, pausing when I need to, and coming back to complete the task when I can. If I waited to do things until I had an uninterrupted period of time, I would quite literally get 0% of my to-do list done, lol.
As a mom of a toddler, a lot of the time, I’m multitasking in the sense that I’m keeping an eye on her while I’m doing things that need to get done.
I do my best to involve Everly in tasks that I’m doing – so like when I’m folding the laundry, she “helps” me. Sure, it takes longer, but she has fun playing with the laundry basket, she gets to see how to do laundry (we love a life skills learning moment), and the laundry eventually gets folded and put away.
One little pro tip that helps me remember to come back to a partially completed task is leaving a visual reminder for myself. So take the laundry example – instead of folding the laundry and stacking it in the hamper to put in the laundry room until I can get to putting it away, I’ll leave the folded laundry on the dining room table so I can see it and be like “Oh yeah I need to put that away.”
Or if I was in the middle of filming clips for a reel or something and I want to remind myself to finish doing that after I help her with whatever, I’ll leave my tripod on the kitchen counter so that I’ll see it and remember that I need to finish recording the clips.
Before mom life, I’d fold a load of laundry and put it away without even thinking about it – now, sometimes I am able to fold the laundry but not always put it away right away. I’ll have to pause to change a diaper or get Everly a snack or help her get down from a chair she climbed up on, etc.
Another example: I remember when Everly was really little, and taking multiple naps a day, there were times when I’d get my HS5 move for 30 minutes done over the course of 2 naps. I’d do 15 minutes during one nap and 15 minutes during another nap.
Something I’ve gotten really skilled at since becoming a mom is making the most of pockets of time and being cool with splitting my tasks up into different blocks of time. When I first became a mom, it stressed me out a little, because I’m not a lover of having open loops, but with practice, I’ve learned that doing a little bit multiple times a day still gets tasks done.
And I would rather bond with my daughter throughout our days and my tasks take longer than act like a productivity robot and have my focus be on going, going, going and doing, doing, doing all day long.
02: Use routines to save brain power
It is no secret that I am a big fan of routines. I really do believe that when we design routines that support our season (and when we remind ourselves that our schedules and routines are tools, not chains) they save us a ton of time, energy, and brainpower. And what mom doesn’t want more of all of those things honestly?
Routines really help things from falling through the cracks in my life. I don’t have to try and remember what needs to be done and when it needs to be done because my routines do the heavy lifting for me.
I want to clear something up – a routine is different from a schedule. A schedule is events that are timebound whereas a routine is a pattern of tasks that doesn’t necessarily fit into a strict timeframe.
At our house, we don’t have a daily schedule – we have daily routines that create the flow of our days. That’s because parts of our days vary…they’re different every day. Everly doesn’t wake up at the same time every day – she wakes up between 7:00-8:00 AM. She doesn’t take her nap at the same time every day – she naps between 12:30/1:00 PM and wakes up between 2:00-4:00 PM. She doesn’t eat lunch at the same time every day – she eats between 11:30-12:15… okay, I think you get it, lol.
So if I tried to make a schedule for our family, like we go on our walk from 7:45-8:15, we eat breakfast from 8:30-9:00, Everly has outside time from 9:30-11, etc. I’d get so frustrated that no day was going according to plan and I’d spend my energy every day, trying to cram our life into blocks of time… which sounds exhausting.
Instead, we focus on having routines that help create a flow to our days. We know that when Everly wakes up, we’ll give her milk and a small snack and then all get ready and go on our family walk. When we get back from our walk, we’ll eat breakfast. Then after breakfast, I’ll go do my HS5 move for 30 while Adam plays with Everly. After I do my HS5 move for 30, Adam does his HS5 move for 30 while I play with Everly and give her lunch. Then one of us gets her settled for a nap. Etc. Etc. Etc.
Some of my favorite routines that are supporting me in this season:
~ Hustle Sanely 5 (we’ll talk about how I use it as a mom in just a bit)
~ Daily Planning Meeting
~ Daily Home Opening and Home Closing Routines
~ Weekly Home Reset Routine
03: Use Hustle Sanely 5 to give your days a flexible structure
If you’re new here, let me give you a quick lil’ Hustle Sanely lesson and explain what Hustle Sanely 5™ is.
Hustle Sanely 5™ is part of The 5 Keys to Hustling Sanely, which is the system I teach to help people create peacefully productive lives. HS5 is a list of 5 intentional habits. Think of HS5 as your daily action steps for living a peacefully productive life.
Before I tell you what the 5 habits are, I want to make a few things clear – Hustle Sanely 5™ isn’t meant to cause you stress. It’s not another thing that you have to add to your to-do list but a tool to help you weave consistent daily routines into your life while giving you the space and flexibility to do different habits every day.
HS5 is a way to help you structure your day so that you’re not living in this go, go, go mode that leaves your head spinning at the end of the day and feeling like you don’t even know what just happened or how the day is over but you feel like you got nothing done even though you feel exhausted AF.
I was very deliberate in choosing the 5 habits to include in Hustle Sanely 5™.
The 5 daily habits that make up HS5:
01 - Complete your Focus 3.
02 - Move for 30 minutes.
03 - Tidy for 15 minutes.
04 - Say or do one kind thing for yourself.
05 - Say or do one kind thing for someone else.
There is an episode on the podcast that is dedicated to explaining what Hustle Sanely 5™ is in great detail if you want to do a deeper dive into HS5, but I’m going to quickly explain how I use it to support me as a mom…because we love our concrete examples in this community!
As a new-ish mom, HS5 has been a lifesaver.
Hustle Sanely 5™ gives my days a very flexible structure to follow. I don’t feel like I’m flying by the seat of my pants and just hoping for the best every day.
HS5 helps me get my most important tasks each day done (Focus 3) – prioritizing is such a valuable skill, you guys. When you know which tasks are the most important to get done each day, you can give them your best time and energy and you’re also not getting to the end of the day finding yourself having fun around doing a bunch of not-so-important tasks all day long so feeling like you weren’t productive… that’s a crappy feeling.
HS5 helps me move my body in a way that makes sense for my season of life. Right now, weightlifting is my preferred method of movement so I head out to our workout shed and lift weights while Adam hangs out with Evvy or while she naps.
HS5 helps me keep our house tidy which equals more peace and don’t we all want that??? Here is a podcast episode to listen to if you want the scoop on my entire cleaning routine – Tidy for 15 strategies included. I have a weekl schedule for my tidy for 15 that I follow and I usually do it in the morning and Everly “helps” or plays independently in the area I’m tidying.
HS5 helps me make sure I’m meeting my own self-care needs every day. My HS5 kind thing for myself usually looks like reading in the sunshine while Evvy naps, speaking affirmations over myself during my morning routine, or taking a really vibey shower before my work day starts. What I do changes each day because I ask myself, “What would make you feel cared for today?” and I do that thing.
HS5 helps me make sure I’m showing up for the relationships that matter to me every day. My kind thing for someone else usually looks like Facetiming my grandparents so they can “have dinner” with Everly. Or having an at-home date night with my husband after Everly goes to bed. Or going on a walk Adam and Everly after I wrap up my work day.
I was especially grateful for HS5 during my first 6 weeks of being postpartum because everything felt like a whirlwind and really unpredictable. I was in survival mode and HS5 gave me a foundation to stand on every day. It was a concise list of habits that I could focus on to make sure that I was showing up for the important stuff – tasks, yes, but my mental health and relationships more importantly.
That’s my favorite thing about HS5 – you can use it to support you for literally ANY season you’re in. You can tweak it to make it work for you – it meets you where you’re at. HS5 helps me take care of myself and show up well for my life.
So again, I just want to reiterate that HS5 wasn’t created to cause you stress or make your to-do list longer. If you struggle with feeling guilty for not “completing “ Hustle Sanely 5, I challenge you to reframe how you’re thinking about it.
The purpose of HS5 isn’t to complete a list of habits so you can check them off as “done” – it’s meant to help you be more intentional and present in your daily life – to be peacefully productive. Stop viewing it as something else to do and look at it as a tool to help you get the most important stuff done while prioritizing your mental health and relationships.
I encourage you to figure out how you can do the habits in a way that supports your current season then build your daily schedule to include them.
HS5 is less about the habits themselves and more about your posture and intention in doing them. They are there to support you and ground you throughout the day. To help you create intentional pockets of pausing and peace so that the days don’t speed by you, leaving you wondering what just happened at the end of the day.
Hustle Sanely 5™ is a guide, not something to box you in.
I love being able to lay down at the end of every day and know that I got my important tasks done, moved my body, tidied our home, did some self-care, and showed up for my people. And you know what I really love? That I’m setting that example for Everly, too.
She’s gonna grow up seeing this way of life as normal – grow up in a peaceful environment that I hope she carries with her when she eventually is out on her own. What a gift, right?
04: Have designated quality time activities built into your day
Okay, this one is pretty simple and has honestly been such a game-changer for me. When I became a mom, I knew that I didn’t want my daughter to grow up thinking, “wow my mom is so busy all the time” – I want her to grow up knowing that she and her dad are my life’s biggest priorities. So I thought about what I could do to make sure that happened and the first thing that came to mind was not trying to be getting tasks done all the time.
Let me explain – I have designated quality time activities built into my day, where the only thing I am focused on during that time is being present with my daughter and/or husband.
I mentioned earlier that sometimes you gotta make the most of 5 minutes here and 10 minutes there to get stuff done as a mom – but I don’t want ALL of my minutes to be scurrying around to get things done. So in order to keep myself from falling into that, I have certain activities that are woven into our day-to-day life that are dedicated to me being present with my fam.
Having these designated quality time activities helps me to not feel like I constantly have my hand in 2 different pots. When I’m doing these quality time activities I’m not thinking about tasks that need to be done because I know I have time built into my day when I can do tasks and when I’m doing tasks that need to be done, I don’t feel guilty about not being present with my family in that moment because I know I have regular time built into my days when that is my focus.
Some of my quality time activities in this season are:
~ Bath time
~ Dinner time
~ Family walks
~ Post work 30-minute play block with Evvy
Think about things that you do every day and designate them as quality time activities – so that your focus is just on being present with your family and not trying to scurry around multitasking during those times to check little things off your to-do list.
05: Have things your kids can play with independently throughout the house
I don’t know about your kid, but Everly loves following me around the house! She’s pretty good about playing independently because we fostered that skill starting at a young age but she just likes to be in the same room as Adam or I.
So what I’ve done is created little play areas in each room of our house so that Evvy has things to do everywhere in our house so that while I’m doing something, she can be doing something next to me.
When Evvy was a baby, if there was stuff I needed to get done, I’d just babywear her while I worked on whatever it was that I needed to do…I LOVED my Solly wrap back in those days!
Anyway, I’m not one to think that it’s my job as a mom to keep my kid entertained all day every day…we’re big fans of independent play in our house so that means that I need to create an environment for that.
Here are some examples of what we have right now:
~ Kitchen: Magnetic letters on our dishwasher and a tupperware cabinet that she can safely play in
~ Living/dining room: A little shopping cart filled with all kinds of goodies + a bar cabinet that we don’t keep locked with shakers and mixing spoons that she can play with
~ Our bathroom: A basket of safe things she can play with like q-tips, bottles of my skincare products that are empty, etc.
So I don’t have like elaborate toy bins or anything – it’s just stuff that she enjoys playing with and that keeps her mind occupied while I’m trying to get stuff done in any area of our home.
Alright y’all, that’s what I’ve got for you today – 5 productivity tips for the moms. Let’s recap them really quick:
01: Embrace splitting up tasks into different blocks of time.
02: Use routines to save brain power.
03: Use Hustle Sanely 5 to give your days a flexible structure.
04: Have designated quality time activities built into your day.
05: Have things your kids can play with independently throughout the house.
I hope this blog post met all the moms where they’re at and left you feeling equipped to weave some peaceful productivity strategies into your life!
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