Help! I need life hacks!

[InsolentAnnie]

Life has gone from one great big ball of nothingness to absolute craziness and I need help…! 7yo has a million after school activities, I have four jobs, and we have a baby too whose sole purpose in life seems to be to climb on / eat / throw the most dangerous-looking thing in the room. We are lucky to have family to help with childcare but as I work irregular hours (including some weekends) my brain is full of switching between jobs, making sure childcare is sorted for the baby, older child has all relevant kit / equipment for school and activities, everyone has clean clothes and we all eat relatively healthy at least most of the time (this includes making food on some days that we can all eat at different times - on one evening, for example, I eat at home, the baby eats at MIL’s, and older child and DH eat it from a Thermos en route between two of DC’s activities). This needs a lot of planning so that a) I don’t have to spend ages in the kitchen, and b) we don’t fall back on expensive ready meals (or pre-prepared sauces / veg etc).

I’m exhausted!! We’ve worked out we can just about afford a cleaner once a month, which will help a bit, but my mind is constantly buzzing with all the stuff and I can’t concentrate. DH does as much as he can but he also has a second job 1-2 evenings a week and is studying another qualification too. His commute is 1.5hrs as he cycles to save money so he’s often knackered as he’s up at 5. Trying to teach the older one to put their stuff away but they seem intent on leaving a trail of destruction behind them. They are also being assessed for ASC so this is not necessarily just them being lazy!

Any ideas to cut down on the mental load side of things in particular would be very helpful, because I feel like I’m clinging on with my fingertips!

Also a big and ruthless declutter would help.
You will need to identify time slots where you can do this, but the less you have the easier it is.
Don't tackle more than you have the time to.
Tackle the area that will make the biggest difference first.
It won't happen overnight but even as start will bring a little bit of order and every bit helps.

Immediately set up a place where things you need regularly ( keys etc) are returned to each time they've been used, and build that habit.
Have a basket for each person to unload bag contents into if they need swapping to begin with so you know where to look initially for things.

Lots of lists on whiteboards, which you can tick off. Takes some of the mental load off. You can get sheets you can stick to the fridge which are magnetic. Use one for each day, plan meals on them too. I know completely what you mean about the mental load!

And coloured pens for the whiteboard so a colour for each person

1. watch Marie Kondo on netflix / youtube etc.
2. take annual leave so that you can spend a couple of full days decluttering
3. remove everything you don't use very regularly and find spots for what's left, crucially the related things need to be together, e.g. all the kids craft in one place and there needs to be space to see everything
4. create chore chart for the kids, I do three things - make bed, clear own dishes to dishwasher and tidy up toys before bedtime Then you could move on to a system like TOMM previously posted.

On food - do you have a slow cooker? Prep meals the night before and put them in the slow cooker in the morning. Choose things that you can eat with wraps or bread so that some nights you just eat things that are already totally prepared. Have a 'picnic tea' of cold foods one night a week.

HTH, I feel your pain

I think it’s important to identify the problem before looking for the hacks. It doesn’t sound to me like you have too much on in terms of hours of work but you’re struggling with the mental load of fitting all the puzzle pieces together - basically there is too much to think about because you are switching between the different jobs and you have the other family members to get ready for stuff too. I have a huge mental load problem too. Im not sure I have any useful hacks but I’m currently on maternity leave and doing the following before I go back to work:

Making sure the kids all have the right amount of clothes and that they all fit and have space in their drawers;
Major declutter of the whole house, especially toys, this will reduce tidying if everything has its place and there is less stuff to get messed up;
For the mental load problem I’ve written a timetable up of who does what when and what kit they need (I have 3 school kids and a baby!);
I’ve also introduced a laundry timetable for myself so I do laundry twice a week in bulk rather than dribs and drabs everyday. Tuesdays and Fridays work for us;
Cooking wise, I’m doing menus each week of super easy stuff for the kids to eat after school. Think about what you’re making and what is the least effort to get done. For example Pasta and pasta sauce can be really healthy but you can make the sauce and freeze it and then the whole meal only takes 15 mins to make. Low sugar banana cake is a great snack. I’m making 3 per week for my brood but you could get away with 1-2 cakes.

@InvincibleInvisibility

When life isn't adding up, start subtracting

This!!

One hack which may help with the organising and the being late and the finding stuff is this.

Seven big peg hooks in a row, one for each day of the week. Cubby holes if you have space.

Above each day’s hook, a list of all activities and kit needed. And then that’s where the kit lives. So if it’s swimming on a Tuesday, as soon as the swimming stuff is dry, it goes back in the swimming bag and onto Tuesday’s peg. Cubs on a Thursday, cub uniform now lives on Thursday’s peg. Recorder lesson on a Monday? That’s where it lives. PE kits can move from peg to peg so they are hanging ready for the next lesson. And so on. School bags are hung on the peg for the next school day.

If your children are young, or are better with pictures, you can stick photos of all the things which should be on each day’s peg for them.

It won’t sort everything out, but it will help. You can look at the next day’s peg before you go to bed and see what is missing more easily than trying to gather it all up in the morning. And if you can make your mornings a tiny bit less panicked that may help cut through the brain fog.

If you can do it, as well as checking everything is there on the peg, sort out breakfast before you go to bed. Leave milk and juice in the fridge, but get out the bowls and spoons and plates and cereal, and whatever you usually have.

And get the children in the habit of being fully dressed and all ready before they have breakfast. Then once they are done you just grab everything from the peg and off you go. Gives you a bit of space to breathe.

Is your child not exhausted? If mine had to do 2 activities after school one after the other they would be absolutely knackered!

As it stands he does swimming one day, and football on a Sunday morning. That's plenty for now.

Pls don’t pay for a cleaner- sounds like you can’t really afford it and 1 day a month will make sod all difference.
Life hacks:
1 load of washing a Day- never wkends
Monday: kid 1s
Tuesday: kid 2a
Wednesday: adult colours
Thursday: adult white
Friday: bedding and towels
No ironing

Clean the bathroom as you run the kids bath
Hoover the stairs whilst they eat dinner
Clean the kitchen floor whilst they eat breakfast at the weekend.
Give up the idea of big blitz’s- it’s little and constant

I am also autistic and struggle with executive functioning, especially if things aren't linear and the same day-to-day. I have 3 kids, 1 diagnosed with asd and the other 2 are somewhere along the diagnosis pathway. Some things I do: I limit my kids out-of-school activities to one per week per child, any more than that and I can't keep up. I have a kallax unit in our hall and make sure I have a box for each persons shoes and another for each persons bags/ hats/ gloves, and all our coats get hung above them. I have one full set of school uniform per child per day plus a couple of spare odds and ends like tshirts just in case I get behind on laundry (which happens often). All kids socks get chucked in one big box and they can choose which ones they want to wear that day. I see ready meals and freezer meals as a tool to make my life easier- mushroom risotto in the oven is a go to meal here as its straight forward, takes less than 30 minutes and the leftovers can be reheated the next day. Beyond that I try not to make leftovers as they inevitably end up at the back of the fridge/ freezer till I chuck them because they were forgotten about. I make sure I have snacks available at all times so that if I have problems remembering we needed a quick meal, I can give the kids biscuits and a piece of fruit to keep them going till we can eat. I also keep cans of soup and baked beans in the cupboard for the same reason. I don't have the brain-focus to both cook healthy food from scratch AND to have a hectic lifestyle, hence the outsourcing of meals to canned food/ freezer etc. Most days the kids eat a healthy balanced diet, but these food tricks help me on the days when things are just too much.