Tips / Hacks for making daily schedule easier WFH Mum

[KentishTown83]

Looking for any life tips to help me feel better organised and less overwhelmed by plates spinning! Only been in my new job since just before Christmas so still getting used to my new routine and wondering if I'm missing a few tricks!

I work from home and so I try to do a few bits during the working day - eg laundry, but then find I'm struggling to compartmentalise my day properly. My home is a mess and I feel like there's never enough time for it all.

If you're an organised working mum can you share any little tips / hacks or systems you have in place in your home please?

I have the usual burdens of household chores, laundry, cleaning, tidying etc, online grocery order, meal planning, cooking, life admin, caring for toddler when not at nursery, nursery run, then my job (wfh 4 days a week), and trying to fit in 4 workouts.

My toddler is in nursery 4 days a week and I care for her on Fridays at home. Husband works long hours but is helpful with things like dishwasher, bins, putting away laundry and taking our toddler out, though rubbish at cooking.

One thing I wondered about was filling the washing machine every evening and setting it to come on first thing.

Any useful tips that have made your life easier??

My sister swears by block scheduling lunchtimes. So on Mondays she does child admin, Tuesdays she goes for a walk, Weds she does appointments for her, post office etc. Dump everything in a to do list for that day. It's such a women's problem though isn't it? Not many men seem to need to do this.

Compartmentalizing is essential. Stop beating yourself up while keeping all the plates spinning - focus on a few at a time. We do laundry at the weekend rather than trying to layer it in with work. Mon-Fri are (normally, mostly) gloriously free of laundry which is a huge load off, and frees up time for other stuff.

Sounds like your husband isn't pulling his weight. Your working day isn't for chores and neither is your lunch break, that's for lunch.

I wfh five days a week. I'm the opposite of PP and do laundry every day as then I find it more manageable. I tend to do a load in the morning one day and then the next in the evening by which time the first is dry and so on. Set aside half an hour each day for one/two/three specific tasks. A quick hoover. Clean the bathroom, mop downstairs floors etc. I tidy as I go and also have a helpful DH who empties the dishwasher each morning, cooks half and half etc.

Do the same thing with the dishwasher. Load the night before set to finish in the early morning so you can empty first thing before work.
Clothes for kids picked out the night before and school bags packed.
Meal planning and accurate food shopping was a game changer.

I was going to say load the washing machine and set on a timer. When I was wfh I’d give myself half an hour at the end of the day after work to whizz round and tidy up before DD came home from nursery. I also batch cook and make at least 3 portions of most meals. We tend to eat very similar things most of the time so I have a general 6 week meal plan but if we fancy something different then it’s no hassle to change it. Fresh stuff gets eaten just after the shoppings delivered and more freezer stash meals towards the end of the week. I have 3 big buckets for clean and dry washing so each bedroom has its own basket, I just through it in off the airer or out the tumble drier and deal with it when I have a few minutes.

my house is not in as good an order as I would like but I’ve had to learn to lower my standards a bit with 2 children now.

I also swear by lists!

I wfh and work very hard and fast to free up time to do housework, means evenings and weekends are much more relaxed. I put a load on first thing, take it out before school run and get it hung up, it's dry before bedtime. Everyone has a basket for clean clothes, I keep the ironing back until there's enough to be worth doing.

I do 4 days worth of food shopping at a time online as I CBA to menu plan for a week at a time, takes 5 minutes.

I'll give the bathroom a quick once over with those antibacterial wipes before jumping in the shower a few times a week.

Cordless or robot vacuum, shoes off indoors to minimise need to mop.

Go to the card shop once a year and bulk buy cards for every occasion, go to B and M and stock up on presents for kids parties.

Easy teas a few times a week, especially if dc have swimming lessons etc.

Once a month I send DH put woth the dc for a day / half day and blitz the cleaning with some music on.

Life admin I do when on Teams calls that I don't need to be on but have been required to attend.

These are helpful! I've signed up to Smart pass (Ocado) and don't know why I didn't do it sooner! It's fairly reasonable in terms of value and I'll get the slot I actually want!

Going to try and share shopping list with DH using any List app, and I always find the groceries order is a bug bear of mine.

I WFH and work full time. I use my slow cooker and lot and I put a load in the wash every night and on a timer so it finishes at getting up time in a morning.
Don't beat yourself up, your house doesn't have to be spotless.

I have 90 minutes between DD on her way to school and me on the laptop.

I put washing on the moment I get down in the morning before breakfast and the first load is ready to be hanged up, a second goes in and is dealt with around lunch time. I tidy up, make shopping lists, go shopping if necessary.

DH is in charge of rubbish and the dishwasher and other washing up, so that's not my problem.

I normally eat at the desk (sandwich) and use my lunch to read or even nap.

At 5pm I log off, deal with admin for school or clubs if something came in during the day. I cook from scratch most nights when I wfh and DH is normally in charge of dropping DD off at clubs if she has something going on in the late afternoon/evening.

Oh, and I have a cleaner who comes on my in-office days.

I have the same schedule. My main hack is to have a cleaner and not really bother with 'life admin'. It works for me!

Forgot to say, get dc on schools dinners. That's my biggest tip, but then I especially hate making packed lunch.

My top tip is that your DH needs to pull his weight.

You say he's "helpful" with a few tasks, but he is a grown adult who lives in the house and generates mess/laundry/housework! The jobs aren't solely yours, with his role just to be "helpful" occasionally. He needs to do sufficient chores to give you both equal amounts of free time.

Does he spend his lunch or his workday doing housework? Thought not.

Bit harsh, I also do the lions share of all thr housework, shopping and child care as my husband works really long hours too. It doesn't mean they are lazy and not pulling their weight

Yes it's interesting how people assume husband not pulling weight. I deem it fair that I do a little bit more round the home since he works far longer hours than me (and earns 5x the income - though that in itself does not equate to less household contribution). I also intend to use some of that income on outsourcing to a cleaner.

You describe him as being "helpful", which was what made it sound like he doesn't pull his weight.

You are working 4 days and doing childcare on the 5th day, so you are busy 5 days a week - full time.

Outside of that time, it should be a question of you and DH fairly sharing the housework between you (as a shared obligation), rather than housework being your job as the default with him "helping" from time to time.

Do you both have equal amounts of downtime?

As I said earlier, we definitely don't have equal amounts of downtime as he works much longer hours than me! Not sure why this is hard to understand!

Depends on your job but I have a fair number of meetings where I need to listen but don't need to talk or be on screen so I have wireless headphones and I wander round the house while listening, do things like put away laundry

1. We do Hello Fresh Monday to Friday for me and dh, for after the kids have gone to bed. The kids eat at 5 and we aren't hungry then. I batch make some things for them to have like cottage pies and what not. We then all eat together at weekends.

1. First thing I do when I log off at 4.30 is the dishes. That's last nights dinner things, my lunch stuff plus if we've had breakfast at home (kids go to breakfast club)

1. I always do laundry into washer or tumble dryer when waiting for the kettle to boil. If the basket is empty, I go round the house checking for things to go in. I have a couple of brews a day.

1. I have an alarm set for the time I leave to do the school pick up (I log back on after picking up), so set it ten mins earlier, which is when I do a mad dash round the living room and tidy it if there's anything out of place.

But our house is no show home. Far from it.

Cleaner once a week or once a fortnight to thoroughly clean bathrooms, kitchen, floors and windows.

Husband in charge of garden, bins, car, dishwasher.

You in charge of laundry and cooking. Do on-line grocery shop. And school admin. Parties.

You and dh share driving to extra curricular activities

Errands like dentist, hair cuts, optician on a Thursday

You and toddler tidy and dust horizontal surfaces on a Friday.

Family bed-making Saturday.

Relax together Sunday - no cleaning!

My DH works 50 hours a week plus commute and I WFH full time, so the bulk of the life admin & housework fall to me. My DC go to their DF's on a Friday, so I do everything in the week to have Saturday quality time with DH & Sunday quality time with DC.

It helps to start from a tidy, de-cluttered point as it's easier to keep on top of. I do 30 mins before work where I make the bed and put away anything upstairs that's out of place. Wipe over the bathroom & loo, then put a wash on as well as the dishwasher.

Start work swap washing into dryer on coffee break about 10am. On lunch, I empty the dishwasher and prep dinner.

DH finishes off dinner as he finishes earlier than me and he does a wipe down of the kitchen/hob each evening, whilst I do 30 mins downstairs folding clothes out the dryer, dust or put hoover over etc.

We both have the Ocado app on our phones and add whatever bits into it throughout the week. It always comes on a Wednesday evening. We chat over dinner on a Monday to plan meals for the next week.

My DC are tween/teen age, so they will also help by putting their own clothes away, keeping their rooms tidy,putting the bins out and setting the table etc.

Having a routine really reduces any stress and arguments and we all know what we're in charge of so I don't feel "put upon" as it's pretty fair.

I sometimes wonder if all the brain time thinking about organising things gets in the way of actually getting stuff done. I spend very little time thinking about systems and timetables for doing stuff, it all just sort of gets done as and when. Clearly in the minority with that, so I'm reading with interest for tips.

At my house, in the morning, sometimes we both tidy up the kitchen a bit while DD has breakfast. We take it in turns to take her to school and pick her up. If either of us WFH, we might stick a load of laundry on.

Whoever picks DD up usually makes dinner for us all to eat when we get home. One of us supervises the bath time while the other cleans up from dinner and has a bit of a tidy. In the evening sometimes we deal with whatever laundry putting away needs to be done.

Bathroom cleaning, bedding changing, dusting and hoovering, happens as and when it's needed, never on a schedule. Sometimes these might happen in a spare 10 minutes some time in the week, or sometimes at the weekend.

Whoever notices the bin is full takes it out. One of us shops for food whenever we get a chance. E.g. if DH is taking DD to meet a friend on Saturday afternoon, they might stop on the way home to get some food for the week.

A lot of good tips here! My only extras are:

1 Have a weekly admin night - we do Tuesday cos it suits us. DH and I have a running list of life admin shit and each tackle a few things every week rather than finding that small tasks creep into every day. Can be “nice admin” too like booking holidays!

2 Meal plan for 2 weeks at a time - it can be super vague (eg Wed - pasta, Thu - freezer) but even this gives some structure. Also we have ours on a magnetic whiteboard so it’s visible to us all and we use it like a mini calendar for outings, events, anyone working away, etc during those 2 weeks

Watching for others’ tips!

I put a wash on when I first wake up (normally sorted out what I’m washing the night before), DH clears up anything left from dinner the night before and either empties or puts dishwasher on, I have 10-15 minutes after dropping kids off before I start work so I hang up the washing, put away dry washing, run round the house tidying up and putting stuff away. If the washing machine wasn’t done I’ll then hang it in my lunch break.
I then focus on working in my work hours but might wipe the surfaces when I make cups of tea. If floors are looking awful I’ll hoover in my lunch break but I try not to.
i do a food order on a Tuesday or Wednesday to come on Thursday night and DH has to choose some meals too

It’s very boring but I’ve started doing a two week meal plan and booking both online shops/click and collects. It means meal planning seems to come round less often and then on the second week you just add anything else you’ve run out of. It’s not twice the work to do two weeks at once

My main tips are outsource what you can, if you can afford it!

We have a cleaner come every 2 weeks on my in-office day to deep clean so we only have to keep on top of things in-between. I absolutely love her.

Children have school dinners/main meal at nursery so they only need a quick tea on weeknights. They sit at the kitchen table to eat something like beans on toast or cheese, crackers and fruit so I can chat to them while I prep dinner for DH and I (we eat after DDs go to bed). Or I clean and tidy the kitchen as they're eating. DH does all washing up as I do all cooking.

Laundry we do all at the weekend in one day as find it hard to keep on top of during the week. We've got a tumble drier so this definitely helps! DH may put the odd load on during the week if something is needed to be cleaned immediately (like his rugby kit!)

One of us does bedtime for DDs and the other tidies up the house for 30 mins. We alternate so one night I'm on bedtime duty, the next night DH is.

Meal plan and batch cook so at least a couple of dinners a week are really easy....either something batch cooked from the freezer or something simple like jacket potatoes or fresh pasta and sauce.