If you work full time and are a lone parent then please give me all of your tips to stay organised.

[coodawoodashooda]

I swear I work harder over the weekend than at work. Nothing stays organised for long enough and I'm constantly writing lists. What else can I do to stay on top of things?

Make sure your kids pull their weight with household tasks.
I do minimum housework at weekends - so they are more enjoyable. I try to do most of it in the evenings on weekdays after work .

Lower your standards is the best advice I was given. Wash bedding and towels less often. Hoover less often. The bathroom will be fine if cleaned twice a week, not every day, for example. Do internet shopping and have milk delivered. Children can help with age appropriate tasks - strip their beds, bring washing to a central point, empty/fill a dishwasher, make their own sandwich lunch, change the water in the dog’s bowl, and link chores to pocket money or things they want that you would normally buy (comic, dancing lessons etc). Time limit your housework ie. Give yourself half an hour and do what you can.

I “do as I go” as much as I can.
For example - when the kids are having breakfast (they do cereal and toast themselves), I unload the dishwasher from the night before, put a load in the washing machine and empty the dryer from the night before. Wipe round the kitchen when kids are done eating. That way I’m coming home to an empty dishwasher and a finished wash load. I’ll Hoover through all of downstairs after dinner (luckily I have a tiny house) and fold the dry laundry before I go to bed.
Helps stay on top of the bigger jobs so they don’t pile up over the weekend. I used to be awful - Saturday would arrive and I’d have a week’s worth of laundry to do and it seemed like a mountain 🤯

I'm a single parent but also have a hybrid working pattern so I can use my WFH days to get my housework and laundry done on my breaks! I also do my food shop on one of those days so no need to do it at weekends. I have my kids get their own breakfast in the morning when I need to get myself ready and out the door too. Put school uniform out the night before so they get themselves dressed. All school and work bags and shoes next to the front door the night before so ready to put on and go. Make packed lunches the night before.

The bathroom will be fine if cleaned twice a week, not every day, for example.

I am here to tell you that your standards can go so much lower than this and everything will still be fine.

Seconding the online supermarket shop, it makes my life massively easier. I'm also a fan of doing some really simple dinners (like beans on toast).

I'm baffled at a world in which cleaning the bathroom twice a week constitutes lowering standards!!

Put a roll of J cloths or kitchen roll in a big kilner jar. Add castile soap and water to the bottom, or vinegar water washing up liquid. Jiggle it and leave it to soak in. When kids in Bath use one of these cloths to wipe over sink and toilet. Another for the floor.
Fill a dishmatic with similar, when in shower clean over with this. Squeegee dry.
Socks on kids hands, race to dust everything they can see and skirting boards for a quid.
Sunday, cook a chicken dinner and a bolagnaise in slow cooker. Next day rest of chicken with a pack of rice and sweetcorn chicken fried rice. Day after chilli and jackets. Wednesday wrap in a pan, thin layer of rest of chilli and cheese, wrap on top. Fry through, quasedillas for tea. Thursday rest of wraps with pre cooked chicken, ham and cheese, salad, or frozen fish fingers and salad. Friday, pizza night and tesco online delivery. Cook sausages, pasta and meatballs before bed. Saturday, sausage butties and pasta and meatball bake for tea with cheese and pasta sauce in oven for 20 mins with the pasta and meatballs.
All kids make own beds and put clothes in basket.
Kids race to pair socks for a quid.
Buy a glass cloth and a dust e cloth. You just slightly dampen these and whizz round windows and mirrors while child follows you with duster.
After bedtime story, you do ten minute hoover wherever, put clothes out for next day and school stuff. Then lights out.
Lunch sandwiches frozen and one out a day to defrost. I buy the mini water bottles save washing on bottles also slow cooker buy slow cooker liners save on cleaning.
Breakfast bars in the car or on the walk with a banana.
My lunches, salad pre bought, divided up with smoked salmon and a muller rice.

^^ Totally agree ... and who needs to vacuum every day?

Lists and diary notes everywhere.
Getting children/partners to help and make this non negotiable.
I’m sorry to say this as a lot of people will hate it but using Sunday evening to plan and get ahead of your schedule helps enormously.

The bathroom can be cleaned twice a month.
Dyson once a month. (No shoes or pets).

The Organised Mum Method - cleaning 30 mins a day.

Getting a job that involves some WFH has helped me. I can be in for deliveries and workpeople and can squeeze some batch cooking into my lunch hour.

If you have funds - a roomba, and an Alexa which helps me organise the lists and calendar - I was forever forgetting to write things down and missing things until I got one.

Tidying and washing up is done before bedtime so I have a bit of an evening in the weekday.

I've not cracked laundry yet though - forever running out of clothes!

Do you/can you finish earlier on a Friday? I found when I worked FT I would come home and blitz the place as fast as I could in a couple of hours. Then we’d have something easy for tea.
I would still need to do washing etc over the weekend, it just took the pressure off a bit.
This works better when the weather improves though.

Regarding chicken dinner, I mean chicken you cook in a bag, next to frozen cauli cheese, jacket potatoes and add yorkshire pud and gravy, plus frozen sweetcorn etc.

Get a slow cooker
Meal plan
Groceries delivered
Get a cleaner
Local laundrettes will collect dirty laundry and deliver it back washed, dried and folded

• huge declutter
• slow cooker
• one pot meals
• dishwasher
• no shoes in house
• grocery delivery online
• go online for everything if you can
• Routine even on holidays
• Multi-task in everything. I used to iron or clean or cook as my DC did their reading or music practice.
• Get a cleaner!

I suppose see what the source of mess, chaos and stress in your life and find shortcuts. For me as you can see I hate a messy home so that's the area I needed to focus and prioritise.

WFH definitely helps me as I can get a bit of laundry/dishwasher type stuff done while I'm making a brew or lunch, but I did used to manage somehow when I was in the office full time.

Definitely get the kids to help. My rule is that they have to bring the laundry to the kitchen and take it back upstairs. I will happily wash it, dry it, fold it but they have to help.

They also know that they have to help with some other things so occasionally empty the dishwasher, put the bins out, etc.

Dd2 has to help with the kit for her activities. It's one of the conditions that I have for doing activities.

I find it easier to have a food shop delivered.

Thanks everyone

Buy frozen vegetables & frozen fruit.
Then, there's no wastage.