10 Tips to Be an Organized Working Mom

This post may contain affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. You can find my full disclosure page here.

Note from Lisa: Is one of your goals to get more organized? Well, you’re in luck! Jennifer is here with a guest post, sharing 10 tips to help you be an organized working mom. These will help you stay on top of your deadlines and help prevent you from dropping essential balls that you’re juggling.

And here’s Jennifer…

Are you organized, or is your life an unorganized mess? Working mothers MUST be organized, even more so than stay-at-home moms, since they have less time to devote to the home each day.

Having an unorganized life brings stress, anxiety, and chaos, and things tend to fall apart. Working mothers may have the best intentions for being organized, but unless they have a plan and concrete ideas, their home will remain a place of chaos instead of being that place of peace and refuge that a working woman craves.

But it’s not a hopeless situation, and it is a very achievable goal to have. It may take some work at first, but after applying these concrete and efficient ideas, your home CAN be that place of peaceful refuge away from the busy rigors of working life that you face each day.

1) Plan Your Day The Night Before

When you are a working mother, it is hard to be spontaneous. That leads to things not getting accomplished, and you will fall behind and get worried and stressed out.

Take time the night before to prioritize the different tasks you will need to get done the next day. There are many different planners to choose from that will help you with this. I personally use the Clever Fox Ultimate Achievers Planner.

This has you list five crucial goals you have for the next 13 weeks. Then it has weekly goals to plan out and finally daily goals, including an hour by hour schedule. It really gets down to the nitty-gritty, and you can efficiently plan your day.

I highly recommend using this planner to keep your days perfectly planned. There are also apps you can download onto your phone. Just type in “How to be an organized working mother” to find them. These are great because they can alert you to tasks that need to get done that day.

Two apps that look helpful are Asana and Trello.

2) Plan Meals On The Weekend

Planning meals for the week can be complicated and a little time consuming, but it can save you time in the long run. Choosing to do this on the weekend (or other days if you work the weekend) will give you more time to think about healthy meals that you will serve.

By planning meals ahead, dinner preparations after work are a lot easier.

Note from Lisa: To really take the stress out of meal planning and become an ultimate organized working mom, give my annual meal plan a try!

3) Maximize The Weekend Or Your Days Off

Scheduling time on the weekend to do things that you enjoy is critical. It will help you to live life to the fullest and to appreciate the simple things in life. This can energize you and make your workweek easier, no matter what work may throw at you.

You should also schedule projects that you do not have time for on workdays. Writing them out on a schedule can keep you focused and help you get done what needs to get done. Using a planner would be great for this.

4) Wake Up Early

Waking up earlier then your family will give you uninterrupted time to get things done. Without children and your husband clamoring for your attention, you will have adequate time to get things done.

You can also plan some “Me Time” for yourself.

Cherish those early morning hours.

5) Delegate Jobs To Other Family Members

The less you have to do, the more efficient you will be at the tasks you must do yourself. It may seem easier to do those things yourself, but that cuts into time that you have for jobs that you can not delegate to others.

This will also teach your children a work ethic and responsibility by giving them age-appropriate tasks.

6) Practice Minimalism

Over time we can accumulate a lot of things. These things take up a lot of time and energy to manage. The less we have, the easier it will be to stay organized.

Take the time to go through things and get rid of the things that do not bring you joy or serve a practical purpose. If you haven’t used something in 6 months, you need to decide if you really need it.

7) Have Set Routines

Routines are vital for a working mother. The fewer decisions you have to make, the better. You will have more time and mental energy to get tasks accomplished.

It would help if you had a routine for everything, even small, simple things as having a set place for your keys where you will not have to go searching for them or a make-up routine you can do in 5 minutes.

Children also thrive on routine and rules. This will give them organizational skills to get things done, making them feel safe and secure.

8) Hire Help If You Can

The saying goes, “Many hands do lighter work.” This saying is true for even hired help. You should definitely consider this if your budget allows for it.

It could be someone to clean your house once a week or do some yard work. Or you can hire a mother’s helper to keep the kids occupied while you get things done. A pre-teen or teenager can do something like this. You can pay them for extra jobs around the house or watch their younger siblings if you have older children.

9) Get Ready In The Morning

Mornings can be hectic and stressful, especially with children. You should plan as much as you can the night before.

Help your children pack their backpacks or pick out clothes for the next day so that they are ready for them in the morning. You can pack lunches ahead so they can be grabbed when the time is to go.

Wake your children up at least an hour before they have to leave and have showers and baths done the night before. The less you have to do in the morning, the less hectic and stressful it will be for you.

10) Clean As You Go

The best way to stay on top of your housework is to clean as you go about your day. Clean up spills immediately and wipe off dirty handprints as you see them.

When it comes time for your weekly scheduled housecleaning, you will have far less to do, and you will get it done in much less time. Have a checklist of the small things you do each day and have a master checklist for all the other tasks that need to get done.

Enlist family to clean up after themselves and include them on the weekly cleaning day. You CAN have a clean house with minimal fuss and bother.

Become an Organized Working Mom

When you employ these ideas, you can be sure that you are making your life simpler and more efficient, which as a working mother you need

. You will have a less hectic and chaotic environment, and the peace that will come with that will impact each person in the home, especially for you as a hard-working woman.

Work smarter, not harder.

For more tips for getting it all done and becoming an organized working mom, check out Balancing Diapers and Deadlines.