How to stay organized as a working mum

We know how busy you are. We know because we are like you. What do you have on your plate? So much, right?! How do you keep up?! So hard, right?! Well, no need to worry any longer! Fée Marraine is here to help with our five top tips on how to stay organized as a working mum!

1. Organize your home

You know what they say. Your mess stays in your room but the rest of the house is immaculate. What a joke! This is never true! The mess of your room will inevitably spread to your entire house! Especially when you have kids. So what do you do when your house is so messy you can’t walk without stepping on legos? You gather the team, as in hubby and kids, and you go through a gigantic decluttering and reorganizing of your home. Room by room. Sort toys, books and clothes. Donate what can be donated. Toss what is broken or can no longer be used. Store what you want to keep for later. Get boxes, shelves and storage units. No need to do it all in one day. Take as long as you need. At the end, your house will feel like you never had kids. Until you need to do it all again. But next time, you will already know how to proceed. And you will already have a system.

2. Organize your time

With the kids, work, extracurricular activities, your husband, you probably had a family routine that helps you staying organized. You know what happens when in what order. Yet, do you make the most of every single tiny minute? You don’t know it yet but you could use some of them. So what do you do? Well, you sit down with your partner and review that family routine and find ways to make it more efficient. There are always ways. What about picking up your son after his piano lesson? And your daughter after her basketball class? Both on Thursday night, both on your husband’s way back from work. Your kids might have to wait 5 minutes for their father to come but it will save you almost an hour that you would have dedicated to just driving there and back.

3. Organize your housekeeping tasks

We have talked about the mental load already. It is there and it makes you clean after everyone. How exhausting is that?! Why should you clean everyone else’s mess? How unfair is that?! You are not the family maid. Yes, you are right! Stop it! And delegate. List all your house daily chores. Crate a table with names if necessary. But don’t keep it all for yourself. Have everyone do a bit everyday. You are not the only one living in this house so everyone needs to contribute. It will also take some of the workload off your shoulder and will give you more time for more interesting things!

4. Organize your finance

While the finance industry is male dominated, at home, women are managing the family finances. Odd, right? Just like cuisine. Chefs are men, cooks are women. Moving on. Managing family finances is not easy. You will need your partners help. Both of you need to be aware of what is going on so that both can help in the best they can. Using simple money-management tips can really help save a lot of money. Sometimes, just a tiny things might make the difference: turn of the light when you leave a room, switch off all plugs when you don’t use appliances, make lunch at home instead of buying ready made meals. Small changes and keeping track of your finances will help you save money and spend it on fun things to do with your family!

5. Organize your family routine

Alarm at 7am, waking up the kids, making sure they shower and dress up, preparing breakfast, packing lunch, driving them to school, heading to work. And that is just the morning. Evenings are not that different. Getting back from work, picking up the kids, driving them to their activities, picking them up, back home, homework, dinner, etc. How busy is that schedule?! Whether it’s shared 50-50 with your husband, it is still a lot of work. Yet, the most important thing remain that everyone knows what they have to do and when. A simple schedule stuck on the fridge can help keep track of where people need to be when and organize your time around that.

Feeling better now? And when all that is done, feel free to go have a drink with your girls!