mark your calendar…no, seriously

If you know me – or have taken the time to read the About Me page – then you know I used to be a working mom. Going from working to being a stay-at-home-mom has been one of the biggest adjustments of my entire life. I thought it was going to be so easy…relaxed…carefree. To all you other SAHMs, I apologize for ever thinking that it was any of those things.

One of the biggest struggles for me with this adjustment was time management. Surprising, right? I thought being at home all day meant that I would get so much done. The laundry would not spill out of the basket. The sink wouldn’t pile up with dishes. My nails would always be painted because what else would I do while the boys napped? Boyyyy was I  w r o n g.

I have spent lots of time trying to figure out what to do with my time. Not that I have a plethora of free time, but being at home I found that I was spending less quality time with my babies. Everyday was pretty much some combination of trying to get things done around the house, feeding the boys, cleaning up after the boys, running errands, and cramming in a shower whenever I got a chance. There was no routine. We were just going through the motions. My mind was never zoned in to one thing at a time. While I was playing monster trucks with Caleb, I was thinking about how I needed to unload the dishwasher. While I was unloading the dishwasher, I was thinking about how I needed to be playing monster trucks with Caleb. I couldn’t even tell my husband what I had done at the end of each day. Everything ran together like a blur.

Somewhere in the midst of a nightly Pinterest scroll, I found an article that described my situation to a T. I was not being intentional with my time. Wow. Here I was, spending all my days at home with my babies. What a blessing that is. A blessing that I was not taking full advantage of. But I didn’t know how to be intentional with my time. It’s so easy to tell yourself every morning that you are going to do better, be better, blah blah. But then the morning doesn’t go as planned and forget ‘intentional’… now it’s all about ‘survival.’

Well after too much time wasted, I researched how other SAHMs managed their time. I found that so many of them had one thing in common that worked well for them. Something so easy that I thought surely it couldn’t really work. But I tried anyways.

A written routine and a written calendar. That’s it. Seems too simple, right? Well it may not work for everyone, but it made a huge difference for my boys and me. It takes the ‘what all do I need to do today and when am I going to do it?’ frustration out of each day. I have it clearly written out and sitting on the counter where I see it all day. I have a daily hour-by-hour routine for each of the 3 of us as well as a weekly calendar so I know what the whole week looks like.

I found these free printables – there are so many to choose from! I have been using the weekly planner for several weeks now and I love it. I like being able to print a fresh one each week. Of course you can buy a planner, but this is like a fresh start every week. I keep up with everything we have going on for the week, anything important I need to get done, a list of things we need from the store, as well as meal planning for the week.

Anyways, I hope you all are doing wonderful and maybe this post will help at least one of you! I would love to hear your ideas on how you make your time more intentional. Have a great week and we will chat again soon 🙂

oh and here’s a picture of the boys at the lake this weekend. just for fun 🙂