The Busy Mom's Guide to Prioritizing and Time Blocking

Hey, my name is Teresa Hildebrand and this is Organized Chaos. We take a deep dive into living with intentionality, focusing on what's important in our lives so we can truly feel our best. It may feel chaotic at times, but with a little organization, the right mindset and a ton of self-love, we can still thrive. Join me as we talk to other busy moms and experts who will share tips and strategies to help you reach your goals. Hope you enjoy this episode of Organized Chaos. Now on to the show. Hey friends, welcome to this episode of Organized Chaos. Today we're going to be diving into time management systems. I want to talk about this because we all want to manage our time wisely, especially us busy moms. We're going to dive in and explore three different systems to help moms make the most out of their days. So, because, as moms, we wear many hats and managing our time wisely is crucial for achieving our goals while still having quality time with our favorite people. There are a lot of different time management systems, but I wanted to share these three because I use a combination of two of them and another one I just wanted to offer up to you guys so that you can maybe try it out. So, basically, I'm sharing this so that you can find your perfect fit, okay, so I want to start off with something that I've actually talked about a lot before, because it's really nailing down your priorities. This is the 80-20 rule, the Pareto principle. So this time management system is basically something that teaches us to focus on 20% of the tasks that yield 80% of the results, so we can identify those kind of like high impact tasks, prioritize them and then align our efforts with our most significant goals and, basically, we can free up time and energy for the things that truly matter. And this isn't something that you just use once. You do it one time and then you have to continually do it, maybe quarterly or semi-annually or even more often than that, because our lives change and we have different life events and seasons change. So this is just something that will give you the ability to, kind of like, come back and ground yourself and reprioritize. The way that I use this and I think it's the most effective way to use it is to track. First, track your activities, track the things that you're doing on a daily basis and review it and look at some of the things that you're doing that maybe you don't have to do anymore or it doesn't have to be done by you. So, for example, I was cleaning my house, right, so we gotta clean the house, we gotta keep up with the housework. However, I don't necessarily have to do that. So one, there's three other people in the family, so we can divvy up some of those tasks, but also I can have somebody come over and pay them to clean the house. So I do that every other week. I'm actually thinking of doing it every week because now we have a puppy and we have more messes. So that's kind of the thing that I looked at to see okay, does this really have to be done by me? Now, I have my preferences. I'm kind of a clean freak and there's certain ways that I like to clean. So this was kind of a challenge for me, but for you, it might not be your like, I don't care. I just want my house to be somewhat clean and in order and I don't wanna have to do it because I'm busy doing a project or whatever. So kind of looking at those things that really didn't need to be done, that honestly, like they weren't gonna move the needle forward in my business. However, if it got done by somebody else, I would have the peace of mind that my house is in an absolute mess and that wouldn't be clogging up my mind and now I can focus on work. So you also wanna take a look at this from many areas of your life. So that was a task that was like a home task, and I also have to look at some of the things that I'm doing in my business that maybe don't need to be done and I can, or I can, pass it on to someone else. So I really have to be real with myself and track all of the things that I'm doing and, if you wanna get deeper into it, see how long it's taking you. See how long each task is taking you so you can add up the amount of time that you're going to save by either completely eliminating it from your task list or passing it on to someone else. This may be one of the most important exercises you do to start to manage your time better. Okay, the next time management system is the time blocking method. So this is a really popular method. I mean, it's really a game changer for us busy moms and this is something where you create blocks of time for a specific task in activities. So we kind of gain focus and avoid the chaos of multitasking, because I think we all know now that multitasking just doesn't exist. I mean, you can't really multitask and be efficient at the same time. And this is all about intentionality. So you are blocking specific times for your work, family self-care, personal development, and that gives us the ability to be present and productive in each aspect of our lives. Really, what it comes down to is time blocking is all about creating balance and just fostering a sense of accomplishment at the end of each day, so you don't feel like you're completely defeated and you lack energy and you just feel like you're moving backwards rather than forwards. And you can combine the 80-20 rule with time blocking. I think that's been kind of like this perfect marriage that I have been able to really dial down on, because, first off, I have my priorities, I know exactly what it is that I need to work on, and now I'm just blocking that time for intentional work, whether it's actual business or spending quality time with my family or even, you know, making time for myself. So that's how I've been really able to create this perfect flow for each day. So the next time management system is called the Eisenhower Matrix, and you've probably done this before, maybe in school. It's very similar to the SWOT analysis, but this method helps us differentiate between urgent and important tasks, so ultimately streamlining your decision making process. Now, with this, you can categorize your to-do lists into four quadrants so urgent and important, important but not urgent, urgent but not important and neither urgent nor important. So this is another form of prioritizing, or the 80-20 rule, but if you're a more visual person, this may be better for you. But basically it guides you on how to make decisions, on what tasks to tackle first and how to delegate or eliminate tasks in each quadrant. This may be pretty eye-opening, because you really have to sit down and think of whether or not something is either urgent, important or not urgent or important at all. So you may be putting a lot of things at the beginning in the urgent quadrant, right In the urgent and important quadrant, but as you continue to make your time management systems better and you start to see results on how this can really help you, more of the task will fall into the fourth quadrant of not urgent and not important. Now, this is a skill to build up and it's going to take some time to really find your perfect fit, but once you do, it's going to free up your schedule, it will reduce overwhelm and you're going to be able to experience that increased productivity and just fulfillment in the work that you're doing. And there's no one-size-fits-all approach, so just experiment with these techniques and find what really works best for you. Now, if you're struggling with time management, let me know which one of these methods you're going to try first. You don't have to try them all Like I said, this is kind of like a skill to build up but at least try one and let me know how it goes. So that's all I have for you today. So thank you so much for tuning in to Organize Chaos, and if you found today's episode to be valuable, please share it with your fellow Mompreneurs, who can benefit from just kind of mastering their time. I greatly appreciate your support and I can't wait to connect with you again. Remember you've got this and I believe in you. I hope you have an amazing day and I will see you next week.