Episode 30 – Time Saving Tips for Busy Moms – 3 Things You Can Do to Get Your Time Back - Intentional Edit

Busy family schedules, work, lots of activities and commitments, and so much more, have us running in all sorts of directions. It’s easy to become overwhelmed, burnt out and like you might “drop the ball” at any moment. Episode 30 of The Intentional Edit Podcast shares 3 easy things that you can do feel less stressed and save time.

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Full Episode Transcription:

Hey, they busy mamas the school years and full swinging activities are back in session. And we are as busy as ever. Of course, we want to get everything done on time and not drop the ball. Managing a family takes time and can be super stressful when we don’t have good systems in place. On this episode of the intentional edit podcast, I’m sharing three things that you can you to feel less stressed and save you on time. If you’re struggling with daily tasks, clutter organization, and finding any sort of work life balance, the intentional edit podcast is for you. It’s time to stop the chaos and live with more intention. I am Lauren and am here to help you declutter implement system and maximize routines that remove the overwhelming unorganized parts of life. Bringing simplicity to your home. Come on. It’s time to create a life you love.

(00:55):

Hey friends. Thanks for joining me for another episode of the intentional edit podcast. It is hard to believe we are already at episode 30. I feel like I just started doing this. And I wanted to say, thank you so much for listening and sharing the podcast with your friends and other people that you think would be helpful to. It has been really fun for me to connect with all of you and I love getting your messages through direct messages, hearing what you have to say and how these podcast episodes are helping. When you’re able to implement the things in your life. Last night, I did something that is pretty unusual for me because I am not a Facebook person. I actually was taking a class a couple weeks ago and we had to have the Facebook app to be part of a page. So I had to reinstall it on my phone because that’s not one of the apps that I use a lot.

(01:46):

I decided to take the plunge and start a Facebook group for the intentional edit podcast community. If you like to be on Facebook and you want to have that sense of community and learn more and share the struggles that you have and get some feedback from other people in the same situation, then head over there and join me. The Facebook page or the Facebook community for the intentional edit podcast is called declutter organize and create systems to simplify your home and life. You can find it over on Facebook. Again, I’ll tell you it’s called declutter organize and create systems to simplify your home life. I just made it yesterday. There’s no one on it yet. This is the first time that I’ve ever talked about it. It is specifically for podcast listeners, for people that are in situations like you, where you are desiring a more simplified life.

(02:39):

You know, that that is out there and you want to declutter your home and organize and create systems so that you can have a simplified life where you are less stressed and you can enjoy more head over to Facebook and join me in that community. And then if you are struggling with something or you’ve made a big accomplishment, share that with us, I really feel like it’ll be a place where we can interact with each other. And I want it to be a place where we support each other. I will be right in there commenting and giving you guys solutions for the things that you comment and the questions that you have. Hopefully it will turn into a fun place. It’s brand new. If you’re listening to this the day that it came out, you who could be even the first person to join, let’s move on and get to the point of this episode.

(03:24):

I know that you are a busy person. You have a lot going on a lot to manage and figure out day to day, hour to hour, week to week. What can you do to simplify? You hear me talk about this all the time. If you have listened to other episodes, systems are lifesavers. System are systems are the key to simplicity in your home. A home that stays organized and runs well has systems in place. There’s no way around it. You can preach about systems. All the time systems are the key to staying organized and having a home that works efficiently with the people in it. Systems save you time. They keep things going with very minimal effort. Once you’ve created a good quality system, it lasts long term. And you almost forget that you ever put the effort in to creating it because it is an effortless thing that makes your life so much easier.

(04:23):

You hear me saying systems, systems, good quality systems for everything in your home. And I say that because it works, I will never stop preaching about the importance of systems and healthy habits because systems that work become habits. And like I just said, you don’t even think about what you’re doing because it’s just something that’s part of your day when it’s part of a great system, you once had to create that. But now it’s something that is easy to do and it’s making your life easier. Systems are the key to getting your time back. There’s no way around that today. I wanted to share are just a couple things that you can do quickly while you’re on this journey to declutter and get organized and simplify your life and create the systems in your home. That will keep all of those things. I just mentioned long term.

(05:14):

What are some things you can do quickly when you haven’t decluttered yet? And you haven’t taken the time to implement the systems. That’s what we are to talk about today. First, I want to say, go back and listen to episode two. It’s about bringing balance and simplicity to your home strategies for a busy mom. Just like you. Episode two, go back and listen to that one because it will give you other ideas, more ideas of what I’m talking about today. It is extremely helpful and you will find things in it that apply to you just like you should. In every episode, if you are starting here, go back to the beginning, listen to the rest of the episodes. Because if you are a busy mom or a busy parent that has a lot going on, every episode has something beneficial that can apply in your life.

(06:02):

When you don’t have systems set up, or you only have a few set up, maybe you’re new in this journey of simplification. You’ve started a couple systems. You see them working, maybe you’re in a position where you thought you were implementing systems, but you didn’t get the foundation, right? You didn’t identify what you’re really struggling with. And you just kind of like willingly created the system and it’s not working for you. It’s not working properly. It’s not functioning. What can you do as a busy mom? You’re struggling to keep it together. You’re afraid you’re gonna drop the ball. You’re pulled in so many directions. Never have enough time. It’s hard to stay on top of everything you like. I just said, you don’t wanna drop the ball. You don’t want to mess up. You don’t wanna miss an activity, get your kid to school late, forget a lunch, forget something big at work, make a mistake, whatever it is, you wanna keep it together.

(06:51):

And you’re trying hard, but you’re stressed out to the max and you feel like there’s not enough time. We’re at a place right now. Most people at least are at a place where things are back in full swing, school activities, work sports. Some people like work schedules are now not working from home anymore or doing hybrid schedules, modified schedules. Things are still changing. The time commitment is pulling you. You’re still trying to figure out this new balance of what is the, how does the world function now? And what does that mean for you? Sports are back in session, extracurricular activities, gyms, fitness, places are open. You can, you can go back to classes in person and socialize with people. Restaurants. You can have a social life. Again, you can have date nights, things like that. Your calendars are full again. And for a lot of people, what I’m hearing is because there was so much time at home and so much time without that, there’s even more of a desire to really start doing the things that they didn’t do and that they missed out on for so long while we were a all shut down, depending on where you live.

(08:01):

Some people didn’t experience that because the shutdowns were so short and not very significant, but other people just now things are opening up and it’s like, you’re back full swing and schedules are jam packed. How do you manage that? What can you do? Of course I wanna help you. And I want you to be able to stay on top of everything without feeling stressed out to the max anymore. The first thing of these three things that I’m gonna tell you today, and this is in no particular order, they’re just things that I know can make a significant impact on how you manage your life and home. The first one is to tackle your schedule. Scheduling is huge efficiently. Using the time you have is game changing, gather all the calendars, every single calendar, every paper, every email, whatever you have, get it in one place and plug it into your calendar.

(08:58):

It doesn’t matter if you are using a digital calendar on your phone and computer, or if you still use a paper calendar, put everything in. If your kids came home with a paper that says these are when the book reports are due for the school year, there are six for the, the rest of the school year. If you plug those due dates in because you, that is something you need to know. If you have an email that is from your kid’s soccer coach, that is telling you, these are the game times. These are the practice times plug every single one of those into your calendar. So it’s done, you know, the entire season, if you have a child like mine, who does competitive dance, a lot of those scheduling is changing plug in a time for your calendar where each week or twice a week, where, you know, check the calendar for the dance studio, check the calendar for the tournament of the week.

(09:53):

You’re gonna know that things on set Saturdays happen between 9:00 AM and 8:00 PM. Any chunk of time could be the, a practice or a rehearsal or a tournament or game or whatever it is. You know, that that exists. You can have that time in your calendar, but it doesn’t have to be completely blocked off. It’s just there to show you yep. This day, the something could happen in this time. And then the week of, or a couple days before when the finalized schedules come out, that’s when you plug in the exact times. But this way, when you have that big chunk of time blocked off you don’t risk planning, something significant or making it so that you have to be in two places at once gather all those calendars, your work calendar. If you work outside of the home and you have very, a very detailed schedule, you don’t have to have that on your personal calendar, but have the big chunks of time.

(10:46):

If you’re traveling, that should be on the family calendar. You need to get everything in one place for your entire family. For everyone that you’re responsible for. If you have a elderly relative, or a family friend, or someone that you help you drive them to appointments or something like that, those things need to be on your calendar because every single thing you do every minute of the day takes up your time and you need to account for, to be efficient. Get it all in one place on a calendar where you have every single schedule, every due date, everything that is significant onto this one calendar. How are, how is this saving you time? Well, it’s, it’s basically allowing you to see everything at a quick glance, but I’m gonna give you a little bonus here. When you have everything like this plugged in, you can eliminate special trips from your life.

(11:40):

Stop making special trips to fill up your car with gas, to pick up a grocery order or go grocery, shopping to return books at the library to pick up something for a school project like supplies, poster, board, stop wasting time. When you have everything on a calendar, you can see that the first child gets dropped off at five 30 and the next child doesn’t get dropped off until six 30. In that hour, you don’t have time to get home and then get back. But you do have time to pick up your grocery order, or you do have time to swing by the dry cleaners. You can and fit things into your schedule. Maybe you that week go to a different grocery store because you’re on that side of town. Make things simple for you. When you are lacking in time, you have to create ways to make up for that time.

(12:28):

By not making special trips, you save yourself time, plug in the things that have to be done around your schedule that has definite times and is non-negotiable because you don’t have to pick up your groceries at a certain time. You don’t have to get gas at a certain time. All of those things can happen around your schedule. That is concrete, and can’t be moved when you have everything plugged into your schedule and you can see what is happening at a glance. Then when extra things pop up, it’s not a big deal. It’s it doesn’t have to be a huge stressor and a meltdown for you because you already know what’s happening. And then you can fit these little things in when you need them each week. I want you to get in the habit of looking at your calendar, making sure everything is on it.

(13:20):

That needs to be even when you plug in your schedule for a semester long or a year long of holidays or a year Cal school calendar. So, you know, when half days are, or days off or are, or special events at school, things come up and things do change. So spend some time before Monday morning when the week starts plug in the extra stuff that you need to have that week, that’s special that week. And that’s when at a glance, you see there’s a school project due this week. If you haven’t done it, then you add purchasing those supplies. Because those supplies you need to get. Those was either over the weekend or at the beginning of the week to turn in the project by Friday, there’s a party at school and you’re supposed to bring some kind of food for it, whatever you are in charge of plug that into your calendar.

(14:07):

When are you getting that? What about you have a birthday party this weekend or a family celebration, and you need to bring a gift. You can now log in these things, place an order, but take care of the things so that you are not running a ragged last minute, trying to figure out how you’re gonna get this done. If there’s a doctor’s appointment and you have to have paperwork that needs to be filled out on some kind of a system for the doctor’s appointment before you get there. When are you gonna do that? When is the 20 minute? It’s the block of time that you need to do that before the doctor’s appointment. Those are things that you can plug into your calendar closer to the day of, but not procrastinating so that it is the very last minute having a system to manage and facilitate your schedule is game changing.

(14:56):

I could do a whole episode just on calendars and scheduling and how to do that efficiently. I’ve given you some great tools there, but mainly get everything in one spot. Have everyone schedule that you are in charge of or help with in one place so that everyone in the family that’s old enough to understand calendars. And what goes on in a day can refer to this, know what’s going on. Know what the expectations are. Talk about these things with your family. This just popped into my mind. If any of you watched the TV show, ever little people, big world, Audrey and Jeremy roll off that. I don’t know if they call it like navigator’s council. They have a book, they have a couple books, but they have a book. It encourages you every week to sit down with your significant other and be connected. Stay on the same page, maybe like four or five questions that you ask weekly to stay on the same page with finances and commitments, scheduling goals, things like that.

(15:56):

The idea with the calendar is very similar to that. Their books and the idea behind what they do has helped thousands and thousands of people improve their communication and their relationships, and really have a good or build a good foundation to of open communication. When you are doing this in your home, something similar with the calendars, staying on the same page, setting everyone up for success for the week, managing the schedules. What’s going on, communicating with each other. Where do you need to have one parent pick up another drop off? Where do you have to divide and conquer? Can you be together? Where can family members support each other? Can someone pick up the slack for someone else? Where can you help out being on the same page, having communication and having your calendars efficient is huge. That’s one. The second thing that is also huge for some more than others.

(16:52):

The second thing I want you to do, if you feel like you have a lack of time is limit your screen time, put the phone down. I, if this is a struggle for you and for most people, it’s a struggle for you and you don’t even know it. If you are wasting time on your phone, you just have to put it down. You have to make a decision. Yes, you, at reminders, you can set screen time limits, things like that, and that can help you. You have to limit the aimlessly scrolling. If you enjoy being on Instagram and watching stories, and you have a few people that you find inspiration from, and it’s a positive experience. I’m not saying to stop it completely, or you use your phone for things that is helpful. You’re probably listening to this podcast on your phone right now, the phone can help us in so many ways.

(17:43):

It’s good for so many things, but if you are doing what all of these social media apps and games want you to do by aimlessly, scrolling and wasting your time, what they are designed to do is working. They don’t want you to set the phone down. They don’t want you to look away from the screen, go into your phone settings and check out your weekly screen time and see, because it divides it up by app or app category. And you can see what you’re actually doing and how you are wasting your time or not wasting it. Once you have done that little assessment and look to see where you’re spending your time and how many hours upon hours upon hours a day, you are on your screen, looking at the phones. You can see where you need to cut back and you can give yourself a true assessment of is seven hours on your phone.

(18:36):

A day too many is three hours, too many for different people. Just like everything else in life. There will be a balance for you that might be too much or too little for someone else, but I can almost guarantee if you, you are feeling like you don’t have enough time in the day, cutting back on screen time will significantly help you set parameters around what you think is reasonable and get in the habit of leaving your phone in a place where it’s not easy to grab it and just glance at it. The other thing you can do is if it’s so media and games or one or the other, that is the cause of the majority of your screen time, put all of those things into one specific folder on your phone and move that all the way to the farthest screen so that you have to swipe over a quite a few times to even access that little folder, press it, and then engage in those apps that are tempting you.

(19:36):

It seems simple, but once it’s done, you will catch yourself because you’re swiping over. You have to make more of an effort. The another thing you can do is log out of those apps. A lot of people only allow certain apps to be used on the we weekend or certain apps to be used during the week or at a certain time of day. You have to find something that works for you in terms of screen time. But definitely cutting back on the screen time will give you more time. If you don’t wanna do it completely use screen time and your favorite apps as a reward. If it’s something like Instagram stories where you can just watch them, that you don’t have to swipe or anything, you just, just press play. When you’re folding laundry. That’s a great thing to just press play, spend 10 minutes folding a load of laundry and putting it away at the same time that you are watching your Instagram stories.

(20:27):

It’s almost the same thing. At that point. As listening to a podcast, you can fold laundry, you can clean you. You do all kinds of thing. When you, when you’re listening to a podcast, because your eyes aren’t focused on watching a screen, come up with boundaries around your phone and your screen time, limit your screen time. That is the second thing that I am recommending. Lastly, for number three of these things that you can do to save time, get some of your time back. I want you to reassess what you’re saying yes. To evaluate what’s on your calendar. Number one was to get your calendar in order gather all your schedules. Well, now it’s time to take a look, be honest, evaluate your calendar. What is important to you? What is not important to you? What is on your calendar that you don’t wanna be doing?

(21:17):

And what can you eliminate? What are you saying yes. To that? You can really be saying no to think about that. What all obligations do you have? What have you volunteered for? What have you signed up for? Life goes through stages and phases. And if you are in a phase right now, because of the ages of your kids or the duties at your job, whatever it is, but it’s a busy phase cut back on some of those things that you’re volunteering on and that you’re signing up for maybe six months from now or a year from now, you will be at a different point where you can take on some of those things. You are probably hardest on yourself. You are thinking that you are going to let people down. If you don’t do things that you’ve always done. If you’ve always been the room parent, and you’ve always signed up for certain things at school, cutting back, if it’s the best thing for you and it will benefit you and your family is the best thing you can possibly do, no one is going to make you feel guilty about that.

(22:23):

If they do shame on them, someone else will step up to the plate and take care of it, this or for this event, or, you know, whatever that is. And it also gives other people an opportunity to do things that maybe they didn’t feel that they could do because the same person was always doing them year after year, whatever it is, birthday parties, all the time for your kids. If you don’t have to say yes to every single birthday party, if you family time is a priority to you, what are your priorities? What are the priorities for your family? What is most important? Think about those things and eliminate the unnecessary. Think about what you can start saying no to so that you give yourself some downtime. You give your family time together without distractions. See what that does. See how the, that changes things for you.

(23:11):

If you do that, honestly, you will get some time back, a little bonus I have for you today. When I was talking, I thought about this and I’m looking in my podcast catalog. It was episode 10, the biggest thing again, I said this at the beginning to change your life and get your time back is by having systems, good quality, quality systems that work in your home. I already mentioned another podcast episode that you should check out, but go listen to episode 10. It’s all about evening routines. In that episode, I tell you if there’s only one routine that I could add into a home and that’s all that you can manage right now, it is a good quality solid evening routine. Don’t think about routines like morning routines and evening routines as something that adds to your time and that it’s just something else to do.

(24:01):

It’s actually, when you have a good evening, it’s actually adding minutes to your day. Every single day, it’s giving you time back. I gave you the three things that you can do today, but go back and listen to episode 10 about evening routines implement an evening routine into your life. It will save you time and help you with your sanity. Let’s just go over the three things that we, we talked about today, the first one was tackling your schedule, getting all of your commitments, calendars, schedules, assignments, appointments, everything into one calendar, one place where you can look at a quick glance, know what’s coming up, know what you have going on each week and communicating with family so that everyone is on the same page. And everyone knows what to expect. Number two, limit your screen time, cut down on the wasted time, spent looking at your phone screen that you don’t need.

(24:58):

And the third thing is this goes back and relates to the calendar. But reassess, what is important to you and what you can say to stop saying yes to everything. If you are lacking time or feel like you are at your wits end, and don’t have enough time in the day start saying no to things that are not necessary. I hope that you can implement some of those things into your life and the changes when you make these little changes here and there, they add up to huge advantages for you to simplify and create a home that you are desiring for your family. Don’t forget to join the Facebook group that I just created last night for the intentional edit podcast community. The Facebook group is called declutter organize and create systems to simplify your home and life. You can head over there and ask questions.

(25:55):

That’s not a free pass to spend 45 minutes on Facebook. That Facebook group is designed to have a community area for you, a safe space, where you can share your star. And I can answer the questions. You can bounce ideas off of each other. It’s brand new. There are not any, any members as of the time that I am recording this podcast because I just created the Facebook group less than 15 hours ago. If you join, you’ll be one of the first members. If you are on social, then in, go on social for the purpose that you’re going onto. If you’re struggling with something significant, you’re overwhelmed with something. You have a question about getting organized or something that’s going on at home. You wanna ask the question in the Facebook group, ask it and get off. Then maybe the next day, go back and check with that purpose.

(26:47):

Time is wasted on your phones when you’re aimlessly scrolling, and there’s not a purpose for what you’re doing. You’re just sitting there wasting time. That’s going back to the told you to put your phone down. Uh, and then a I jump into, Hey, enjoy my Facebook group. I don’t want you to waste time in the Facebook group, but I do want you to find inspiration from it. I want it to be a positive thing where we can have this community Chi chat back and forth, giving you ideas that are simple, actionable, that you can implement quickly and find solutions for your home because you deserve to live a simplified life where you’re not stressed out all the time. So that’s what that is about. Head over there. Join the declutter, organize and create systems to simplify your home Facebook group. I will hopefully chat with you over there. Thanks again for listening to episode 30, I will meet you back here next week for another episode of the intentional edit at podcast.

(27:47):

Thank you for listening to the intentional edit podcast. If you found today’s episode valuable, tell your friends about it by taking a screenshot, sharing it on social and tagging me at intentional edit. I’ll be back soon with another episode in the meantime, find me@intentionaledit.com and be sure to follow intentional edit on social platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook, to ensure you catch future episodes, click the subscribe or follow button. Now I am grateful for a five star rating and review from you. Be sure to let me know what you liked about this episode and what you want me to cover in the future.

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Lauren is the founder of Intentional Edit, a home organization and lifestyle company focused on consciously editing to create efficient and organized spaces. Lauren believes that a functional home that looks and feels good has a positive influence on all aspects of life. Creating systems that allow for the home to function more efficiently, therefore, eliminating most of the clutter and chaos is her priority. While trends come and go organization is always in style!

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