Seven tips that will help you organize and get more time alone for you

Time alone for us is very important and necessary, but children and daily responsibilities make it sometimes impossible to have a quality time a day. Not surprisingly, according to a survey, mothers only have 32 minutes a day for ourselves. And that is very little time to relax and take care of ourselves, something fundamental if we want to feel good, happy and be better mothers.

The hours of the day are what they are and we cannot multiply them. But yes we can try to organize to take advantage of them better, so that at the end of the day we can have more time for ourselves. A relaxing bath, a coffee and a book, a conversation with friends ... Decide how you prefer to spend your time because we are going to give you the keys so you can do it!

Take advantage of your energy levels

Our energy is changing throughout the day, so that we don't always have the same desire and willingness to do things. If you have slept well, you may feel rested and full in the morning, and your energy level will decline as the day progresses.

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Try to classify all the tasks you have to do based on the effort and concentration that will be required. In this sense, those more complex tasks perform them in the hours of the day in which you have more energy, and leave the lighter tasks for your low energy hours.

In this way, you will get that your day is better used and probably time will cover you more, having a positive impact on your emotional well-being.

Manage your attention

Whether we work outside the home or not, it is very important put all our attention on what we have to do at each given moment. So, when you are at work, focus on your job responsibilities, and when you are playing with your children, put all your senses at that particular moment.

Do not use your head as a task reminder

Surely you have in your head a lot of tasks pending, whether from work or your personal life. But even if you have the feeling of having everything "under control" the memory fails, so it is advisable to make a list of tasks on paper and give them a priority.

These are my recommendations so that the pending tasks are not piled up:

  • Write down on the calendar those tasks that have an objective date (for example, take your child to the dentist for review).
  • Do not leave anything for the last moment, because hurry and stress are not good companions (for example, leave the books of the next course ready before going on vacation)
  • Give all your tasks an importance and priority, and go doing them according to those parameters.
  • Be aware that we cannot always reach everything, so there will be days when things are left undone. The important thing in these cases is to feel good about yourself.

Use a checklist for your routine tasks

There are always routine tasks that are repeated week after week and what we have to do. Choosing the best time to carry them out is key so that we don't forget anything and make the best use of time.

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For this, I recommend make a list of these tasks and check it regularly throughout the week. Review task by task and ask yourself: "Is today the best time to carry it out?" If the answer is YES, do not postpone it.

For example: Make the weekly purchase. If you are postponing the time to make the weekly purchase, you will probably end up spending more time making small daily emergency purchases, realizing that you do not have that ingredient you need to prepare the meal. In this sense, if you dedicate a single day to make the purchase for the whole week, your pantry will be provided with everything you will need to prepare the family menu over several days.

Proactively manage interruptions

Identify what are the things that distract you the most (phone calls, whatsApp messages, social networks ...) and attend them only when you consider. You should keep in mind that an interruption does not always have to be addressed at the same time in which it occurs.

For example: If you are making the purchase and you receive a non-urgent phone call, it is preferable that you tell your caller that you will call him later. Because if your attention is diverted to the telephone conversation, the moment of making the purchase will not only be lengthened, but you may even forget to buy something important and you should return later, dedicating more time to your task at the end.

Productivity in the kitchen

Cooking is one of the tasks of the house that require more time, and unless it is an activity that you like, relax and do with pleasure, I recommend you organize effectively so that it takes you as little time as possible.

A few days ago we talked about batch cooking, an anglicism used to refer to the action of cook in a few hours for the whole week. Although initially the idea may seem complicated to carry out, the truth is that preparing a weekly lunch and dinner menu for the whole family, maximizing the resources we have in the kitchen, is a wonderful way to save time.

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Shared responsibilities and learn to delegate

Although these tips are focused on gaining time for ourselves, it does not mean that all the tasks I have reviewed are typical of the mothers. Parents can also apply the same adviceWell, we always start from the basis that men and women work at home in an equitable way.

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It is also important to know how to delegate certain tasks, something that in many occasions costs us but that it is essential to do, to obtain that precious time of which we speak.

For this, it is necessary the fluid and sincere communication with our couple and family, as well as the education of our children in the promotion of their autonomy. In this way, everyone will know at all times what responsibilities they have or how they can help at home, without the need for us to be indicating it at every moment.

In summary, the hours of the day cannot be multiplied, but yes we can try to organize ourselves better so that time covers us more. In this way, it is likely that at the end of the day you have managed to "scratch" several extra minutes, and thus decide on what we want to invest.

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