Lisa our resident fine living expert answers your questions each Thursday.
If you are a blogger, this is a great chance to have us feature and link to your blog!
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Is it possible to work outside the home, prepare healthy meals, be a good wife and mom and keep a clean house etc… all successfully? I fall off right at the healthy meal preparation part. I need some advice.
~Tina, Arizona
That being said, here some of my tips for packing it all into a twenty-four hour day.
Prioritize
To-do lists work well for things you actually want to do. Scheduling items on an appointment calendar with deadlines is a much more effective strategy. Think about it for a minute. If I asked you to pick me up at the airport for 3pm on Saturday, I am guessing that if you told me you would pick me up, then you wouldn’t leave me stranded.
Why? Well, because I suspect that “being reliable” is important to you and therefore high on your list of priorities. Not only that but, having an actual time and date for the task means that you don’t get to skip it over like you would if it were on a list of other unfavorable things that you may have to do. So at 3pm, I would expect to see you waiting at the curb with a warm smile, waiting to pick me up.
Apply this concept to home management. Schedule time for grocery shopping, meal planning and making healthy meals. Thanks to the era we live in, no longer do you have to thumb through several cookbooks for ideas for healthy recipes. Websites like SkinnyTaste allow users to navigate tons of yummy recipes for free!
Stephen Covey said it best when he said, “The key is not to prioritize your schedule but, schedule your priorities”.
Outsource
It’s a fallacy that you have to do it alone. Ask for help if you need it. It’s not a sign of weakness but rather a sign of strength to ask for help. Talk to nearby relatives and friends and ask them for help with the kids, running errands and completing small chores. If you don’t have relatives and friends that live nearby, have a candid conversation with your spouse and ask for help.
Talk about ways that he can help you manage what needs to get done. Resources like Care.com make it easy to hire nannies, cleaning services and even pet sitters from the convenience of your computer. If you are going to use this route, I highly encourage using pre-screening options as well as getting references from the job candidates.
Use the time that you earn from outsourcing to make healthy eating a priority. Batch cook meals when you have chunks of time (maybe nights or weekends). Plan your meals proactively instead of using a reactive approach to navigate meal time.
The shocking truth about home management is that you can’t do it all alone. So utilize these tips to help get on a path of doing what you can and doing it well.
Come back on Thursday for another edition of “Ask The Domestic Life Stylist”.
You can also tweet a question to Dlifestylist on Twitter or email me at ask{at}thedomesticlifestylist{dot}com. I will select one question to answer every Thursday.
If you are a blogger, this is a great chance to have us feature and link to your blog.
Lisa is a pharmacist turned fine living/travel writer & founder of The Domestic Life Stylist, following her passion for all things food, family and travel. Read more of her lifestyle tips on her blog, learn effective fine living strategies, family travel tips and expand your culinary horizons.
Great advice! I would have to keep a tight schedule when I worked when my kids were younger!
Thanks for all of the info.
Thanks for this information. I have no problem referring to online resources for evrything!
I love to-do-lists, honestly if I don’t have the reminder to help me I loose track of many things. I love care.com because I have found some great babysitters that way.
That is encouraging Rebecca. So many people are intimidated of using online resources to find child care. It definitely is an explorable tool that should not be overlooked.
These are great tips. I make my to do list on my cell phone with reminders. When the reminder goes off I don’t dismiss it until I have actually completed the item.
That’s a great idea Tammy. I love how technology can help people keep organized and focused. So many great devices and apps.
this is important for me because i’m a busy working mom. I typically have to do everything a sahm mom does, but also work a 40 hr week. its tough!
What is important and then on down the list.
Good advice. For me, I find that scheduling itself is a waste of time. I have a list of priorities in my head, and I know what needs to get done and what I would like to get done. Since I have so little time to do anything, I automatically prioritize while doing, rather than taking time to create written to-do lists that I don’t have time to check and checkmark later on.