How To Manage Your Time As A Work At Home Mom

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Is it really possible to balance being a work at home mom, loving your spouse, parenting your children WELL, while still holding on to all of your sanity??

Short answer… YES! It is possible.

Although it may not feel like it at all times (trust me, with a 3-year-old redhead I have BEEN there), you CAN totally manage your time well while still being there for your family!!

*This post contains affiliate links, meaning I may earn a small commission should you choose to purchase through post links. This is of course at no extra cost to you and helps keep the blog up and running.

No amount of money is ever worth sacrificing important time with your spouse and kids. I mean, what’s the point of making money as a work-at-home Mom if you never see them??

It hasn’t always been easy, but I am now a work at home mom and I still run my household, have a great marriage and am THERE for my daughter.

You can make money as a stay at home mom and still be there to love and invest into your family. Let me show you some practical ways how!

Here are some tips to help you manage your time as a work at home mom, WITHOUT sacrificing your family! I’ve even got some free printable schedules to help get you organized. 🙂

How I Became A Work At Home Mom

How did I finally make the transition from working outside the home to my ultimate goal of becoming a work at home mom?

I always dreamed of being a stay at home mom! I wanted to get married, have kids, and raise them at home.

For financial reasons, I worked part-time outside of the home the first couple of years after G (my daughter) was born. I wanted to work from home SO BAD but that wasn’t an option at the time. My mom watched her a day or two a week and I would work nights and weekends when my husband was home. It was TOUGH!

Right before G turned two, I felt God calling me to step back and become a full-time stay at home mom. We obeyed and money was tight but God made it work!

It was a wonderful year! So much growth happened for our whole family and I see 100% why God has us make that decision.

BUT my business mindset and passion for making money from home wouldn’t let me rest!

I prayed and God finally allowed an awesome work from home job opportunity to open up! 20 hours a week and totally doable!

However, as you can imagine, working from home while raising my daughter and being a good wife full time definitely had its challenges!

This pushed me to bust my rear end and figure out how to manage my time wisely! I didn’t want to neglect my family but still work well at this job God provided me with.

Since I’ve been on all sides of the coin (working outside the home and not working at all), I had already had things in place to make the transition easier!

I’m now making money online, WHILE being a full-time mom and wife which was my goal all along! And now I want to show you how you can too!

Easy & Practical Time Management Tips

Let’s look at some practical things you can do to have a healthy balance in work and family life!

1. Get A Calendar/Planner

One of the easiest things you can start doing today is planning out your week/month!

When we write things down, we are more likely to follow them. Eliminate stress by setting aside time each week to allot your time. Include everything from your work from home schedule, fun activities, grocery shopping, time with your husband, etc.

If you are needing a FREE planner option to save money or just get ya started with planning, I’ve got ya covered with these super cute and simple work-at-home-mom printable schedules!!

Grab Your Free Work At Home Mom Schedule Pack Here!!

You can print these out for free at home as needed! You’ll be getting daily, weekly, and monthly schedules, as well as project & goal trackers. PERFECT for the work at home mom. 😉

If you are looking to invest in a great planner I highly recommend the Happy Planner! I absolutely LOVE mine! They are fully customizable – the pages can be removed and added easily.

They sell all these different accessories packs + more to add to it:

• Sticker packs – I use the Mom style sticker pack and is AWESOME! It has fitness, faith, budgeting, play dates and tons more to decorate your planner with!
• Budgeting add-on pack – this is a 6-month budgeting pack that includes expense tracker, income trackers, monthly estimated/actual money spent, bill pay pages and more! This has personally helped us save lots of $$$ every month!
• Home Management packs/stickers – meal planning, grocery lists, cleaning charts and home organization to make being a work-at-home mom easier!

When you are done, simply tear out the pages and add new ones as needed. It definitely helps keep me on track in ALL areas! Work, meals, family time, date nights, budgeting, cleaning… you name it!

You can use it for years and years instead of buying a new planner every year!

2. Organize Your Priorities

What things are important for a work-at-home or stay-at-home mom, and what isn’t??

There are 168 hours in a week to get done what we need to! Let’s break down that number a little bit with these 5 categories:

• Sleep – Based on 8 hours a night, the average person sleeps 56 hours a week
• Work – In this case we are talking about work-at-home hours being 20-25 a week (part-time)
• Spiritual Growth – I wish all the hours could be devoted to this! But practically, I would plan for at least 1 hour a day to have quiet time with God. Plus an additional 3-5 hours at church depending on what activities your church hosts. So let’s say 12 hours a week!
• Cleaning – 10 hours a week should cover basic cleaning and laundry!
• Family Time (marriage and kids) – this leaves us with 65 hours to devote to our kids and spouse!

When you break it down it isn’t so bad! You will find you can fit most things under these 5 categories!

For example, date nights, play dates, and trips to the library would fall under family time! Laundry and picking up toys can go under cleaning. Your daily quiet time and time spent at church can fall under spiritual growth.

Feel free to add in as many categories as you need & adjust times to fit your life! You can add in meetings, ball games, etc. These things may not be classified under those categories or need their own separate category!

Something else that helps me balance my time and priorities when it comes to work & family is to make a Quad Chart! Place any activity that comes your way on there to see what needs to be done and what can wait.

Example Of Priority Quad Chart:

Things like spending time with your spouse and kids are important and urgent! They are who God called you to love unconditionally. 🙂

Working, cleaning your house and creating a schedule are all very important but not urgent. Your life will continue going on without these if that happens for a time, but they are important to do!

Let’s say you get unexpected phone calls, or your child runs up to you needing something or something similar. These things are quick/urgent but not necessarily something you plan for as “important.”

Lastly, the time-wasters. These things are NOT urgent and are NOT important. I catch myself doing these things from time to time but they shouldn’t rank high on my priority list. There are other, WAY more important things to occupy my time!

3. Create An Easy To Follow Schedule

Working from home definitely differs from being a stay at home mom with little kids, and the schedule will, of course, look different!

Creating a schedule is an easy way to keep your time on track. You tell your time where to go, not the other way around! I work hard to get all my hours done during the week so weekends are open for family only time!

Use this one simple rule to COMPLETELY change how you create your work-from-home mom schedule!

But also remember that life happens! The beauty of working from home means you can create your own hours.

Some general tips to follow when creating your schedule:

• Get most of your “mom duties” done in the morning – cleaning, picking up, other chores
• Schedule an hour or two of work before lunch – depending on how old your kids are, you may be able to get away with some work while they play independently.
• Utilize time when your kids are sleeping – for me, I work during naps* and after bedtime, because I am a night owl. If you are a morning person, I would suggest getting a good chunk of work done in the morning!
• Leave your evenings for FAMILY TIME ONLY – put the phones away and enjoy those 2-3 hours each evening connecting with them! If you haven’t already, go grab my free family printables pack – 30 ways to connect with your spouse and family to give you some ideas!

When you keep these tips in mind, you’ll find your weeks running much smoother and leaving you feeling well-balanced!

*If your child doesn’t nap, get your work-at-home done in the mornings, an hour or two during the day while they have independent play, and after bedtime.

Don’t Neglect Your Spiritual Growth

Notice how that list of priorities earlier mentioned spiritual growth?? I’ll tell you now… we 100% will not have the energy and motivation to keep going and if we are not in daily communication with God!’

Do not neglect your spiritual growth at the expense of sleep, your job and even your family!

When we put our relationship with God first, we can succeed in those areas and are better equipped for them. You can’t keep pouring into everything else when your cup is empty!

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

JOHN 4:13-14

Make sure YOU are being filled daily – SO THAT you can love your family well and work with a cheerful heart.

Are you a stay at home momma? Check out how to make a stay at home mom schedule that actually WORKS!

Happy time managing! Now you can feel confident knowing how to balance your time to get things done and still be there to love your families! 🙂

Which tip stuck out most to you? Let me know in the comments!!

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