Being a mom is the most important and the most difficult role in the life of any woman. Suddenly, your baby becomes the most important person in your life and you couldn’t be happier. On the other hand, because you get so absorbed in motherhood, being organized becomes a problem. Worry not, we give you a list of useful tips to help you get organized around the house.
Clean as you go
When you have some time, try to clean a thing or two around you; it will make the ‘big’ cleaning job much easier later on. When you’re watching TV and commercials start, take that time to take cups and plates from the coffee table to the kitchen, or to clean a shelf while you’re there. When you’re in a bathroom, wipe the sink or throw out an empty shampoo bottle. Another useful tip is to clean while you prepare food: measuring cups, plastic bowls, and knives are easier to clean immediately than after a couple of hours have passed.
Plan your meals
You know the drill: you get home, starving, and have no idea what you could or should cook. Not just that, but the kids are hungry too and ordering pizza is out of the question. This is where meal planning steps in: you only need about half an hour to come up with a nice weekly menu so you never run out of ideas. This way, your trips to the grocery store won’t be a nightmare as you’ll know what groceries you’ll need for dinner every night of that week. You will also notice that your home has become much calmer because you are calmer too, as you don’t have to come up with a meal plan but just put it into action.
Make a checklist
Sometimes it’s easy to forget all the things we have to do every day, let alone when it comes to cleaning the house. Some of the things may just slip your mind or you might think you’ve already done them when in reality you didn’t. A great way to overcome this ‘drawback’ of motherhood is to have a cleaning checklist pinned on a board or stuck to your fridge door. This way you can always tick something that you’ve already done, or you can ‘assign’ certain chores to somebody else (why should you be the only one who cleans, right?).
Cooking tips
Hand in hand with meal planning comes a good advice of our grandmothers: always have a half-prepared meal in the fridge. When you’re cooking, cook more rice than you need for your present meal and leave it in the fridge for later. Also, you can chop and bag more fruit and vegetables than you need at the moment so you can save time when you need them for another meal. In addition to saving time (and nerves), this will help you keep a piece of mind because you know that even if you’re not there, your family will be able to prepare a healthy and delicious meal without much effort.
Make more room
When children enter the picture, your life will inevitably change, and all you can do is adapt. On the other hand, children grow so fast and before you know it, they will grow out of their clothes and their old toys will become boring. If you don’t want to pile up unnecessary things, you can always find some affordable storage facilities and use them to store all the things you don’t need in your household at the moment: toys, clothes, workout gear, and even something bulkier like old furniture.
Have your children help you
Of course, this doesn’t mean that your baby should be doing the dishes with you, but as your children get older, it’s a great way to help them grow into independent and capable people. Having your children help you around is also a good way to speed up the cleaning process: make a competition of who can clean their room the fastest, time them and see who can put all their toys in the crate, or have them help you with your cooking by stirring the pot or setting the table. As they grow, they will find it easy to help you with some of the more difficult chores and they will be able to take care of themselves too.
When you remember your childhood, you probably don’t remember if the rug was vacuumed or the shelves were dusty. You can always dust and clean, but playing with your child is something you will wish you did more often later on in life. What you remember most is the feeling of happiness and being carefree, so try to give the same to your child.
Helen Bradford
Helen is a student of architecture and writes about Interior Designing.
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Thanks for sharing the tips! Definitely a nice tips for all the mothers out there, though I have not experience yet but definitely excited about it =P
These are great tips even for people who do not have kids. I am a clean as you go type of person. I think that it is easier to clean as you go then to try and get it all done later. Thank you for sharing.
i really need to plan my meals! i find this to be one of the most hardest things to do… huhu
I’m not a mother yet, but I think these tips are helpful when I’m one in the future. I love reading your posts, it’s very informative 🙂
I’m a new mommy and I find these tips so helpful. This will definitely help me when my baby becomes a toddler, she is growing so fast and things became out of control sometimes because she needed our attention much than anything else. Thanks I’ve got new insights!
I am single and me too practise the same things just to make sure my house is well kept. But lately I have been lazy and everything pile up. Now I B.C. problem where to start and when. Discipline is important
I find it so easy to forget about organisation around the house so these are some great tips that I think will be really helpful.
A working mother myself, these are what I do day in and out. But I do allow certain level of mess at home just to keep my sanity haha
These are absolutely great tips for anyone, not just for the ones with a family to look after. I will follow some of them, I definitely need to be more organised!
I’m not a mother yet but these tips would definitely come in handy when I finally become one. Beautiful and effective tips.
It’s definitely not easy being a mom. Your tips are good advice for moms like me.
Wonderful tips for parents to be and new parents. In fact, these are useful to anyone who has a home. Rental houses are a different matter. LOL
I know is not easy to have a turn from bachelor tp a mother especially on the houework chaos.
Thanks for the guidance tips
I’m not a parent and feel these tips are still useful for me – I need structure and check lists in my life! Good prep before I have kids!!
Staying organised around the house can be tough as there’s so just many things to keep on top of. I find meal planning really helps to save time in the long run as well as food waste!
These are some really good tips..i do not have kids as yet but will definitely try these for regular organizing too..
Organisation is surely a key to a more stressfree life, especially of you have kids. My organisation skills are really poor, though. XD
I know how my mum’s routine was like and I think she practiced all you have mentioned above. And now, I am continuing what she did – even though I don’t have children of my own – planning my day, my meals etc. Hehe
Great tips! I just wrote a blog post about meal prepping and how important it is to help you reach your weight loss goals. Obviously, it’s important to help mom’s stay organized, too. I agree with you -clean as you go!
These are all great tips! You are so right, motherhood is one of the most wonderful and challenging role a woman can have. ?
I remember my mom always making us help her while growing up and it was great time spent together. Yes!!! I loved that.
Some yop tips here – clean as you go is a big one as it makes for much lighter work later on x
I enjoyed reading your write up. Though I am not a mom but I have seen other mothers going through all you have mentioned. You tips will help them organize better.
These are awesome tips! My mom trained us to help in the house even we have our own nannies. Now we are benefiting on those trainings, and can live our own easily.
I think this is a great plan even for non parents like me. great points listed.
I’m totally with you, especially on having children help out! I think it’s so important in teaching responsibility!
Becoming a mum must be one of the most beautiful moments of your life. Then I see the need for a check list… so you won’t complletely forget about the world that still exists around you 🙂
I don’t have any children myself but these are all really good tips. I like the idea of them helping out around the house, cleaning after yourself is a valuable lesson they will need in life so it will give them a good idea of what resposnsablities we all have.
I am not a mom, but having an organize life style is the key. I need to plan my days better.
I think having everyone help you in the house will really make it easier for everyone! organizing tasks and having to do list makes it easier too
I don’t have kids, but sometimes it feels like the bf is! The one thing we struggle with is cleaning as you go! I have to get better at this. Oh and maybe delcuttering too!
These are all absolutely fabulous tips to help us mamas get through our days! I try my best to clean as I go 🙂
Meal planning is a MUST for me. I don’t know how people that don’t meal plan do it. Maybe they don’t cook meals for their families and eat out more? No idea.
you’re so right . Thank you for sharing this. My mummy life is chaos
Planning meals is a must in ur house, with 4 children, 2 being school aged we are often on the move. So I plan my meals so I can have slow cooker meals on our busiest of days.