After working full time for 18 years, I left my corporate job. I was craving and praying for a new season in which I could devote my time, energy and efforts to serve and love on my family full time (or I should say, on an overtime basis to be more accurate).
My time working for multi-national companies, managing various projects at the same time, reporting to and working with many different people and personalities, and managing multi-generational teams, left me with key learnings that stayed with me through my transition into my life full-time at home. These learnings became principles that I apply to use my time in the best way possible and manage my family rhythms and home routines in a more efficient and loving way.
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Prioritize establishing healthy family rhythms
This one sounds easy, but it’s not. Managers, leaders, and clients have their own priorities and to me, everything always sounded urgent. So at times, I found myself stressed out, running behind, with my cortisol levels through the roof. But no, not everything can be treated and managed with the same level of urgency.
One day, someone introduced me to the Eisenhower Matrix. My life changed forever when I started using this time management tool to create my weekly to-do lists and establish realistic priorities. It helps me pause to evaluate what’s truly important versus what’s urgent and decide what to tackle first and when.
To create your to-do list using this tool, you are going to draw four quadrants. The horizontal axis represents the level of importance, and your vertical axis, the level of urgency. Add calls, errands, chores, emails, projects, shopping sprees, everything into the quadrant that feels more appropriate. You will end up with four sub-lists:
- High importance, high urgency: this stuff, you need to take care of right away. And no, not everything can go in this quadrant. This is where the exercise of prioritization truly challenges our unrealistic expectations and pressure to do it all.
- High importance, low urgency: these are usually more long-term items like an in-depth spring cleaning, a change in extra-curricular activity for the kids, yearly check-up medical appointments, house repair planning, even weekly meal prep can go in this quadrant.
- Low importance, high urgency: laundry is my forever low-importance/high urgency task. I wash school and sports uniforms twice a week (this is the urgent component of this chore), but the other clothes remain on my to-do list as a low-importance item that, if I don’t tackle, the world won’t end. There’s always one more clean pair of underwear or piece of clothing people in the house can find in a mountain of unfolded clean laundry somewhere in the house.
- Low importance, low urgency: these are the things that usually remain in this quadrant for a long time. They roll over week after week until they become urgent or important because a deadline is approaching, or it can’t simply be postponed any longer, but these items don’t take my peace away anymore.
This matrix model is from https://lucidspark.com/templates/eisenhower-matrix
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Know your Einstein Window
This is one that is fun and universal. I learned it in my HR role as I was preparing to train different employee groups across countries on time management principles. This theory states that we all have a time of the day (2-3 hours) when we are more able to focus and be highly productive. Whatever we do feels easier, and we produce our best work during this window. Mine is the first 3 hours of the day.
Find your Einstein window and try to plan challenging or very important tasks and big projects within that time. Why this works? Because why give your best hours of the day scrolling on the phone, for instance, or checking emails, when you could use this time to plan, pray, meditate, create, come up with a solution, and produce the best work you can for your loved ones?
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Structure your days for effective home routines
Based on your priorities and your Einstein window, try to establish a structure for your days. Of course, it needs to be flexible because motherhood can be unpredictable. But time goes by too fast, and it can slip through our fingers if there is no baseline routine to help us protect our time and attention to focus on what matters the most. This is also helpful to better manage stress. When time is well managed, we become wiser (Psalm 90:12) because we make time for the priorities we have established. We become proactive instead of reactive.
If you take a look at “a day in the life” of what, professionally speaking, are called highly successful people and leaders (CEOs for global companies, top executives, etc.), they have very structured schedules. They wake up early to exercise, eat well, meditate, have their first morning call at a certain time, set aside time to catch up with news, etc. They do it because they run a business and are responsible for the performance of the company they lead, so they need to do their best to get ready every day to perform at their best.
If CEOs do this to run their businesses, how much more us moms, who have been gracefully called to raise our children and manage our homes? We define our family’s rhythms, determine everyone else’s schedules, meals, activities, and show up every single day no matter what. Moms strive to perform at their best for the people we love the most! But this desire needs to be accompanied by grace, especially on days we don’t feel 100%.
Since day 1 of my full-time life at home, I have done my best to keep the same routines I had when I was working 40+ hours a week. Before everyone wakes up, I take care of my body and soul by working out, having my time with God, and my morning coffee. I make sure I’m ready for my family by the time their day starts. It’s never perfect, but overall it works for me to have this as my base morning routine.
At night, I try to leave everything ready for the next day. On a weekly basis, I plan meals, snacks, and schedules. I try to cook in advance because I homeschool my children three days a week, so I can’t afford to spend hours in the kitchen on the days I teach them.
You might find that a different routine works for you. What’s important is to have some sort of structure, because without one, anything can become urgent, hijack your attention, and steal your day away.
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Take “brain” breaks
At work, I used to apply the 50/10 rule. Work for 50 minutes, take a 10-minute break. This would help me take deep breaths and recharge for the next hour of work. Also, pauses to eat. The days I used to have lunch at my desk, in front of the computer, I felt like I didn’t stop. I got drained and stressed out much quicker.
Home and family rhythms are a bit different, but I still find myself easily overwhelmed if I don’t take a few breaks from whatever it is that I’m doing. A short walk around the block, a call or voice message to a friend, a prayer, a little bit of fresh air and sunshine, a nutritious snack. Breaks are healthy and much needed for us to function in a healthy way. Recharge yourself with whatever helps you feel energized and happy!
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Strategy: Plan and assess in quarters
Last but not least, I learned at work to view life in quarters.
My husband and I plan our family goals and priorities by quarter: budget, vacation/trips, time with friends, kids’ extracurricular activities and schedules, etc. We make adjustments based on what’s working and what’s not until our rhythms become healthier and easier.
Not everything we do at home needs to remain the same for a long time. Something that might have worked at the beginning of the year might not be as beneficial towards the end of the year. Our children’s interests and needs change as they continue to grow up. Our own personal goals also change, because our lives are dynamic and seasonal.
Quarterly planning has become helpful to make smart, flexible decisions to manage my family rhythms and home routines in a more efficient and loving way.
