Life is busy, and most of us would LOVE more downtime and less frantic rushing around every day.
But all of the things still need to get done, or we’ll end up with an even more overwhelming pile of things to do, and catching up will feel impossible!
Even if we love our life and adore our families, we still shouldn’t just exist to serve them. We need time for the things we enjoy, no matter what they are. I love reading, doing jigsaw puzzles, and watching movies, and I used to feel guilty doing these things when I had responsibilities to take care of like cooking, cleaning, and doing the washing.
But if I waited until those were done to do the things I enjoy? It would never happen because they’ll never be done completely. There will always be more cooking to do. There will always be something that needs cleaning. There will always be laundry that needs to be washed.
And those are just the basics! there’s so much more to take care of.
The good news is if we look at some of our day-to-day tasks at home and in life, there are a few little tweaks we can make to our approach towards them that can give us a lot more freedom.
Here are some of my favourite ways to automate, delegate, and simplify, to free up my time and enjoy my life more:
Menu planning & grocery list.
Use a done-for-you service like Eat at Home Meal Planning (affiliate link), or if you prefer to DIY, write a 31-day meal plan and just repeat it each month. Or use mine!
Hate writing grocery lists every week? Create a template for your grocery shop with a long list of everything, print out a bunch of them to put in your House & Family Binder and just tick what you need each week instead of writing it all out.
Grocery shopping.
Order online and have it delivered instead of going to the shops. With Coles online, you can create and save shopping lists of your regularly purchased items to make them quick and easy to order.
Cooking.
I’m going through a super simple cooking phase and I’m not sorry about it :) When it’s my turn to cook for the family, I’ll do a simple pasta meal or a sheet pan / oven tray dinner. I batch cook a couple of big pots of veggie-based soup every week and freeze it in single portions so I can heat it up and put it over rice or pasta for an effortless hot lunch almost every day. We also get the kids to choose a meal and cook it with us once a week.
Automate your calendar.
I use a Google calendar for my day-to-day time management because it works on my computer and my phone. When I’m making an appointment I put the date and time straight into my phone calendar (instead of taking a little appointment card and losing it) and it syncs with my work calendar too, blocking off that time so I don’t double book, and giving me a reminder the day before the appointment so I don’t have to remember it myself. At work, I use a booking system that syncs with my Google calendar so clients and podcast guests can book themselves in automatically so I don’t have to manually check my calendar and go back and forth with them over email.
Bill paying.
Set up direct debits or pay your bills with your phone as you open them so you don’t have to remember payments and due dates. Set up an automatic transfer so that part of your pay each week gets sent to a bills account to make sure you have enough to pay your bills as soon as they come in.
Household chores.
Delegate them to your kids. Show them clearly how to do it, help them the first couple of times, then leave it to them and don’t expect it to be perfect. Yes, they will argue or eye roll at first. Go do something else so you don’t have to be there for that part and leave them to it ;)
Automate time together.
Set regular dates for family time, on one on one time with each kid, time with your partner, time with extended family, and time with friends. We have an extended family dinner every Tuesday and it’s wonderful- we all get to see each other without having to compare schedules and try to fit in a day here and there when we can all be together. We just know that Tuesday night is the night, and if we can’t make it one week, that’s okay, we’ll be there next week.
Automate your budget.
Set up recurring payments for your savings and money for household expenses to be sent to dedicated accounts ready for when you need it. Set an automatic transfer for a little bit extra to go into your super each month and you won’t even feel it - every little bit adds up over time!. Set up a little extra to go into your mortgage so you can build a bit of a buffer into it in case you have a tight month, or so you can pay it off a little earlier than planned. Use the honey app (referral link) to automatically find & apply coupon codes when you shop online.
Automate your email.
Set up a filter to have subscription emails skip the inbox and label themselves so you can go read them when you’re ready instead of feeling overwhelmed by a cluttered inbox. Use schedule send to reply to emails at different times so you don’t have to go back and forth with one-line email replies immediately after sending. Simplify email by only checking it twice a day and using template responses for the things you tend to say over and over again.
Delegate your laundry.
Send it out (our local service is about $30 per load), pay a neighbourhood teen to help you with it, or share it with your kids and partner. We swapped out our big laundry basket for 4 small ones so the kids could manage their own (and it’s easier on my back), put a step stool and side table next to the washing machine so they could reach easily, and bought a couple of kid-level clothes horses from Bunnings so they can hang it themselves. I was surprised at how easily they were able to take care of it once I showed them how to do it!
Try this at your house and see what you can automate, delegate, and simplify, to free up more of your time too! The easiest way to do it is to ask yourself these questions:
- What’s a task I do by default that I don’t want to do anymore?
- Do I really need to be the one doing it all the time? (Hint: No.)
- How can I make this easier for someone else to do it?
Usually, you just need to find a way to systemise the process, and then ways to automate, delegate, and simplify it tend to pop up! Let me know if you need a hand and I’ll brainstorm with you.
I hope you found these ideas helpful! If you’re ready for next steps in organising, you can grab one of my freebies here any time you like!
x Marissa
