10 Quick Time Management Tips for Moms Who Work From Home + Printables

Time Management Tips for Mom Bloggers

I know your time is limited. You have children to feed, laundry to do and dinner to get on the table, not to mention cleaning the house, which may not happen today.

But because you love your hobby and blogging makes you a better mom, I want to share with you the best time management tips for being a work from home mom. I can’t come over and babysit your children, but I can give you some advice! Hope it helps!

I started this blog (my second) in January. I had my second baby in February, launched my ebook in June and my course, Blog by Number, in September. I now make over $39,000 per month with my blog, at the time I wrote this post I was making $4,000 per month. If I can do this with a toddler and a nursing baby, you can too! You can so do this! Let these tips below help you make the most of your free mintues 🙂

Summary:

Momma Specific Advice

Daily and Weekly goals

Standard Workflow

Capture Drafts in WordPress

Editorial Calendar

Social Media

Get Help

For the Work at Home Mom – Specific Time Management Tips

• Include your kids in your daily activities to prevent ‘mommy guilt’ when you’re blogging.
  • Have your kids help you in cleaning the kitchen, setting the table, doing dishes etc so that you double up your chores time with spending time with your little ones.
• Write your posts when they are sleeping.
  • Use the early morning hours or bed time hours to write. Do not use this time for social media or brainstorming, you need to have your draft post ready to go so that you use this time wisely! See below for more on drafts.
• Do your social media posts and post outlines during 5 minute time slots
  • Save these ‘quick blogging activities’ for the times you’re in line at the post office, or bank, or at the checkout counter, or when you’re breastfeeding little bub. Do not use baby’s precious nap time or early morning hours on something you can do in 5 minutes or less.
• When you can’t be productive: Brainstorm
  • Brainstorm ideas for your blog while you are driving or in the shower. Save the precious hours you have when the children are sleeping for fleshing out great content. The worst thing is to not be productive when you finally have a chance.
• When you are overwhelmed
  • Make sure you prioritize your tasks. Use this simple method to be more productive to sort through everything you need to do. (free printable included)

Goals are Utterly Important for Time Management

• Write down two goals at the beginning of the day to accomplish each that day and focus on them. Do not fall into the abyss of social media, email or Pinterest. Just two quick goals for the day can keep you on track.
  • I use Sticky Notes on my computer to jot down my goals for the day.
• Write down your goals for the week.
  • Here you can have goals that take a bit longer, but will keep you focused during the week.
  • Example: Post twice to blog, schedule social media posts on Hootsuite, network and research 1 new blogging topic. Do not overwhelm yourself with a long list, keep it realistic.

I am constantly testing new time management strategies that work for me. Below is the Super Simple Weekly Schedule that I use to keep myself accountable and stay organized. It’s a visual kanban board 😉

Standardization for Time Management for Moms

• Make a quick draft directly on WordPress whenever you have a post idea.
  • Type in a title and a few bullet points to come back to later. This way you’re never staring at a blank screen and wasting the only 30 minutes of free time you have during the day. Remember to change the status to draft.

• Set a timer for 15-25 minutes when you’re blogging, and focus. (also known as the pomodoro technique) . It will feel like a long time when you force yourself not to be distracted.

• Have a standard step by step process when creating a blog post. If you have a standard workflow that becomes a habit, it will become easier and faster.
  1. Use your quiet time to create content
  2. Use one of the drafts you created earlier to give you a starting point
  3. Write your outline first, then a rough draft, then edit and polish it
     • These steps can be done at different times to break up the process
  4. Lastly add images
  5. Use images from a folder you stock so you don’t waste time searching
  6. Use your standard font and image brand – this will also help your site look uniform
  7. Follow standard steps when posting your article.
     • Example: Post to blog and schedule it on Hootsuite for your social media
• Have a Set Mommy Schedule
  • Use this free printable to help plan out your day if you still have little ones that nap. This is how I mentally plan my day.

Editorial Calendar for Your Work – Digital or Physical

• Have an editorial calendar. Take all your ideas and plan them out, use this to keep yourself on track, accountable and organized. So that when you have those free moments during your day, you’re not wasting it thinking ‘what should I be doing?’ and staring at a blank screen.
• WordPress has a built in editorial calendar.

• Use a physical editorial calendar, like my blog vision board below, to keep yourself accountable and focused.

Social Media – Restrain Yourself!

• Block out social media distractions when you write. They can eat up your time quickly.
• Find the social media network that your readers use the most. Don’t waste your time trying to tackle Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Google+ etc. Don’t try to focus on all of them, there are too many. If your readers love Facebook and Pinterest, do them well. You need to be selective with your time, you have diapers to change and groceries to shop for!

Get Help – Don’t Be Afraid to Ask

• Ask others to guest post on your blog. Many of your friends or followers would be very interested in sharing their knowledge on your site. Not only does this give your readers some diversity, but it also frees up your time to focus on other things. It could be a great help during family sickness, maternity leave, or vacations.
• Try different types of blog posts or reuse older posts. If you do not have time this week to write an eloquent post, think of simpler ways to create content.
  • Take your top posts and make a mashup of them
  • Do a seasonal post; summer activities, fall festivals, Christmas holidays.
  • Ask your followers about their biggest struggles, answer them in a post
  • Share a list of tips or top products, people love lists
  • Interview another blogger you admire, or better yet, interview your toddler 🙂
  • Do a video, infographic or allow someone to guest post on your site.

And momma, don’t stress out!

All beginning bloggers feel overwhelmed with how much there is to learn about blogging. Don’t be stressed because you do not know it all yet. Learn the information as you need it. There is no need to learn about ads if you don’t have a good following yet.

Take it one step at a time and make it a habit. If you’re not enjoying it and blogging becomes a chore, it won’t last long. So when you start your mom blog, have this time management tips ready to help you be successful!

Always remember your family comes first, your blog second, other mothers will respect that.

More Resources:

Blogging Roadmap – The Step by Step Guide

Simple Weekly Schedule to Get Stuff Done

10 Tips to Manage Your Time as a Work From Home Mom