It can be hard to stay on top of everything as a stay-at-home mom, even if you’re organized and good at managing your time. This can be especially true when you’re dealing with things like the kids’ school or extracurricular activities and your own home responsibilities, which can seem endless! However, there are ways to remain productive and stay on top of your home life without feeling like you never have time to relax. Here are 10 tips for staying on top of your home life as a stay-at-home mom so that you can have the best of both worlds!
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1) Take care of yourself
One surefire way to feel like you’re accomplishing something as a stay-at-home mom is to take care of yourself. Often, parents focus more on their children’s needs than their own, but don’t forget about your own! Make it your goal to spend time each day doing something for yourself—whether that means taking a long walk, indulging in some tea or coffee at Starbucks, reading an engaging book or meditating. When you make these self-care activities part of your routine, they won’t feel like such a chore and will help keep stress levels low. You might even find yourself feeling grateful toward those little ones who provide so much joy…and work!
2) Take time out every day
Make time to get out of your house every day. Leaving will give you perspective and remind you that there’s more to life than just cleaning, cooking, and taking care of kids. Find ways to get out every day—whether it’s an hour walking around a park or some errands in town. The important thing is that you take time to breathe and stay grounded in reality.
3) Create systems around the house
One major way that stay-at-home moms (and dads) keep busy is by maintaining order and organization around their home. Even though kids are away at school all day, parents still must clean up after them and ensure that everyone in the family has everything they need. This can be overwhelming, which is why it’s important to create systems around your house to help you stay organized and get things done quickly and easily.
Many moms get frustrated when they’re at home with little ones because there’s too much to do and not enough time to do it. To stay productive (and sane), you need to keep your routine focused and simple. If you try to take on too much at once, you’ll be overwhelmed before you even start. Instead, focus your efforts in one area at a time, one day at a time. Just by simplifying things—and making sure you enjoy what you’re doing—you’ll quickly see that staying on top of everything doesn’t have to be hard work. It can be easy work! No matter how chaotic life gets, try making things fun: sing while folding laundry or make up silly songs while scrubbing pots and pans.
5) Prioritize what you do throughout the day
Make one master to-do list and put it in a place where you’ll see it often. Then, prioritize your tasks based on what needs to get done today and what can wait until tomorrow. Assign specific times of day or days of week to particular chores; make sure you don’t schedule too many things at once so nothing falls through the cracks. It’s also important to remember that doing laundry, dishes, and other household work isn’t just about keeping your house clean—it’s also about spending time with your kids (and yourself!).
6) Work on long-term goals daily
A lot of women find that staying productive when they’re at home is tough. It seems like you only get to accomplish a few small tasks and then it’s time to pick up your kid, deal with dinner, do laundry—the list goes on. A good way to combat these feelings is to prioritize your long-term goals daily. Set aside 30 minutes to an hour (depending on what your schedule allows) each day working toward long-term goals that matter most to you.
7) Learn something new every day
If you have small children at home, it can be easy to find yourself in a rut—your day is consumed with taking care of their needs and running around town doing errands. It can seem like there’s not much time to learn something new every day. But if you take just five minutes to read about a topic that interests you or practice an instrument, it can make all the difference when it comes to breaking out of your routine. You might even end up learning something useful that helps your kids!
8) Fill your life with other people
Sure, you spend a lot of time with your kids (you’re a stay-at-home mom, after all), but don’t make your house or apartment your home base. Instead, work hard to fill your life with family and friends who don’t have kids—especially at first. Though you may feel like staying in and taking care of everyone else is what you should be doing, it’s actually good for you (and your marriage) to get out regularly.
9) Listen to inspirational music before you start each day
There’s nothing like pumping yourself up to start your day—and it doesn’t have to be an hour-long treadmill session. Some people find that listening to an uplifting song first thing in the morning helps them get into work mode, even if they won’t actually be working for hours. Try listening to music that pumps you up before you tackle your daily tasks.
10) Don’t try too hard to be perfect!
At any given time, there are at least 10 things my family needs to do: pick up my boys from school, go to taekwondo, take my daughter to dance class, workout, buy groceries, finish laundry and dinner and write thank you notes. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all I need to get done, but it’s important to remember that being a productive stay-at-home mom doesn’t mean always having everything together. My day rarely goes exactly according to plan, so I try not to be too hard on myself when something unexpected comes up (which happens frequently). Trying too hard can lead to stress or inefficiency–neither is productive!
If you’d like a simple checklist with the entire month’s worth of cleaning tasks from all the zones, weekly tasks, and daily routines, I have a 2-page printable that you can download from my shop below. This is great for starting a daily routine and keeping you on track. It’s also editable so you can adjust or delete any of the tasks or zones that don’t work with your household. After editing, this printable can be imported into your PDF annotation app to use digitally, or printed out and laminated to use every month. Click here to purchase it in my shop and start seeing the rewards of your organized home. You can also find this on my Etsy Shop Here: https://etsy.me/3ESw6oR
And now, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to talk about the Flylady cleaning system. If you’re not familiar with the FlyLady, allow me to introduce you. FlyLady, or Marla Cilley, is a cleaning guru who has one goal: to help you keep your house clean! For years now, she’s been helping busy women across the country manage their household chores so they can live happier lives, and I’m here to tell you that her method works wonders! I’ve read her blog and although I don’t follow everything she says or have the same beliefs as her, I do love her foundational systems and routines for keeping a clean home.
The FlyLady cleaning system is a methodical, systematic approach to cleaning your home. The idea behind it is that by making a daily plan for cleaning, you’ll avoid getting overwhelmed and easily tackle cleaning tasks throughout each day. It may seem like more work in theory, but many people swear by its effectiveness; you might be one of them. Now let’s look at three reasons why you should try FlyLady:
1) It helps people overcome their fear of cleaning or perfectionism
2) It will help give your family structure
3) It teaches you how to clean!
Okay, so how does it work? Let’s take a look…
Zones & Tasks
Each area of your house gets its own job as part of the FlyLady cleaning system (a.k.a Zones). Whether it’s an individual room or a large space like a family room or hallway, you’ll use one method for keeping it clean and organized. Start by taking a good look at your living spaces and determining which areas need extra attention. If you have lots of rooms with different purposes, break them up into different categories (i.e., dining rooms for entertaining guests should be considered separately from bedrooms).
The FlyLady provides 5 zones for you, but you can change it to fit your life and home. Each week you will focus on a different zone. So Zone 1 will be your first week of the month, Zone 2 will be your 2nd week of the month and so on. Everyday of that week, you will spend 15 minutes deep cleaning in that zone.
Weekly Home Blessing
After the zones comes the “Weekly Home Blessing”These are 5 easy tasks that you should get done every week. Things like emptying the trash, sweeping and mopping, etc.
Daily Routines
Then there’s your daily routines. The FlyLady provides you with a few tasks that you should do every day to ensure your home always stays clean. The main things I love are “Shining your sink”, which means to just wash and put away dishes every night, “Getting dressed down to laces” — I believe this alone can help you feel confident and ready for the day, and “One Load of Laundry a Day” — this is great for staying on top of your laundry.
She provides a full checklist of daily tasks but I definitely recommend starting with these little habits. She also provides a baby steps checklist to help you get started on her system. Just follow it one task at a time!
Once you’ve got your zones and routine figured out, it’s time to schedule those days into your calendar (paper or online). The Flylady recommends setting a 15 minute timer and getting as much done as you can within that deep cleaning zone. Over time, if something isn’t working as well as you’d like then change it! But sometimes sticking something out even when we’re not feeling motivated can lead us to actually enjoy or at least get used it — so don’t give up right away!
1. The FlyLady System helps people overcome their fear of cleaning or perfectionism
Rather than making you into a domestic goddess, The FlyLady System offers a series of small cleaning steps you can do in five minutes or less. You’ll tackle your house one step at a time, and do just a little each day until your house is nice and clean. It works by giving people small, achievable goals; cleaning has never been so manageable! That’s why The FlyLady System gives millions of home-makers back their freedom from housework! The FlyLady system works in two different ways.
It gives you a small, achievable goal that you can do every day. You’ll be able to achieve something even on days when it feels like you have no time or energy for cleaning. And when your house is clean, it doesn’t feel as messy, so you don’t get into as much of a hurry to clean again! Your home will stay cleaner and tidier, which means less stress and more freedom from housework for months or years to come! With The FlyLady system, all it takes is a little bit each day until your house is nice and clean. It’s easier than ever before!
2. The FlyLady System provides you and your family with structure
The key word with a lot of cleaning systems is system. With many of them, you’re given a plan and instructions, but how do you follow it when life gets in the way? What happens if you miss a day? The FlyLady provides structure by telling you exactly what to do every day. That way, even if something comes up, like your son gets sick or your car breaks down, you still have that daily schedule—which helps keep on top of household chores. But don’t worry about doing everything perfectly; just focus on doing as much as you can each day and build off of that success each week. You’ll be surprised at how quickly things start to fall into place. A simple flylady routine will always beat out a complicated one!
If you’re looking for a way to stay on top of your cleaning, you need accountability. You need someone or something that gives you structure and helps keep you on track. The FlyLady system does just that. It’s a daily routine divided into manageable chunks so you can tackle it without feeling overwhelmed. The more organized your life is, the less time you have for clutter and chaos—and that means less time cleaning! Start using her system today and have more time in your life for everything else.
3. The FlyLady System teaches you new skills
The first step in keeping your home clean is knowing how to clean things. When you use a system like FlyLady’s, you’ll learn how to keep your countertops spotless, clean a toilet and scrub your floors properly. Once you learn these skills, it will be easier for you (and maybe your kids) to keep up with cleaning tasks throughout each week. You might have to practice a little bit at first, but after some time you should get better. You’ll also feel more motivated when you see all of your hard work coming together as your house becomes cleaner day by day!
How to Get Started with the FlyLady System
I spent lots of time reading the FlyLady’s blog and downloading all of her checklists. She provides everything for free on her blog here. If the Zone systems seems to overwhelming to you, you can always start out with her Baby Steps. She also has a free app that has all her routines and zone cleaning tasks.
But if you’d like a simple checklist with the entire month’s worth of cleaning tasks from all the zones, weekly tasks, and daily routines, I have a 2-page printable that you can download from my shop below. This is great for seeing everything at a glance and helps you to see what’s coming and track your progress for the month. It’s also editable so you can adjust or delete any of the tasks or zones that don’t work with your household. After editing, this printable can be imported into your PDF annotation app to use digitally, or printed out and laminated to use every month. Click here to purchase it in my shop and start seeing the rewards of your organized home. Editable Monthly FLYLADY Routines & Cleaning Checklists Worksheet – Pre-Filled can be Edited
Life is busy enough for many people without throwing cleaning into the mix. And yet, a clean, well-organized home functions so beautifully; it can actually make our lives feel less stressful. While it can be difficult to devote part of each day to cleaning tasks, doing so will help you keep up with what might otherwise feel overwhelming. Leaving all the tasks for a Saturday not only ruins your Saturday but might be difficult to accomplish, especially if you have last-minute company or want to make other plans.
Here, we’ll provide you with a wide range of tips to cut cleaning tasks down to size. With our checklist and recommended cleaning routine, you can maintain a clean and well-organized setting so that your house is always ‘relatively’ company-ready and, assuredly, designed for your own comfort. With these tips, you won’t have to devote another Saturday to daylong cleaning tasks again!
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Whole-home declutter
Decluttering your home affords you many benefits. When you clear away the clutter, you’ll find it easy to get and stay organized. Too much ‘stuff’ is challenging to keep track of. Your home will function better with fewer items to contend with. For many people, less clutter results in less stress and more serenity. That said, it can be challenging to part with perfectly useful items even if you don’t use them. Here, we’ll explore a few ways to eliminate clutter to make cleaning and organizing your home easier.
Channel your inner Marie Kondo
Marie Kondo has become the poster-declutterer with her minimalist aesthetic. She has refined de-cluttering to an art form. If an item isn’t useful on a regular basis and doesn’t “spark joy,” get rid of it. Even so, her methods are known to be on the drastic side; you might find that a little Marie, when tackling closets and your pantry goes a long way.
Everything in its place
Another way to tackle your clutter is to ensure that the items you keep have a place. Storage is key, but you also don’t want to live in a warehouse filled with stored items. Be sure you have the proper space and receptacles to store items. If not, consider the item. Is it functional and worthy of the effort it will take to find a space to store it? If not, it may be time to add it to your donation pile.
Donate, recycle, or sell
As you go room by room in search of items to get rid of, you should keep these discarded items organized as well. You may have items you can sell, as well as items you can recycle or donate. Just because it’s clutter to you doesn’t mean it won’t be perfectly useful to someone else. Just don’t let your piles of stuff sit for too long; be sure you donate or sell them quickly so you can keep your household cleaning and organization on track.
Create a cleaning supply station
After eliminating the clutter from your home, you can create a cleaning supply station. Setting up this type of station will make routine cleaning easier. When all your cleaning supplies are in one place, you won’t have to search for them each time you need to perform a cleaning task. Choose a location where you’ll keep these supplies and organize them with buckets, baskets, or shelves. Although you can stock your cleaning station with commercial cleaning products, you can also create your own eco-friendly cleaners using ingredients like baking soda and white vinegar.
Design your perfect cleaning schedule
To avoid the need to spend an entire day cleaning your house, you can break up cleaning tasks into a manageable schedule. If there are other members of your household, you can even delegate tasks to them. The most simple yet effective plan is to divide chores into daily, weekly, and monthly schedules. Use our cleaning schedule as a basis for your own:
Daily Cleaning Tasks
Hang up or put away outer garments
Make beds
Wash and put away dishes
Clean kitchen surfaces (counters and stovetop)
Sweep kitchen floor (as needed)
Clean kitchen and dining room tables
Clean bathroom sink
Weekly Cleaning Tasks
Laundry
Clean bathrooms (sink, toilet, floor, and tub)
Clean kitchen surfaces (floor, refrigerator, and other appliances)
Vacuum
Dust
Declutter
Change/launder sheets and pillowcases
Monthly Cleaning Tasks
Launder blankets/bedspreads/washable rugs
Clean mirrors
Sweep out fireplace
Tidy bookcases or shelves
Deep clean kitchen (i.e. refrigerator, stove burners, cabinet fronts)
Clean return air vents
Clean your dishwasher
Clean upholstered surfaces
Disinfect trash bins
Remove cobwebs
Descale your coffee maker
Dust ceiling fans
Wash windows
Clean curtains/draperies (as needed)
Wipe down blinds
There are also cleaning tasks you may want to address on an as-needed basis, like having your carpeting and rugs professionally steam cleaned. You may notice that closets and cabinets become disorganized, so you’ll want to set aside time to address these tasks too. Cleaning your outside windows and washing walls might be a task you perform a couple of times per year. You can work these as-needed chores into your overall cleaning plan.
Depending on your own home, you may need to perform some tasks more or less frequently. Homes with pets may require a weekly vacuuming of furnishings, for instance. Homes with kids may require more emphasis on organization and decluttering.
Cleaning tips
As you become adept at cleaning your home, you’re sure to develop some of your own tried-and-true techniques for achieving an efficient clean. Until then, here are some of our helpful tips to keep in mind as you clean your house or apartment:
Choose a start and endpoint
Keep cleaning from becoming an overwhelming chore by choosing a start and endpoint. You might keep cleaning to a certain amount of time, like an hour. Or, you might limit your cleaning to a single or a certain number of tasks.
Load your supplies in a cart
A cleaning cart makes transporting your cleaning supplies from room to room easier. It’s why many professional cleaning services use carts and totes too. Be sure your cleaning station has room to stow your cart or tote.
Clean in waves
Cleaning tends to be a process, so don’t try to combine tasks together, or you might feel frustrated and overwhelmed. Instead, clean in waves. Set aside one cleaning session for de-cluttering and another for sanitizing surfaces. This way, you can focus on one type of chore and perform it with efficiency.
Clean in sections
Focus on one area or section at a time so that you maintain an efficient workflow. For example, dust top shelves first and work your way to the bottom of bookcases and shelving units. Similarly, you can focus on one room at a time, combine tasks like your kitchen, living room, or bathroom.
Last-minute guests
Even with great effort and the best intentions, it’s not always possible to maintain a home that’s perfectly ready for company. If you find yourself facing a countdown until your last-minute guests arrive, here are some tips to put your cleaning tasks into overdrive:
Start with the kitchen
A clean kitchen is a must when entertaining guests. Many people naturally congregate in the kitchen, and you can’t expect your guests to feel comfortable eating snacks or a meal prepped in a dirty kitchen.
Bathrooms next
Although you might be sorely tempted to dust your living room, your guests are more likely to forgive a layer of bookshelf dust than a dirty bathroom. Focus on the essentials:
Remove toothpaste from the sink
Sanitize the toilet
Replace hand towels with fresh ones
Scrub away noticeable dirt from the floor
Scour the tub (if there’s no time, keep the shower curtain closed)
Living room / family room / dining room
Next, tackle the room where you plan to host your guests: sweep, vacuum, and dust. Often, a quick vacuuming and removal of clutter will freshen up these spaces adequately. If you have pets that shed, you may also want to ‘de-shed’ your sofa and chairs for your guests.
Entrance / foyer
Be sure to check your entrance for signs of clutter or dirt, as this area is the first your guests will see. You might want to spray room freshener and sweep the floor to make a great first impression on visitors.
Wrap-up
With small daily efforts to clean and maintain your home’s organization, you can avoid the need to devote your weekend to cleaning, and you can achieve a home that’s ‘mostly’ company ready. You’ll find that when your home is clean, you’ll feel less stressed and more relaxed, knowing that your belongings are stowed in their place and that your environment is fresh and welcoming.
Adriana is a member of Porch Content Marketing department and loves sharing tips and advice to make every DIY project as easy and fun as possible. She is passionate about SEM, the outdoors, and photography. Her hobbies are running and reading.
The new 2022 Digital Planner is here! We’ve been working hard to bring you a fresh, exciting planner that’s easy to use. Watch the video below for a flip through of this year’s newest edition: 2022 Deluxe Vertical and Week on a Page Digital planners!
This 2022 digital planner is an essential companion to your calendar and helps you manage your time and projects better. Use our digital planning system to organize your day, week, month and year so you can focus on what matters most. We believe the future starts here.
My goal is to provide you with the tools and information you need to create and manage the most successful lifestyle plan possible. We all have big ideas, but we don’t always know how to get them to happen. We need to do the work of planning, and we need the tools to keep us on track. This planner will give you everything you need to actually get started with your own lifestyle plan. It will be yours to use whenever you want. You can use it to manage all aspects of your life. It is your tool. It is your planner. It is your digital day to day organizer.
Your daily, weekly, monthly and yearly planning will help you become more organized. It can also help you become more productive and achieve your goals.
With Digital planning you can have all the benefits of paper planning but have it on your phone or tablet.
✅ Carry your planner with you everywhere, since you already take your phone with you all the time anyways!
✅ Plan all areas of your life without the extra bulk. With my planners you can plan for your finances, school, household, goals, projects, travel and more!
I have 2 versions available – the week on a page version and the vertical version.
Here’s what’s included:
✓ 5 Different colors included with one purchase ✓Choice between 2 different weekly layouts (vertical or wo1p) ✓ Each planner comes with a weekly schedule layout and weekly review pages ✓ Goal & Project Planners ✓ Monthly Planners with Overviews and Finances ✓ Daily Planners (All linked!) ✓ Lists and Notes Planning Pages ✓ Health & Fitness Planning Pages ✓ + Over 90+ extra templates all included! ✓ Optimized file so there is no lag and a way smaller file size!
After purchasing you will get this:
> ACCESS TO MY SHOP WHERE YOU WILL BE ABLE TO DOWNLOAD YOUR PLANNER
> CHOICE BETWEEN 5 DIFFERENT COLORS
> CHOICE OF WHICH VERSION YOU PREFER TO PLAN WITH INCLUDING:
Monday Version (Monday start months and weeks)
Sunday Version (Sunday start months and weeks)
& Hybrid Version (Sunday start months and Monday Start weeks)
>A GETTING STARTED GUIDE AND VIDEO ON HOW TO IMPORT YOUR PLANNER TO YOUR DEVICE
This planner has EVERYTHING Seriously, in addition to the full year planner, the number of inserts is UNREAL. So much work and care was put into this planner. I love the calming aqua color. It is absolutely worth the price. Before switching to digital I used a Big Happy Planner. What I loved about it was how easy it was to customize. This digital planner doesn’t make me miss my Happy Planner at all because I can really make it my own. I created my own digital planner last year so I’d have what I wanted… this one is better. Wends included things I never even thought of but now am surprised I lived without them. 100% recommended and will likely be buying every year.
I have heard it from my followers over and over again. “I am great at setting up planners but I can never stay consistent with using it” or “I love buying a new planner, but I never use it after a week.”
Does that sound like you? Don’t worry, you are not alone! A lot of people have trouble with this, including myself! Staying consistent with anything can be a challenge especially when there’s something new coming out every month!
The problem isn’t about how you set up your planner or how you plan, but it’s rather the daily routine of using your planner and having the discipline to stick with it and use it every day.
Just like any other habit, planning every day is a habit you need to learn. You need a planning routine that will help you do it every day.
If you have a busy life, staying consistent with your planner can be challenging – but if you follow these 5 ways to stay consistent in your planner, you’ll find it much easier to keep up with your routine and complete each week’s tasks in order to maximize your productivity.
Don’t get hung up on what planner you’re going to use. If you like it, then use it. If you don’t find one you do, and make a commitment to yourself that you will use it all year (or at least for the quarter). This is all aesthetics and personal preference. You are more likely to use it if you like it though. However, the type of planner you use doesn’t really matter, because it’s the habit of planning that matters most and that’s what’s going to keep you consistent.
2)Be Intentional About What Goes in
Once you have a system that works for you, you have to be intentional about what you are writing down into your planner. Make sure that what you want to put into your planner is intentional so that you can give it its full attention. Rather than going overboard and trying to write every little thing down, choose a few priorities each day and use your planner for them. That way, you get all of the value from planning without feeling overwhelmed by information overload.
Another reason that people fail to stay consistent is because they rely on their planner too much. A planner should be a tool, not a crutch. If you’re trying to stick with a habit, such as exercising for 20 minutes every day, and your planner makes it easy for you to skip it one day and tack it onto another instead of doing it consistently, then you won’t get much value from your planner. Instead of depending on your calendar or agenda so much that you let them dictate when tasks get done and what they include, use planning as a way to keep yourself accountable. That way you can still leverage its benefits while preventing excuses from getting in your way.
3) Take Time Every Day
It’s incredibly easy to fall into a rut when you have a packed schedule. One way to ensure you stay consistent with your plans is to make a point of taking time every day—even if it’s just 5 minutes—to reflect on what went well that day and what didn’t. This simple practice helps you to see what is working, and what isn’t. Do you need to change when you plan? Or change where you plan? It also allows you to tap into motivation early on—instead of letting yourself fall back on bad habits or negative thoughts once things get busy again.
While it may not seem like a lot of time out of your day, try focusing on just 5 minutes at first. If you find that it works for you, you can always increase how much time you take each day until it becomes a regular practice. You’ll be amazed by how quickly even small amounts of reflection can transform your life and put you back on track when things start to get busy. By checking in with yourself every day, reflecting on what went well and what didn’t, and planning accordingly moving forward, you ensure that your planning doesn’t fall through the cracks when life gets hectic.
You can try setting reminders or scheduling time at the end of your day and the beginning of the day to remind yourself. Make sure to do it at the same time everyday until you get into the habit of checking your planner. If you use an online planner, there are several apps that can help with reminders. Some people find that keeping a pen and paper by their bedside works best for them because they wake up with good intentions but forget them by morning. Whatever method you choose, be consistent with it! When planning becomes habit instead of something forced on top of everything else going on in your life, things will start falling into place more easily as a result.
4) Set Realistic Expectations
Don’t have that all-or-nothing mentality. There are going to be days you skip on using your planning. And that’s okay, the only thing that matters is if you start using again the next day again.
Start with a realistic outlook and you’ll be less likely to feel frustrated and disappointed. Set more achievable goals and expectations of yourself, and don’t try to tackle everything at once. For example, if you want to get into shape, start small by exercising for 15 minutes 3 days a week; before you know it, working out will become a daily habit! (Consistency is key!) The more realistic your approach is from day one, the easier it will be for you over time. If your expectations are too high, there’s no way you can meet them.
Another good way to stay consistent with your planner is by breaking down large tasks into smaller ones. If you’re feeling disorganized, try focusing on one small area of your life at a time. Whether it’s cleaning up your inbox or tackling your pile of homework, begin with something simple.
Once you’ve set your plans and realistic expectations, stick to your plan. Unfortunately, we all have a tendency to avoid doing what we know we should do instead of doing something else entirely. Remember: It’s not about being perfect or being great right off the bat—it’s about taking action consistently so you reach your goal in due time.
Detail out what needs to be done each day: By breaking up tasks into smaller ones, productivity becomes an easy process instead of an overwhelming challenge that never gets completed. You might think you need motivation or inspiration or even energy before embarking on a task—but really all you need is focus , which helps keep distractions at bay so work gets done efficiently.
This will allow you to steadily move forward without getting discouraged by trying too much at once. You can achieve anything that’s within your control if you are willing to work hard every single day for as long as it takes !
5) Celebrate Every Achievement
When you first start keeping a planner, it’s important to mark every accomplishment, no matter how small. If you want to have a goal of using your planner consistently then try creating a habit tracker for it. Checking it off daily will surely help you feel good, because habits don’t just come from repetition -they also come from positive reinforcement. So celebrate yourself for using your planner every day and take pride in the work you’re putting in.
Congratulate yourself for achieving your daily goals, crossing off completed tasks or checking items off your list. These small celebrations are what keep you motivated and on track throughout each day. If you skip them, you’ll risk losing sight of your goal.
By always finding room for self-celebration, you can easily stay consistent with your plan. Every time you make progress toward reaching your goal, set aside time to give yourself credit for making it happen!
If you need a digital planner, be sure to check out my shop. I have undated and dated versions and lots of different colors! They look real and includes just about everything you need to plan your LIFE! This friday my 2022 planners launch as well! So stay tuned for that so you can get your special discount~
In this post, I’m going to show you how one of best productivity tools that has completely upgraded my system and workflow.
In today’s world it can be difficult to stay productive. Your phone, email, social media, all of your notebooks, planners, to do list apps and tools… it all gets so overwhelming! Instead of working through our to do list with intention, our days gets filled up with urgent tasks that keep popping up At the end of the day, it’s hard to say whether we came out ahead or behind.
If you are like me, you’ve tried to get your act together with all of the newest and latest apps. I mean, who doesn’t want to be more productive?! But it’s hard trying to figure out how to use them while juggling work and life at home. What if I told you there was a way our productivity could improve if we were able to centralize all of our tasks ––– project managers, to do lists, emails, calendars, notes ––– into one single daily to-do list?
Luckily, there is an app that can help! I use an app called Sunsama. It’s so easy because it automatically pulls in all of my meetings from my calendar into Sunsama when they are scheduled, and it integrates with all of my project management tools, emails, and lists. It’s perfect for any type of busy person who wants to stay organized while managing their personal life as well.
Today I want to share how using Sunsama has made me more productive. The Sunsama app is a productivity tool that will help you manage your business, personal life and work all in one place. You can create tasks, time block your work, and sync it up with other apps like Clickup or Asana to make sure you are most productive.
Table of Contents
About Sunsama
Sunsama is a project management app that can be used online or on your iOS and Android devices that lets you create to-do lists, manage multiple projects and tasks, and gives you a daily summary of your day. It’s a tool for planning your time. and helps you to stay focused on what you want to get done today. It has a minimal design and is very simple to use. It can help you stay on top of all your important projects and to-dos without getting overwhelmed.
The workflow of Sunsama walks you through planning your day, making sure you can get it done in your day and reviewing it.
I find it really helpful to be able to time block my tasks and reflect at the end of the day on what I got done.
It keeps me from getting overwhelmed by breaking down everything and helping me to focus on only today’s tasks.
It centralizes your to do list. Sunsama recognizes that people have different ways that work comes to them, and allows you to pull in tasks from multiple other apps like Clickup, Asana, Google Calendar, your emails, and more.
Sunsama is easy to use. Just add a task, set a due date, add a time estimate, add a context or channel to categorize it, and decide whether or not you want to time block it into your schedule.
Sunsama is cross platform, which means you can use it on your phone, tablet or computer.
Sunsama reminds you when it’s time to re-evaluate your planning, and give you a chance to adjust your plan as needed.
Why you will love Sunsama:
You no longer have to worry about forgetting things
You can make sure you don’t overlook any important deadlines
You get to decide when you start and finish each day
Be able to focus much better by time blocking your tasks simply by dragging and dropping
Save time by having all your tasks in one place
Stay on top of your work every day, no matter how busy you are
Feel less stressed about your work
You will end each day feeling accomplished and not burnt out
Before you start your day, Sunsama walks you through your daily planning. You will be guided to reflect on yesterday to see where you spent your time, what you finished and what you didn’t get to. This helps you to understand if you were spending your time on things that were important to you.
The next step guides you on making a plan for what you’re going to accomplish and when. You can add tasks directly in sunsama, or you can add in your calendar events, tasks from emails, or your other tools. In this step I always make sure I set a time estimate to all of my tasks, and then drag it and drop it into my calendar. This helps me to see what I can actually get done that day.
When I plan my day, I always try to aim for only 3-5 big things in my day. Then leave room for all the little things that pop up.
The next step in the daily planning process is to bump back tasks that aren’t essential for you to get done today. So you will get 3 columns for Today, Tomorrow and Next week, where you can push back your tasks that can wait and plan for them next time.
Then you can choose when you would like to end your work day, time block and/or order your tasks chronologically and then see your finalized plan and either share it, or just see a summary of your day. I love that it also gives you an area to write out any obstacles that may get in your way.
The channels and contexts are there for you to organize your categories. You can keep it as simple as Personal and work (contexts), or you can further break it down into sub-categories (channels) like I do. This will help you to see where your time is going. The contexts will allow you to see and group related channels. This can also help you filter out tasks when you’re working so you can better focus. For example if you are at home, and you don’t want to see any of your work tasks you can select personal and only your personal tasks will show up.
Integrations
Sunsama syncs with a lot of different apps and tools. Sunsama allows me to quickly add in other to do’s and reminders for a specific day, and it also lets me pull in things from my gmail and calendar.
Sunsama integrates with Trello, Asana, ClickUp Jira, ToDoist, Google Calendar, and Outlook to help you stay on top of all your work each day.
I love that there is an option to keep bringing in the same task from your other tools too. For example, in ClickUp I have projects that may take multiple days. So I can easily use the filter and include already imported tasks as well. Then I can add it again and add a subtask or just change the title in sunsama to what I want to work on that day.
Focus Mode
If you hit the key “F”, you can access Sunsama’s focus mode. This will show you only on the next task on your list for today. When you click on the play button next to the timer you can also enter focus mode as well. To go back you can hit esc or F again. I love using the timer when I am working, because it makes me feel more focused on that one task and makes me want to work faster.
You can also focus only on today if you want to see your tasks list and calendar for today only. To enter this mode just click on “focus” at the top of your day.
Reviews and Shutdown
Another thing I love is their reflections and the daily shutdown ritual. This helps you to end your workday on time, so you can avoid burnout. I love seeing this because it allows you to journal your reflections and celebrate what you got done or didn’t get to.
The first step shows you the tasks that you completed and how much time you spend on them. Then it has prompted questions to reflect on what you did, what you learned or where you struggled. After this you will see a blank screen that says “Done for the day”. Then you can just walk away and be done for the day. This is great to plan ahead so when you do this you should definitely stop working and go do something fun for yourself or spend time with your family.
Sub-Tasks
I love breaking down my tasks and it is super easy to do in Sunsama. You can even track time for tasks that are in your sub-tasks and it will add to the total time. Sunsama also allows you to add that same time to the next day if you didn’t finish it all and the time spent on it will also roll over to the next day.
Time Blocking
You can view your daily tasks in a list form or time block it into your schedule. This helps you see if you really can get it all done in a day. I love that it allows you to estimate how much time a task will take as well as how long it actually took you. If you don’t want these tasks into your main calendar you can create a new “to do list” calendar in Google so that your tasks can be sent there instead. You will have to access your account settings and change your default calendar. I have mine sent to my business calendar.
If you didn’t get to a task, it will automatically roll over to the next day. If this happens too often, you can set it to get sent to your archived tasks. You can set how many days until it gets sent to your archive. By default it is set to 4 days. Your archive list will help you to see why these tasks weren’t getting done and helps you assess if they are really that important or not. To access the archive list you can click on the moon icon. If it’s not as important you can move these to your backlog. If it is important to you, then you should add a time estimate, plan it for a specific day and block off time to work on it.
If there are tasks that you would like to get to “someday” you can place them in your backlog. The backlog is accessible by clicking on the filebox icon. You can drag and drop tasks there too.
Benefits of Using Sunsama in Your System
By centralizing your to do list from all your apps and tools, you will be able to prioritize more
You will save time by not having to switch between all of your tools since it will all be in one spot
You can track and measure your progress from all of your projects. Seeing what you got done every day helps you to keep moving forward toward your goals.
How I Use Sunsama In My Digital System
As we know, we’re constantly bombarded with things to do and appointments to keep. It’s easy to feel like we don’t have enough time in our day for everything that comes up, but using my digital planner each day has helped me better organize my tasks, appointments, and responsibilities so I can get more done each day.
My digital planner gives me that pen to paper feel, just digitally. I love using it to get everything out of my head. It’s much easier to lay things out on digital paper instead of having them bouncing around in my mind all day long. Even better, if something changes or I need to change an appointment or task altogether (because we know that happens sometimes), it’s as easy as pressing delete and making those changes immediately. I like to plan and decorate my planner the night before. This is also where I reflect on my goals and habits, track things and write out lists of all sorts.
My digital planner is the first step in my planning process. It’s so helpful to see all of my appointments, lists, tasks, etc., laid out before me on one page each day.
As soon as I am done planning in my digital planner, I’ll open my Sunsama app on my computer. From there, I’ll scan over my calendar to see what tasks are scheduled for that day. In Sunsama I can also check for any meetings or events that were previously entered into Google Calendar. If I see something that needs to be done today that isn’t currently listed on my planner, then I’ll use Sunsama to set it up before I forget. It also helps me from forgetting any big deadlines or appointments.Then, I will start to enter any tasks I wrote down in my digital planner into Sunsama. I can set time estimates and even drag them into my schedule to plan when I will work on them. This lets me see realistically how much time I have to work on tasks. From there I can also drag in my ClickUp projects and emails. After that, I like to keep all of my tasks organized by category or context (work, home, errands, etc.). Sunsama makes it really fast and easy to timeblock and schedule out your day. Sunsama walks you through planning your day to make it even easier.
If you want to create an efficient morning routine or learn how to manage your time better, try these four steps:
First , decide what you need from each day. Do you have important appointments? What tasks do you need to accomplish?
Second , analyze your schedule. Think about when during your day things will happen that could interfere with your plans—morning meetings or after-work plans with friends, for example—and decide which times will be best for accomplishing what needs to get done. Then take a look at how long you realistically have in each block of time and rearrange accordingly.
Third , write everything down. Get yourself a planner that works for you—digital planners like Sunsama app allow you to set due dates and reminders so there’s no excuse for forgetting something important! Then write down everything: every activity, every appointment, everything else in your busy life along with where it is happening at what time… Everything .
Finally , review your notes before getting up in the morning so nothing gets forgotten later on when things get busy. Once you start doing it everyday there won’t be any slip ups and soon all those little bits add up to give us more time than we even thought was possible!
Why You Should Use it Alongside your Project Management Tool
I love using Clickup as my project management tool, but in order to get things done on a daily basis I always use Sunsama.
Clickup is amazing, but it is a project management tool and not the best for planning out my day. There are ways to make a weekly kanban board and add your tasks using automations, but I love the simplicity of daily planning with Sunsama. I like to use Clickup for organizing everything else.
As someone who always has new ideas and things to bookmark, my backlog is huge and it can get quite overwhelming! Sunsama has a lightweight backlog that you can use for storing tasks you want to work on sometime in the future, but it’s for things in the near future only. Sunsama is designed to be your daily and weekly task list. It’s not designed to be a fully featured project planner. So that’s why I need Clickup to organize my all of the things.
So you see, Sunsama is not meant to replace your project management tool but to work alongside it to help you create an intentional, calm, and focused plan for just today.
Final Thoughts
You’ll never have to worry about being out of time again when you use the Sunsama app and your project management tool together.
If you want to be more productive, it helps to have a project management tool that can help. The Sunsama app is one of the best tools I’ve seen for this because it makes work life so much easier by taking care of all your scheduling needs and keeping track of what tasks need attention.
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