Make Your Working Mom Schedule Work for Your Life

This week was a *bit* over scheduled…

Like “bring my soup in the car to pick up the kids” kind of overscheduled.

There weren’t even two free minutes for soup!

I don’t think I’m alone in this, though. It’s easy to get overload your working mom schedule and say too many yeses.

Yes, to volunteering at the school.
Yes, to organizing a company party.
Yes, to squeezing in *one more thing* before the end of the year.

Yeses that lead to car soup!

Streamlining Your Working Mom Schedule

So what do we do when we find we’re in “car soup” overloaded working mom schedule season? Drop everything and move to Tahiti?

Nope. Not in the cards! There are other options, though, that can help you make your working mom schedule work for your life.

1. Laugh through it.

A full life can be a ridiculous life at times and laughing makes a big difference. As I sat with my soup in the car, attempting to keep the interior of my vehicle looking as messy as it was originally, no more, I couldn’t help but laugh at myself.

Soup was a BOLD choice today.

But when I shared my car soup story with other working moms, they laughed along with me because we’ve all been there. We can chastise ourselves about creating a working mom schedule disaster of our own doing, or we can embrace the chaos.

2. Learn our lessons.

Knowing that this past week was beyond bonkers, I have blocked an entire day on my calendar next week to take care of holiday prep, relax, and eat soup while stationary.

Look at your busy working mom schedule right now and plan out in advance where you can create a break. Maybe that’s a whole day, maybe it’s a half day, maybe it’s an hour. But make sure whatever break you need is planned out in advance and on the calendar.

As a working mom, I know that if it’s not on the calendar, it’s not happening. The same goes for breaks!

3. Divide and conquer.

If you don’t already have the Fair Play book and game on your shelf, now is the time!

This game-changing process of working with your partner to divide and conquer all that is required of running a household has made a huge difference in my life.

The concept of the book and the accompanying game is that, as women, we often hold far too many cards (read: responsibilities) and that those cards need to be distributed to create a fair and effective partnership. Truly diving into each responsibility/chore/activity and working with your partner to assess who will cover the conceptualization, planning, and execution of each task helps to free up your working mom schedule and your brain!

4. Hold a Sunday meeting.

Sunday meetings are a staple in our house and when we don’t have our weekly family roundtable, the week goes awry. Every time. (This week included!)

Every Sunday (or most Sundays!), my family sits around the dinner table and we talk through our schedules for the week. Who is doing what on Monday? Where does everyone need to be, and when? Which of us is going to need extra support, a ride, or grace?

My working mom schedule depends on my kids knowing what is going down with my work from home business (late meetings, professional development, important calls happening when they are getting off the bus). My husband’s working dad schedule depends on us all knowing what time he’ll be leaving the house and returning. My kids’ school and sports schedule depends on my husband and I being available to get them where they need to be, or finding a ride.

Sunday meetings help us all get on the same page, and that’s a beautiful (and helpful) place to be!

5. Remember what success looks like to us.

When we’re clear on what we are optimizing for in work and life, it’s easier to say no to some things so that we can say yes to the things that matter.

In my career coaching practice, we use a tool called the Career and Life Criteria to help each individual create a rubric for how they will make decisions. On the criteria list, we have sentences that capture our unique motivators, the skills we want to be using, the people we want to surround ourselves with, the needs we have for ourselves and our families, and our future goals.

Creating Career and Life Criteria forces us to be mindful of what we want and need instead of simply going through the motions of a busy working mom schedule. It also gives us a place to turn to when deciding whether to say “yes” or “no” to an opportunity. Does this activity align with what holds meaning to me? If not, it might be a no!

Will we always perfectly choose our yeses and our nos? Definitely not. But this reminder is helpful to me, and I hope it’s helpful to you, too, as we all try our very best!

More Working Mom Schedule Tips

Need some more tips and tricks to make your working mom schedule work for you and your life?

Try these working mom hacks that have propelled me through the baby and toddler years and into elementary school!

Or these time management tools that I use daily for work and my personal life.

Or tune into the When Mommy Grows Up Podcast for tips, tricks, and laughs from two mom friends in your corner!