How to be a organized mom (14 tips you’ll wish you knew sooner)

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I learned to become an organized mom after a lot of trial and error. 

Being organized was not natural to me, but I learned it because of the chaos and overwhelm my unorganized life caused me.

The laundry that would pile up, the book I had been wanting to read for weeks, the clutter in my bedroom, the sleep debt that was sucking out all my energy — all called for my attention. And when the stress started to grow on me, I wanted a solution. 

That’s when I stumbled upon bullet journaling. From then on, I learned to hold a balance between my personal life, family, and everything else.

So let’s dive into our topic today: how to become an organized mum. 

Well, I would like to start by saying I am a work-at-home mom. So my ideas and systems of staying organized revolve around work-from-home life. 

But, all these habits are useful even if you have a 9-5 job or if you are a stay-at-home mom. You just need to tweak them according to your lifestyle. 

So let’s find out how you can be more organized as a mother.

1. PLAN YOUR WEEK

As I said, it’s when I started a bullet journal, I learned to tame the chaos in my life.

Now I had a place to jot down everything. Unlike traditional planners, in a bullet journal, you have the space to write about anything and everything.

Be it about your bucket list, gratitude list, cleaning chores, goals, movies you want to watch, books you want to read to kids, etc. It means putting on paper whatever is taking up space in your mind so that you no longer have to worry about it. It’s a very forgiving system that’s why I never buy other planners.

It frees up so much mental clutter and helps to reduce the stress and overwhelm you experience as a mother. 

In addition to writing all these lists, a bullet journal is mainly used as a planner to schedule in your monthly, weekly, and daily tasks. 

At the beginning of each month, I write down my monthly goals. 

My monthly goals include not only household chores and my professional work (the blog you are reading), but everything else including improving my mindset and other habits. 

And then I proceed to do a brain dump of all the tasks I want to do in a week. And schedule each task. I also schedule time for work, exercise, reading, house chores, self-care, rest days, etc. 

I always procrastinated on self-care. But with this planning system now, all my personal grooming gets done and I am a much happier person. 

Note: I keep a pretty basic and minimalist bullet journal because I am a busy mom who ain’t got time for decorating my planner and adding more to my overwhelm. 

I use fine liner pens and other colors when necessary. But other than that, my bullet journal is very boring. Oh, and I also like to doodle once in a blue moon. I do that in my journal when I feel creative. 

If you want to know how to start a minimalist bullet journal if you don’t want to draw, please read this article.

2. WORK ON YOUR MINDSET

What does mindset have to do anything about being organized? 

Well. What I have learned over the years is that a lot of our habits depend upon our mindset. 

James Clear, in his best-selling book, Atomic Habits says, to create lasting habits you need to create change at an identity level. 

If you keep saying to yourself that “I am so disorganized” or “I am so messy”, that’s what you become. Because that’s how you identify yourself as. On the other hand, when you start to identify yourself as the person you aspire to be, change happens. 

That’s how old habits give way to new, empowering ones.

Rewire your brain by affirming new beliefs about who you want to become by repeating positive affirmations. 

In this case, I use positive affirmations like, 

I am an organized person and I get everything done on time

I am a productive person who manages her time efficiently

It’s hard to believe these new thoughts sometimes but when you keep repeating it verbally or in writing, your brain starts to wire in the new beliefs. And it becomes easier to act from the new beliefs.

Related:

• How positive affirmations help kids to think positively (50 affirmations for kids)
• 70 encouraging words kids need to hear

3. MANAGE YOUR ENERGY

The primary reason you want to become an organized mother is that you can be more productive with the time you have got. 

You want to have a system for all your tasks so that your daily activities are set upon these systems and you just need to stick to the plan. 

But the biggest enemy I have found is my lack of energy. I have my systems in place, but when it comes to taking action, I am simply tired.

Well, a lot of factors could cause tiredness.

Firstly, check if you have any medical reasons to feel dull and lethargic. It can be physical or mental. 

Secondly, check if you have been managing your energy well. Every person has a period of time during the day when they feel the freshest and the most active. 

Check if you are utilizing this time to your benefit. 

For me, it’s the mornings. If I don’t use this time well and prepare for the morning beforehand, my productivity goes downhill as the day progresses and nothing gets done. 

So, a good night’s sleep is important. Exercise is important. Nutritious food is important. 

These are things even kids know. But do we put this into practice? 

As they say, it’s not the big things. It’s often the small habits when done consistently over time that you see big changes.

It’s true here as well. 

So, prepare for your day the previous night. Have a good plan about how you are going to utilize the most productive hours of your day in the best way possible. 

And also take good care of your health. Try making the 8 hours of sleep a day a non-negotiable thing. It will do wonders for your productivity. 

4. CREATE ROUTINES

After planning, what can help you to organize your life with kids is creating routines. 

Routines for kids and moms. 

Once you have planned your week, think about how you can create routines for the recurring tasks.

For example, I am a huge personal development junkie. When I wanted to make meditation and journaling a daily habit, I decided to make this a part of my morning routine so that they get done consistently on autopilot. 

Well, not autopilot, I have to be present. But you get the idea! 

What you can do is, take whatever you want to be done consistently, and create a routine around it.

For example, if you want to get regular decluttering done, make it a routine by taking ten minutes in the morning or evening to do it. 

According to the habit stacking method, it’s easier to form habits if you attach the new habit to an existing established one.

So, if you attach your regular decluttering to after breakfast or after dinner (here breakfast or dinner can act as established habits), it becomes easier to stay on top of the task daily. 

I believe having a morning routine and an evening routine helps me a ton in being organized. 

My morning routine usually consists of: 

• Waking up earlier than everyone 
• Prayer
• Meditation and journaling
• Preparing breakfast and sending kids to school
• Making bed 
• Sit down for  a few hours of work

My night routine consists of:

• Dinner
• Prepping for breakfast and school lunches
• Reading stories to kids
• Putting them to bed
• Plan the next day
• Nightly skincare routine
• Read a book
• Sleep by 10-11 pm

I find getting everything ready for the morning the previous night helpful. Like getting everyone’s clothes ready, backpacks ready, and snacks prepared. Also, have a clear idea about how your day is going to be. 

Some people say that living under the constraints of routines is boring and adds no excitement to the day.

I believe having routines and systems are freeing because your brain automatically knows what comes next and you are saved from the overwhelm of having to make decisions constantly. 

And as a result of the routines, you become organized and get everything done.

But as I said, becoming an organized mom takes trial and error, and depending upon our personality, we have to find and stick to what suits us.

5. SET PRIORITIES FOR EACH DAY

There are so many things you want to get done throughout the week. So when you brain dump your tasks for the week, set priorities for each of them. 

Each day, schedule the high-priority tasks for the day. It could be 3-4 “needle-moving” tasks and they are the ones that should be done no matter what. 

It could be exercise, cleaning the garage, meal prepping for the week, etc.

I like to do high-priority tasks during the most productive and energetic hours of my day.

And the rest of the tasks are low-priority ones. They are the ones that can be postponed to the next day guilt-free even if you couldn’t do it. But since they are on the weekly plan, you will remember to do it. So you can safely take it off your head. 

6. SYSTEMS

Have systems for all your chores. 

For example, decide how many times you want to do cleaning a week. 

I clean the bathroom every two days, mop the floors every two days, do laundry thrice or four times a week, do meal planning, and prep once a week. 

When it comes to working, I write from Monday to Thursday, Saturday is for publishing, and Sundays are for making pins and promoting on Pinterest. Monday is for relaxing, learning, and self-care. 

I note down each day’s tasks in my bullet journal. But when it has reached a point of habit, I don’t need to write all these tasks daily. That’s the benefit of having systems. You are free from thinking. 

7. USE BINDERS

You can use binders to organize your bills, tickets, school and work files, medical prescriptions, etc. 

It helps to have everything in one place. And you will never miss anything. 

8. USE LISTS

I don’t know how I would survive without lists. I don’t like to rely on my memory anymore. It’s getting weaker every day, anyway. Is it mummy brain? I don’t know. 

But I use to-do notepads to make lists. I have one in the kitchen to make the list of grocery items, one in my room for the work-related to-do list, and many other lists in my bullet journal that are related to my life in general. 

Making lists help you to take everything off from your head and free up mental space which you can use for productive things. 

9. TEACH KIDS TO ORGANIZE

If you want to live an organized life with kids, teaching them to be organized is essential. Because it takes a lot of time and effort to clean up after them all the time. 

And you want to pass on the habit as well so that they can learn to manage their tasks too.

Teach kids to make their bed, hang the wet towels back, keep their school materials neatly on their table, and let all their belongings have a place. And it is also the next habit of organized moms.

10. LET EVERYTHING HAVE A PLACE

Designate a place for each and every category of items in your home. Make use of organizational supplies if required. 

And also, create zones for work and study. And you can keep the items required for work, study, etc. in that zone. It helps because kids then won’t drag their books and other supplies all over the house.

And let all the members of your house know the designated places as well. 

11. DO MEAL PLANNING AND MEAL PREPPING

Meal planning is one habit all organized moms must have in their arsenal. Meal planning helps to remove overwhelm and indecision that moms experience on a daily basis. 

You can fix a day in your week to do meal planning for one week or more. And then fix a day to do grocery shopping and then do meal prepping. 

Meal planning helps you to save a lot of time that you usually waste in decision making and in running to the grocery every other day because you just found out you need another ingredient to make dinner.

Here is a detailed post on how to start meal planning as a busy mom.

12. CLEAN AND DECLUTTER REGULARLY

Organized moms don’t get their stuff to accumulate so that it becomes a headache later. 

When you take ten to twenty minutes to declutter and clean every day, it helps to keep things from accumulating in a corner or in a room. And also, when you have designated places for each and everything, it helps in the daily decluttering process.

Related: 

• 100+ things to declutter from your house today
• 36 quick ten-minute decluttering tasks you can do now

13. BATCHING

Batching is another routine I like to add to the list of organizational skills. 

Do everything in batches so you get tasks of the same nature done at a time. One example is meal planning and prepping. Another is, doing your grocery run and other errands in the same location in a day. 

Such small shifts in your habits help to save a lot of time and energy, especially on those busy days when all kinds of tasks can run you over. 

14. FAMILY CALENDAR

Why should moms have to manage the schedules of everyone in the family? Get everyone on board and let them manage their schedules on their own. 

Create a monthly calendar on a dry-erase board and hang it somewhere everyone can see. Let everyone add their own tasks and events on the calendar. You can color code if necessary. 

 

Or you can use colored sticky notes and assign each member a color. They can write their tasks using that particular colored sticky note.

Let it be everyone’s job to write their soccer practice sessions, piano lessons, meetings, etc. on the calendar. If you have older kids, you can make use of online tools like Google calendar too. 

If you try at least some of the above habits, it can make a difference in your life as a mom. What all habits other than these help you to be an organized mom? Let me know in the comments below.

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