The Best Time Management System for Moms: How to do it all, and still have free time!

Ever feel like you’re spinning your wheels? Like you’re always on the go yet you never get anything done? I felt like that for a long time! I tried so many systems, but none of them fit my lifestyle, so I created a new one that is flexible and fits into literally any lifestyle.

If you’re new here, I’m Tonya Johnson. I’ve been working full time from social media since 2016 while juggling all things marriage and motherhood and money. In 2018/2019 I also started homeschooling my daughter, and in addition to all of that, we are a ministry family. I 100% understand what it’s like to be busy literally all of the time! This channel is for all the moms out their wearing all the hats and truly living that #bossmom life.

I’m going to give you practical, step by step directions on how to put your life on a schedule and ultimately clear up more free time to enjoy what you like doing most. Whether you’re a time management newbie, or a scheduling veteran, you’re going to be amazed at how much time this is going to give you back.

When I tell people that this is the system that will put their life on track, they’re usually skeptical, and understandably so. With so many time management tools out there, how do you know the right one for you and your family?

You play around with the system, and thats exactly what the BossMom Scheduling system allows you to do. If you do it one way this week and it doesn’t work, you can tweak things to customize the plan for next week. It’s exactly what it says it is, a system, not a schedule. It’s not something that you have to do like I do it or you have to do it like Suzy homemaker next door, you get to make this completely your own!

Doesn’t matter how skeptical you are, this will work for you if you allow it to because it’s designed for YOU. It’s designed for the mom who wears too many hats yet somehow manages to make all of them look good.

You can use a normal planner or even just a notebook and have this work just fine for you, but this system does go right along with our Basic Home Planner. You can use the link below to grab it today for 50% off.

We all know you have to walk
before you can run

I’ve divided the training up into 3 parts. Walking, Jogging, and Running. In other words, newbies, new season of life, and veteran time management carnosaurs.

You’ll want to watch the video that goes along with this, or the following section may be a little hard to understand. First step is simply knowing where your time is going. 

Step 1: For the next 7 days, track everything with as much detail as possible. At the end of each day you should have a sheet like this, filled out in as much detail as possible. Download the free time management pack to make this much easier.

Step 2: Bring in an outsider

After you’ve done step one for an entire week, you need to bring in a set of outside eyes. For this you can hire a time management coach like myself, or you can simply reach out to a friend whom you know has excellent time management skills herself. Tell her your goals and let her take a look at where you can fit them in.

Get specific with your goals:
I want to build an online business, I need 5 hours per week. Where can I put that in?
I want to workout, I need 1 hour per day, where can I put that in my schedule?
I want to eat healthier, therefore I need to make time to meal plan, grocery shop, and cook the meals, but i feel like I have zero time to put that in. What can I do?

Once your time management coach knows your goals and has your real-time schedule in hand, they can help you find the time you need by rearranging certain items, delegating, eliminating, and possibly even outsourcing. This is a process, it won’t happen overnight, trust the process.

You’re now walking without tripping, you stay in a pretty straight line, and you’ve only gotten a few bruises…

This is really where we ease you into the idea of prioritizing. At any time you can go back up and walk again, get a feel for you surroundings, then slowly pick up speed. Learning these skills shouldn’t be treated like a sprint, but rather a marathon. Take your time, know that there will be some hills along the way, and have fun with it.
This portion is broken into 5 steps

Step 1
Step one is pretty easy, you’re simply going to make a list of everything you need to do on a daily basis. Showering, Sleeping,
Lunch, Cleaning your house, Homeschool, Workout, Journaling, etc would all be things you’d want to include on the daily list. By the way, all of these pages are included in the FREE Beginner Time Management Pack I have put together for you.

Step 2

Step two is just like step one except you’re writing down everything that needs done sometime this week. This could include recurring things like church services, zoom meetings, and sports practices as well as one time things like doctors appointments, packing a special lunch for a picnic, calling Susie to set up a play date, or filming an ad read for an upcoming sponsored video.

Step 3 

Step three is optional, but it helps ensure staying centered for those of us who are busy with jobs, kids, ministries, and spouses. If you feel like you have a good work/life balance, skip this step altogether. Not sure? Or maybe you know something needs to change? Proceed…

On the Building Blocks of Balance page you’re going to write down each area of your life; I try to keep this to no more than 5 (more than 2 and you'll need to print duplicate sheets). Examples would be wife, self care, mom, ministry leader, blogger, etc. Then, you’re going to take each task from your weekly to do list and put it under one of the blocks.

Remember, you can refer back to the video if any of this gets confusing.
After writing down all of your tasks, are your blocks pretty even or is one of them far taller than the rest? That answers your questions of whether or not you have a good work/home life balance.
*** Note If you are working a traditional job and simultaneously building an online business, you’ll want those two blocks to be separate. Job/Business

Step 4

Once you’re happy with your balance for the week, it’s time to prioritize your tasks. I also want to note that on occasion, one block will be much bigger than another depending on the season of life you’re in. As I’m putting together this training, my week is filled to the brim with work stuff, and homeschooling and even basic mom and wife duties have been put on the back burner. The reason being is we’re going on a week long vacation next week, and then my mom is coming the week after that, so I’m doing my best to do everything this week and not have to work much at all the next 3 weeks.

Ok, how to prioritize: On the sheet marked weekly to do, beside each task, you’re simply going to write an A, B, or C.
A are things you HAVE to do this week,
B are things you really should do, and
C are things you could push off if push comes to shove.

Step 5
Make step 5 a non-negotiable part of your morning routine. Plan 15-30 min at the beginning of each day, before you do anything else, to sit down with your morning coffee, and plug your tasks into your daily schedule. You won’t stick 100% to this, especially if you have kids, but it’s proven that people with a schedule get way more done than people without one.

Ok, so at this point you’re jogging at a pretty steady pace. You may stop for walk breaks here and there when you get side tracked by the scenery, but for the most part you’ve got a good pace going on…

This is completely optional. Plenty of moms I work with prefer to stay in the jogging category. This new, running category is only for those of us who are a little crazy, and even then, we take weeks off to go back to jogging when we start feeling like we need a break.

Running and jogging are very similar, with one big difference. Instead of plugging in your tasks to a daily schedule, you’re going to plug them in all at once into a weekly schedule. This saves a little bit of time, and gives you a 30k foot overview of the week ahead. Instead of sitting down each morning and planning out your day. You’re going to carve out 60-90 min once a week and plan out your entire week at one time. I told y’all this was extreme, but I’m telling you it’ll give you so much free time in your schedule, and it’s fun to try to “beat the clock” each day. The idea is to wake up each morning and hit the floor running. There’s not guess work. You know exactly what the day holds and you go to bed excited to wake up the next morning and start chipping away at the items on your list. This DOESN’T mean that every minute is filled with productivity tasks. Naps, pool time, journaling, quiet mornings with coffee, these are just a few of the chunk of “me time” that I schedule in.

Whichever option you choose, the more you work to refine your time management skills the more time you’ll have to focus on what’s most important to you. If this all sounds good, but you keep thinking that you’ll never get a hold of your time becusase you have kids, check out the bonus resource (scroll down) "Time Management for Kids".

1. Download beginner time managnemt pack 

2. Conduct a time audit on yourself. 

3. Tag us @ the bossmom co and just let us know whether you’ve decided to jog or run 

Example: I’m taking the new #bossmom time management challenge, and I’ve decided to run! 

We’d love to encourage you on the way!

Until next time, I’m Tonya Johnson teaching you how to balance all things marriage, motherhood, and money. Have a great rest of your week.

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