Having free time may seem an impossible concept for a busy parent, especially one working a full-time job at the same time. Nevertheless, with the right know-how and a few time-saving ideas, it’s always possible to make certain tasks a lot easier and less time-consuming.
If you’re a busy parent wondering how time disappears so fast, here are four time-saving ideas for you to try.
1. Have the Family Help with Chores
As a busy parent running a household, you also have to contend with regular chores on top of the daily raising of a child. Not to mention that those chores become infinitely more time-consuming when you have a growing family making more of a mess. However, you can save a lot of time — as well as keeping the kids busy — by having everyone chip in to help with the chores.
Anything you can ask your children to do chore-wise, even if it’s as simple as picking up their toys and putting them away, means you can save time on housework with an extra pair of hands.
2. Plan Every Detail of Your Weekly Menu
Cooking and grocery shopping are both demanding tasks, and when you’re trying to feed a growing family, it can become a daily struggle. That’s why planning your weekly menu in advance, in a strict way, will make all the difference.
It will take the guesswork out of last-minute cooking, make sure you’re not distracted in the grocery aisles, and make the week a whole lot easier when it comes to eating habits.
Therefore make sure to plan every meal for every day, make a strict list to follow with everything you need, and stick to your meal plan so you can stay prepared and save time when not worrying about what you’re going to cook.
3. Get Organized with Clothes
Buying and maintaining clothes for growing children can be an extremely time-consuming (and expensive) necessity. Being as organized as possible with clothing will help to save bags of time. As children can be very difficult when it comes to styles of outfits and clothes they like, taking the time to buy kids outfits they’ll actually enjoy wearing will make any purchase worth more and last longer.
Measuring your children correctly and thinking about versatile clothing options will also be helpful in making clothes go further and ensure money isn’t wasted.
4. Be More Creative About When You Do Errands
It’s easy to want to lump big errands together and do everything during your day off or weekend. Days off seem like the ideal times to catch up with key chores, but that also means you’re not getting a day off at all.
So try to think more creatively about any spare time breaks you might get during the week. If you have a lunch hour at work, is there anything you can easily do? Can you fulfill anything on the way home from work during a weekday rather than in the middle of the week?
Take Away
Remember: always ask for help from others if you need to, and save time by preparing in a better way, making plans and schedules, and taking advantage of spare time that crops up throughout the week instead of leaving until the weekend.
