Is the day already over?
Do you feel you never got anything accomplished when you work from home?
When you juggle working at home on your blog and taking care of your little one (or little ones in my case), you always feel like you never hit your daily goals.
At least for me, it does. Planning my day as a stay at home mom with a blog sometimes doesn’t happen until Sunday night at 11 pm! But, by then I’m too tired to even think about the next day.
You see others start a mom blog and wonder how are they doing it? What are their time-saving tips to manage a house and a business?
Since I’ve started Twins Mommy, I had to create a daily plan schedule to fit into my blogging time and home time to work from home.
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of this post, if you haven’t already started your blog, check out my handy step-by-step tutorial to start a mommy blog today!
Let’s go through how to plan your day when you work at home.
1. Get a Bullet Journal
Mamas! I just recently got a bullet journal, and it’s life-saving! I swear! I never knew the power of a bullet journal. What I like about the bullet journal is how I save on notebooks!
Instead of having several notebooks or post-it notes of my to-do tasks, I have everything in one place. I can create a bullet journal schedule, or track what I’m doing or how my blog is growing each week or month.
I have a snapshot of the month, and I also add my tracking for social media followers on that page.
I like to keep that page open on my desk as a global view of what’s going on.
On the next page, I have my day-to-day list of tasks and reminders. The bullet journal method uses different annotations to help you plan your day quickly.
I find when I use my bullet journal, I’m more productive! Just after a solid month of using my bullet journal, I accomplished more in one day that I typically do in one week!
Of course, my twins are getting better at keeping themselves busy too 🙂
2. Create a Daily Schedule for Time Management
I like schedules. When my twins are in school my days run better, and I’m more productive.
Summer time is more of a challenge. Twins sleep in or they go to bed later because it’s bright and sunny at 8pm at night!
Also, there are more activities in the summer, so I find my schedule to continually change from day to day. But, I try to stick to my daily plan – for the most part.
What works for me is to look at the entire week first. Here is my weekly schedule I try to use every week.
From there, I can plan my days using my…bullet journal!
For example:
- Chores
- Blog post outline
- Kid activity
- Lunch + Create pin + answer questions in FB
- Quiet time for twins + 1 hour work time
- Outing with twins to park/library/pool
- Dinner
- Family time
- Bedtime for twins
- Work time
- Bed
My twins are old enough to play by themselves for short times during the day. I also try to alternate days of mostly work tasks and mostly mom tasks. So a “mom” day would be:
- Chores
- Breakfast + email
- Outing for the morning
- Come back lunch
- Quiet time + work
- Backyard play
- Supper
- Family time
- Bed for twins
- Work
If you can balance work days with mom days you won’t feel as guilty when you are working 🙂 At least I try not to!
3. Plan for Distractions
When I started working from home, my twins were still napping. I was fortunate to work during their daily naps from 1-3pm and then when they went to bed from 7-10pm.
I was able to start my blog and make money with 5 hours a day in the first year.
But, now that my twins no longer nap, I have to plan for those distractions.
And that’s okay. I need to know ahead of time when I have focussed time and when I don’t.
For example, if I sneak away and create pins for my blogs while my twins are playing lego, and then they race upstairs to ask for help, that’s fine.
I know to do that special work – course lessons, email freebie ideas, writing – when my twins are sleeping or with their dad or relative.
So, when planning your day when you work from home, figure out the times when your child needs you the most (meals, specific play activities) or even with social media.
Social media is a great way to help become a successful blogger, but you have to be careful not to be on it all day.
I have two Facebook groups and two Facebook pages, and I have to be efficient on Facebook, or else I’ll go down a rabbit hole of distraction!
4. Do the Same Tasks Every Day
I like to have a consistent schedule when I plan my day as a mom. I want everything to be the same. So I do my chores at the same time every day, and I do activities with my kids around the same time every day.
It makes life more predictable, especially with little ones.
But, this is the same in my business.
I create all my new pins after lunch and do my email in the morning.
On Fridays, I work on Imperfectly Perfect Mama.
This just helps me keep everything in order!
5. Give Yourself a Deadline
I like deadlines. As a work from home mom blogger and stay-at-home mom, I have a very flexible schedule, meaning I don’t need to clock into work or go to meetings and things like that.
I have all day to do what I want essentially! But, the downfall to that is, you won’t feel accomplished because you have TOO much time. It’s weird, but if you tell yourself you only have four hours to get something done, YOU WILL GET IT DONE!
For my freelance writing clients, I have client deadlines and personal deadlines. My personal deadlines for my client work is two-three days before the actual deadline.
It’s sort of like the idea of setting your clock ahead by 10 minutes in your home.
For your mom blog, give yourself a deadline for writing a new blog post. Shoot for writing a new post every week and plan your week around your blogging ideas!
6. Have a Content Schedule When You Work From Home
Okay, mamas. You have a blog so you need to also have a plan for your blog and that means having a content schedule.
This gives you a goal as well as motivation to keep on blogging!
The basis of your content schedule is to be consistent. When I first started Twins Mommy, I knew I had enough time in a week to publish two blog posts. I did this for six months until I no longer could.
I then dropped to publishing a blog post once a week and am working on being consistent.
The first step to having a content schedule is to know when you’ll publish your blog posts.
For me, I work on publishing content on Tuesdays, but over the years it has changed. Once you figure out your publishing day, then you can decide on what days and time you focus on:
- Creating your blog post outline
- Writing your draft
- Editing your blog post
- Creating a pin for your blog post
- Publishing and promoting
Finally, you need a plan for gaining traffic to your blog post! Make sure you check out my masterclass on how to create content for blog traffic!
7. Give Yourself Social Media Breaks
Planning breaks in your day for social media is okay. I do!
I love connecting with other mom bloggers in my Facebook group, Mom to Mompreneurs, and I love helping others with their blog traffic challenges too!
I usually check social media twice a day and once at night.
Since I have multiple Facebook pages and groups, I have to do my best in keeping everything up-to-date. And when you work from home, having a plan for breaks is essential!
Planning Ideas For Your Day as a Work From Home Mom
Look – as a mom we do most of the planning at home, right? We are the multi-taskers, the negotiators, the cook, the maid, the friend and so much more.
On top of that, we started a blog, and now we need to fit blogging time with mommying time!
For more planning ideas, make sure to check out these:
- Goal Planning Ideas for Bloggers
- Financial Goals to Set for Your Blog
- My Declutter and Cleaning Plan
- 12 Free Planners for Bloggers
Over to you – how do you plan your day as a mom blogger?
Please pin me!
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