From Diapers to Deadlines: A Time Management Guide for Busy Parents & Professionals

It's 7:12am and you're rushing to get kids fed and backpacks packed. 

Your phone is already blowing up with notifications from your team at work trying to do last minute prep for your 8am meeting. 

You rush out the door, drop the kids at school, and realize you forgot to eat breakfast. 

Work is back to back meetings, with your final meeting running long. You'll be late for dinner. 

You tear yourself away from work, rush home, and step into the maelstrom of a messy house, loud kids and a stressed spouse. 

After dinner, you do your best to help with homework, with half your brain doing geometry, the other half feeling guilty for all the tasks you didn't get done at work. 

Kids finally in bed, you crash onto the couch, pick up your phone and just start scrolling. You know it's not what you actually need, but you just need to shut off your thoughts for a bit. 

Around 9:30, you open your laptop back up "to get ahead of tomorrow", see all your unread emails and feel overwhelmed. After a deep sigh, you say to yourself, "There's just not enough time."

This. Sounds. Like. Hell. 

And you are not alone. It is the rare parent that feels they have this all figured out. 

I've got good news and bad news for you:

• Good News :: It doesn't have to be this way, and I'll show you how.
• Bad News :: You're going to have to do the work for it to be different.

We'll get to the guide to help you as a busy parent, but let's first figure out how it got this bad. 

Why Parents Feel Like There's Not Enough Time

Before you had kids, your life already "felt" full, meaning you were already running either right at or just above your actual capacity.  There's a good chance you had poor habits related to time back then, and you didn't fix those habits prior to having kids (more on how to fix your habits below).

Having kids took your already full schedule, and sucked hours out of EVERY SINGLE DAY, as you were now required to lovingly care for these little monsters. 

This pressure on your available time only exacerbated your "feeling" of being full, and without solid habits related to time, you simply tried to do your best and keep up, and you've been doing so for the last handful of years. 

In addition to the actual number of hours kids require of you, they create chaos as well. Kids are not like employees we can manage, or pets we can control. They are dynamic little havens of chaos, ready to send any semblance of a schedule you have sideways without warning. How can you possibly be successful at managing time in this type of environment? 

I'm glad you asked. 

A Time Management Guide for Busy Parents & Professionals

Compartmentalize Your Time 

The first mistake we make is allowing our worlds to bleed together (and this is particularly challenging if you work from home). This causes stress and frustration when we feel pulled professionally and personally, such as team members blowing up our phone while we're trying to get kids out the door in the morning. 

Solve this by planning out your days to know exactly when you're working, and exactly when you're parenting, and commit to this schedule as a top priority. Get your spouse or other caregivers involved to ensure you're all in agreement on how this will work, and everyone is committed to the plan. 

A note here: this often collapses at the end of your day, when you feel tempted to just keep working because you feel behind. You need to commit to your parenting schedule as if your most important professional stakeholder (e.g. #1 client, your CEO, an investor) scheduled a meeting with you. You would NEVER miss that meeting, and you need to treat your parenting schedule the same way. 

Be Fully Present Wherever You Are

Once you have your time compartmentalized, be fully present wherever you are. This means when you're at work, you are whole-hearted and present to make your best work happen. And when it's time to be home, unplug to the best of your abilities and be fully present there. 

Again, stress comes from feeling pulled in multiple directions and trying to do multiple things at one time. 

This may take some work with your habits related to time, such as getting good at a Daily Review Meeting before leaving work to close all your open loops and give yourself peace of mind in closing your laptop for the day. If you're a Time Boss already, you know what to do here. If not, schedule an intro coaching call with me, I'd love to help you get a quick win. 

Fall in Love with Time Habits & Commit to Them

Our brain LOVES habits, because they feel easy (aka burn less calories). And even better, kids thrive with habits and consistency. Use this to your advantage.

If you've done the work to compartmentalize your time, and you're ready to be fully present at home, what would be your ideal time habits be at home? For example:

• Exercise - 6am
• Wake Kids & Get Dressed - 6:45am
• Eat Breakfast - 7:15am
• Leave for School - 7:45am
• Work - 8:15am to 5:15pm
• Make Dinner - 5:30pm
• Eat Dinner - 6pm
• Do Homework - 7pm
• Get Ready for Bed - 8pm
• Relax - 8:30pm
• Bed - 10pm

You can add and remove items, and update times to match your world. Imagine if you could have a routine like this that works the majority of the time. 

You absolutely can. Write it down, agree with your spouse or other caregivers on it, and start putting it into practice. You'll be amazed at the results. 

Be Honest About How Long Things Take

We often feel "there's not enough time" because we're not honest with ourselves about how long things take. If you're underestimating the time needed to do something so you can fit more things in, you're shooting yourself in the foot.  

Here's the power of your time habits: you can adjust them anytime needed to make them work for you. 

For example, let's say you feel rushed every morning getting out the door to school. Looking at the schedule above, what if you wake the kids up 15 minutes earlier and get dressed, relieving that feeling of being rushed? That's as simple as setting your alarm 15 minutes earlier. That may sound painful to you now, but your future self a week or so from now has already acclimated to the change and will love not feeling rushed. Do your future self a favor and set that alarm 15 minutes earlier tomorrow. 

Or what if you feel rushed getting dinner on the table every night? Consider meal prepping on Sundays as a habit to get ahead of your schedule to alleviate the time pressure on dinner. 

Plan for the Worst

Reminder: kids are havens of chaos. You should expect them to forget their lunch, get sick at school and need to be picked up, sprain their ankle, have an emotional melt down over cereal, etc. 

What does a good plan look like? 

• Agree ahead of time with your spouse or other caregivers on what will happen if your child is sick and needs to stay home from school. 
• Add buffer to your schedule to allow for things to take longer than anticipated, such as adding 15 minutes to your morning. 
• Agree ahead of time with your stakeholders at work on how to navigate last minute needs. Most likely you'll be shocked at how accommodating they will be, particularly if you can be helpful to them if they experience the same last minute needs. 

Change Your Habits Related to Time Professionally

The number one stressor to a parent at home is the feeling of being behind at work. 

Even if we compartmentalize our time between work and home, we bring our whole person wherever we are. If things are challenging at work, we'll feel that challenge at home, and vice versa.

We must build habits related to time professionally that allow us to do our best work: prioritize the most important tasks, work within our actual capacity, deal with the items that don't fit our schedule, be able to deal with the reality of last minute needs, and get true rest and recovery. 

If you're ready to take the next step here, schedule an intro coaching call with me. I'd love to help you get a quick win. 

Prioritize True Rest (aka Probably Not Instagram Scrolling)

You've done the work to compartmentalize your time, you're fully present when you're at home and at work, you created time habits for your family to simplify your world, you're getting honest with how long things take, and you've solved your habits related to time professionally.  What's left? 

Rest. 

True rest. Not scrolling Instagram. Not binging Netflix. 

Find the thing that actually restores your energy, and doesn't just allow you to check out of your thoughts for an hour or two. Maybe it's exercise, maybe it's a cup of coffee with a friend, or reading a good book. Whatever it is, prioritize it. 

If time is a challenge here, consider trading time with your spouse or a friend so you both can get true rest. 

Busy Parents & Professionals Must Solve Their Relationship with Time for Good

Your world isn't getting any simpler, and as your kids grow, there will only be more demands on your time, both personally and professionally. 

Now is the time to solve your relationship with time for good, and build in the time habits that will make you resilient to whatever life throws at you, allowing you to get whatever it is you want out of life.

If you're not sure where to start, consider scheduling an intro coaching call with me. At a minimum, I'd love to help you get a quick win in your relationship with time.