5 Things I Implement to Maintain Ease & Productivity in Motherhood

Without adding more to my to-do list.

The days of prescriptive content are dead, right?

Trust me when I say this isn’t that. Trust me, again, when I say I’m *rolls my eyes* over that type of content too. This isn’t a list of “things you should do to be a better mom!”

Nope. No mom needs more on her to-do list. Rather, this is simply a list of things I’ve realized have helped me keep a rhythm in my daily life as a new mom of two.

My philosophy, personally, as a mother, has always been to (in the simplest of terms) go with the flow. When I welcomed my first daughter, she very much became an accessory to my everyday life—molding to my schedule. I never once sweated wake windows or nap times, and I never tracked her feedings. As long as she was happy and healthy, we were good to go. What made her happy informed my schedule, and my schedule informed hers. We were an intermingled ecosystem: mom and baby, baby and mom.

My ethos as a second time mom is very similar. However, I’ve come to realize that “going with the flow” doesn’t work quite as easily with two littles. I’m still not stressing any of the aforementioned, but adding in a few small parameters to our days has helped tremendously with the flow—especially as I navigate the days and nights solo.

A Day in My Life as Mom of a Toddler and a Newborn

These things are not groundbreaking or revolutionary. Maybe you already do some of them. That’s the point. They’re easy to implement. Easy to keep up with, yet make a tremendous difference in the way I’m able to navigate long days as mom. I hope you’re able to take what you need from the list! I hope they offer a dose of ease into your routine, too.

1. Put the house to bed. By this I mean, tidy the house (the downstairs or main living area, primarily) before heading to bed. Each night, I empty the sink of dishes into the dishwasher, wipe the counters, put miscellaneous things back into their spots, vacuum, and fold the blankets and fluff the pillows on the couch. That way, when I wake up the next morning, I’m not met with the immediate feeling of needing to clean. Instead, I can sit on the couch with my coffee and feel at peace before the chaos of kids happen.

2. Put the coffee pot on auto-brew. This one is self-explanatory, right? Coffee is kind of my solution to a lot of things. It makes me happy, and in this stage of my life, I put my focus on anything that brings me a slice of sunshine. Having hot coffee ready for me upon walking downstairs is kind of like having personal room service. At least, I like to think so. If I’m lucky and remember to leave my bedroom door open before bed, the smell of freshly brewed coffee wafts gently into the dark room during my baby’s 5:30am feeding. It’s scent tempting me downstairs for quiet time before the sun rises. It feels just as magical as it sounds.

3. Pick out the kids’ outfits the night before. Each night, I try to pick out the girls’ outfits before heading to bed. I lay out their entire outfit, from clothes, to socks and diapers. That way, I know everything is within reach the next morning while I get them both ready for the day. I also never get myself dressed before I dress the kids. I know, it’s proverbial to “tend to me before thee” (or something like that?) but I’d have to disagree in this instance. Getting the littles dressed and ready for the day is a mental check on my to do list that makes getting myself ready so much more enjoyable (read: less rushed). It means I can spend the time I need on myself without worrying that we’ll end up behind schedule because I still have things to do before we’re able to leave the house.

4. Get out of the house in the morning. I don’t do this every day, but wow, on the days that I do is it nice! Not only does it drain some of my toddler’s energy, but it means that my house will remain somewhat clean up until nap time. Which means I can enjoy that quiet time, again, without feeling the need to clean. My ideal routine would be: leave the house by 9:00 am, grab a coffee treat, make our way to somewhere fun (some of our frequents being dance class, a MomCo meeting, a walk at the park, my parent’s house, or the Safari Park zoo) and be back home by lunch for a meal at home and then nap or quiet time by 1:00 pm.

5. Compartmentalize. Not everything has to be done RIGHT NOW. This one is a big one. As moms, we constantly feel the need to multitask—me included. But I’ve come to learn that it’s more efficient to compartmentalize than try to do everything at once. For example, if I’m in the middle of getting the girls dressed, that’s where my focus is. It’s not on going back and forth between getting them and myself dressed. If I’m getting myself dressed, I’m not focused on getting them breakfast or tending to their playtime. You get the point. I try my best to run the start of my day like an assembly line, not an orchestra-of-one—trying to do it all as just one person is bound to lead to a cacophony of mental noise. Before I commit to a task, I make sure that all prior commitments are tended to. As a first-time mom, I’d often find myself racing from one task to the next, trying to “fit it all in” at once. I felt as if I was constantly racing an invisible clock. I’d be checking emails as I was dressing the baby, or thinking about how quickly I’d have to shower as I was nursing the baby. Now, I know that turning my complete focus (actions and thoughts) to one task at a time is often what creates a smooth routine, and actually gets things done more quickly and efficiently.

Is there something on this list you already implement into your day-to-day? Is there something you’d add to the list? My hope is that there is a nugget of wisdom you can take from this essay that lightens the load of motherhood for you, even if just a tiny bit.