How to Maximize Productivity as a Working Parent

I am not the kind of person who loves being busy all the time, believe it or not. I know there are people out there who thrive on chaos, but I am simply not one of them. My daily routine, however, does not reflect my desire for leisure.

My weekdays typically look something like this:

·         Wake up around 6:00 a.m.

·         Get Bebe ready to go to daycare, my mom’s house, or my sister’s house, depending on which day of the week it is. This consists of getting her out of bed, giving her a bottle of milk, changing her out of her pajamas if she’s going to daycare, putting on her shoes, and brushing/styling her hair. I typically handle most of this while my partner (soon-to-be husband) gets himself ready for work. Then he is typically the one who drops her off in the morning, which gives me time to get ready for work after they leave.

·         I get myself ready for work – do my hair, take a shower, put clothes on, and make breakfast to take with me on my commute to work.

·         8:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m. = my normal working hours. Unless Bebe is at daycare, I will typically call my mom or sister during my lunch break to check on Bebe.

·         5:00 p.m. – After leaving work, I drive to wherever I need to go to pick up Bebe. Some days, we’re able to get home around 6, and other days we might not get home until closer to 7:00 p.m. I absolutely loathe those 7 pm days.

·         Once we’re home, I make dinner, or we go out to eat, or we order food for delivery. Highly depends on what time we get home, and how our mood is.

·         Usually, between 7-8, we give Bebe a bath and then go through her normal bedtime routine.

·         By 8:30 p.m. (or sometimes 9… or 9:30…), we’ve got Bebe asleep in her crib. From there, we tidy up the house, take our showers, fill our water bottles, and try to get in bed as soon as possible. If we’re lucky, we can be in bed by 9:00 p.m. Getting in bed at the end of the day is usually the first chance to relax that we’ve had all day long.

·         Sometime between 11 and midnight is when we usually turn off the TV and go to sleep.

So, why am I giving you a rundown of my daily routine? To highlight the fact that we (my partner and I) don’t have a lot of time to waste each day. We have had to find ways to boost our efficiency/productivity so that nothing falls behind. Because each area of our lives matters tremendously – taking care of our children, doing well at work, keeping the house clean, and spending quality time with each other. In addition to those key areas, I also try to eat in a calorie deficit and squeeze in exercise before work or during my lunch hour. If I’m being honest, however, on the days I am extra burned out, diet and exercise fall by the wayside, sadly.

Here is everything I do to make my days as productive as possible:

1.      I try to write my weekly blog posts during downtime at work. I often work efficiently enough to get all my work done and enjoy some downtime, which is a great time to handle any extracurricular activities, such as typing up this article that you are reading right now.

2.      I use my gym at work. If I go to the gym at all, that is. I work in a nice, modern high-rise building downtown and it includes a free gym. Something I have done in the past is show up at work in my gym clothes, get my workout done, use the gym shower, and then head up to work on the 14th floor. Alternatively, I can use my lunch hour to get my workout done. Either way, I don’t sacrifice family time in the evening to exercise.

• If you do not have a gym at work (as most of us do not), I would recommend taking a 20-30 minute walk during your lunch break. It’s better than no exercise at all.

3.      I get to work on time and leave on time. If I really needed to get to work early to work on something important, I would make the time. I routinely take short (30 minute) lunches even though I am entitled to an hour, so that’s not an issue either. But leaving the office late is out of the question. I wouldn’t necessarily mind leaving at maybe 5:05 or 5:10 if something important came up, but I will not let it get to 5:30 p.m. That would throw off our whole evening and encroach on our family time. Luckily, however, my office very seldom makes anyone work late. By 5, most of the office is gone.

4.      When I’m at work, I get everything urgent done as soon as humanly possible. When I come in for the day, I basically brain dump all the tasks that need to get done that day into my Outlook task list. As they get done, I mark them as complete. On a good day, I could have all my work done by 10:00 a.m., which allows me to (quietly) work on other stuff that I wouldn’t care to do in my personal time (like make doctor’s appointments or call a family member that I haven’t spoken to in a while).

5.      I can work from home one a day a week. I work from home every Thursday, so on Wednesdays, I double-down at work, and try to make it so that my Thursday will be as free and clear as possible. Because if I’m having a slow day while working from home, that means I can get a lot of basic chores done at home. This would include laundry, cleaning the litter box, washing our bedsheets, vacuuming, and mopping our floors, wiping dusty surfaces, running the dishwasher, and just making sure the place looks reasonably tidy. A lot of times, there are barely any chores left for us to do on the weekends because I was able to get most everything done while working from home. Please don’t think that my work is suffering from this, though. I always have an eye on my work emails to make sure I don’t miss anything. And I always start on chores after important work tasks gets done.

6.      We tidy every day. This one is sort of related to #5. My partner and I don’t have much time for heavy cleaning, so we clean things as we go along. If you never let your house get too dirty, the cleaning won’t be very time-consuming. Cleaning every day saves us time in the long run.

7.      I use all available PTO. And I always have. I know there are people out there who feel like it’s impressive to not take time off work, but I disagree. PTO allows me to spend more time with my family, recover on sick days, and/or go to doctor’s appointments. Going to a doctor’s appointment over the weekend is poor use of our time (unless it’s a pediatrician appointment for our daughter), so we’d rather not waste the weekend.

8.      I (try) to go to sleep as soon as possible. Many times, it doesn’t work out the way I want it to, but I always try to be in bed no later than 10:00 p.m. I may not fall asleep right away, but I’m at least able to wind down and get sleepy, rather than working on something that will keep me awake. Getting enough sleep each night allows me to be more productive the next day, rather than lethargic. I rarely have any issues falling asleep these days, but I keep Melatonin in my nightstand just in case.

9.      We try to keep any necessary shopping for the weekend. It’s not fun at all to go grocery shopping during the work week, so we generally don’t do it. We brainstorm and make a list of absolutely everything we might need during the week (such as food, diapers, baby wipes, cleaning products, feminine hygiene products, cat food, cat litter, etc.) that way we don’t need too many weekday Target runs.

10.  We stick to our routine as tightly as possible. But… it’s not always possible. Just like with anybody else, our days sometimes get away from us and our routine goes to hell. I don’t try to get too uptight when this happens because I know it’s normal. On those kinds of days, we order takeout and let the toddler stay up a little later than usual.

XOXO, Alexis.