Work Outside-Home Mom: Time Management Tools

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When I inquired the homeschooling, working moms in my Facebook community group what were some topics they would like addressed in this time management series, one of those was time management tools. What tools can we use as busy, working outside-home, homeschooling moms to increase productivity?

I’m going to share the ones I utilize that make my life easier and manageable.

Synced Personal Digital Calendar

My husband and I both have iPhones and we share part of the calendar. We have the events color coded and labeled. The ones we share are “Home” and “Church”. As soon as I have a date for a field trip I schedule it to my phone’s Home calendar, and my husband gets a notification and adds it. In that way we are both up to date with upcoming events and don’t cross-plan by mistake. This can also be done with android phones.

Phone Alarms

I have set up several labeled alarms on my phone: Different awake times because I work on certain nights during the week, vitamins, and warning alarms to remind me that I have to leave for work in about 15 minutes.

Alexa and Alexa App

What can I say, I like “her”. I’m cooking, placing things in the oven, and while multitasking, I’m setting up timers with her vocally, and she abides to my many demands/commands. I can also tell her to add items to the shopping list when I notice something going low in the refrigerator, pantry, etc. When I get to the store, I just pull up the Amazon Alexa App and view the shopping list. Sometimes I don’t have too much time to look up things in the dictionary while schooling the kids and I simply ask her, and “she” responds, on many times, with great detail. It has so many more functions, but that would be a separate post.

Tablets or iPad

My iPad stays in our command center near Alexa. It is set up with alarms for chores, assignments, piano/guitar practices, 10 minute warnings, among others for the kids and with the calendar Notes section with assignments for them to read. It is synced with my iPhone, so when I’m at work, and remember about adding an assignment for the following morning, I just add it on my calendar in the Notes section under the “Kids’ Assignments” time slot. This can also be achieved with tablets as well.

I must state that technology is a blessing when properly utilized.

Traditional Planners

A time block planner or one with enough space to write at least by time of day (morning, afternoon, night) is necessary to have all your brainstorming and tasks to do laid out monthly, weekly, and daily. As my life planner, I’m currently utilizing this year the Beyond Blessed Life Planner. It is a planner and a journal all in one. It has plenty of space to write my times, and sometimes I use a silicone planner calendar stamp to make the time blocks myself. This is a printable planner and you have the option to purchase it dated or undated. I had mine bind with coil as shown below.

Below are the details of what this planner includes:

I chose the Beyond Blessed Life Planner this year because I have committed myself to a spiritual goal of being more intentional with reading my Bible from start to finish and to improve my relationship with God. This planner has Bible verses for every week and in every page, so it is encouraging to read as I plan my week.

In the past, since reading is my hobby, I have taken some of my free time to read resources that could actually help me improve my life at home, with homeschooling, with work, and productivity in general. I have purchased the annual Ultimate Homemaking Bundle four times (and I continue to do because it’s different every year), and I have found my best organizational sources from there. I’m really loving this year’s bundle. You can learn more about it by visiting their site: