Do you regularly think that you’re going crazy with all the things that need to be organized around your business and your personal life?

You probably have a family to take care of or you have other obligations to loved ones and need to help them out.

Sometimes you wish you could wave your magical wand and fly smoothly through your day, while being super-efficient at work and get all the things done in your personal life.

That would be amazing! Unfortunately, the magical wand is a fairy tale, but there are certainly actions your can take to make a smooth day become a reality for you.

I hear you; I tried my best to juggle all the things I needed to do as well. After many years of experience, a demanding job and a family that grew bigger and bigger, I adopted a structure that integrates my business and personal life and that works very well for me.

I’ll share my tips below, hopefully you can benefit from it as well.

 

Tip 1 Close your day and set Priorities for the next day.

Always close your workday, with a list of actions that you need to do the next day. This is your priority list. Whatever happens, the actions that are on this list are important, therefore they need your attention.

When you are completely done for the day, your family is taken care of and you can put your feet on the table, take your planner and close your personal day as well. Just like your workday, you list the actions that you need to get done the next day. Don’t make the list too big, only the priorities need to be on there. If the list gets too big, the chances are nothing is get done.

If possible, delegate where you can. You do not need to do everything yourself. If you have the financial freedom to hire somebody to help you with household activities, you gain a lot of time back. Perhaps your partner can help you out as well and take over some of the family tasks.

 

Tip 2 Prepare everything for your Morning Routine the evening in advance

With everything, I mean everything!

Before going to bed you can do several small tasks that save you time in the morning. You want to start your day without stress and keep in a relaxed mood as long as possible.

Small personal tasks you can do the night before:

• Empty the dishwasher
• Set the table for breakfast
• Prepare the lunch boxes
• Lay out the cloths you and your kids are going to wear the next day
• Pack school bags
• Get your own stuff together and make sure you have your laptop, phone, charger, keys, water, skin care and anything else you might need during the day in your bag
• Check the family calendar for activities the next day that you need to consider
• Check if you have enough groceries for dinner or that you need to swing by the supermarket after work. You can plan this as a priority in your calendar

Small business tasks you can do the night before:

• Check your business calendar and verify if you have a meeting that starts earlier. This might change your morning schedule if you want to be on time.
• Verify if your business meetings require a certain dress code and lay out the clothing, shoes, and jewelry you need.
• Plan your personal priorities in your business calendar to ensure they are not forgotten.
• Mark personal actions in a different color than your business actions to easily see the difference.

 

Tip 3 Use as much as handy tools in your business as possible

If you want to work efficient and accomplish a lot in your business, you have a lot of handy tools that can help you with your tasks.

For planning tasks, you might like Asana, Trello or Monday. These are web applications that allow you to plan and schedule all your activities in a simple and visual tool. The user interface is very intuitive and help you organize your projects with ease.

There are many more tools available that do the same. They also have an app so you can check-in and follow-up on your phone.

As busy professional, you have a lot going on. Often the best ideas pop up while you’re busy doing something else. You want to write these ideas down before you forget about them. On your phone you can use several handy apps that help you capture new ideas or thing you may not forget. Check out your phone for apps like Notes, Recorder, KeyNote, Reminders. There are some nice Productivity apps out there worthwhile checking out.

Schedule your tasks in your Digital calendar and make sure that the calendar on your computer synchronizes with the one on your phone. It makes it so easy if you can edit in both applications and the synchronization is arranged automatic.

Work in the cloud to have your documents and files available at any device at any time. Sometimes you want to check something, and you don’t have your computer at hand. What’s more convenient than being able to go into your phone and pull up the data from the cloud! You save time if you can check without delay and make decisions quickly.

 

Tip 4 After business-day activities

When your business day is over, check with your family members if there are any new topics or activities. Sometimes your kid’s school want to unexpectedly launch new activities. These new activities need to be planned in your calendar.

If your family members need to be somewhere and you are the person that needs to drive them to their destination, make sure to put an alert in your phone so this doesn’t slip your mind.

 

Tip 5 The Five-minute Tidy-up Challenge

You can do a lot in 5 minutes. If you have 5 minutes left here and there, try to do some activities that don’t need you to concentrate a lot. For example, fold the laundry, empty the dishwasher, put clean laundry in the closet, start your washing machine, do some quick toilet cleaning, tidy up the living room or your bedroom. There are so many small tasks that can be done quickly instead of piling up at the end of the week.

 

Tip 6 Weekend Meal Cooking

If you have a busy schedule ahead of you, you might feel a lot more relaxed if you know you don’t have to cook that day because you prepared your meals in the weekend. It will only take you a few minutes to warm up your meals in the oven or microwave. This saves so much stress at the end of your day.

You can also accomplish this Zen feeling by cooking for two days instead of one. This will save you time at least for one evening.

 

Tip 7 Meal planning for 7 days

When you have time once a week, to sit down and plan your meals for seven days ahead, you have a huge win!

Deciding on what you are going to eat in the next seven days, making a list of the ingredients you need and driving to the supermarket to buy everything you need, will save you at least 45 minutes each day compared to doing grocery shopping every day after work.

Fill-up your freezer with bread, meat, fish, frozen vegetables, frozen fruit, frozen potatoes to shop from in case you have a stressful day, nothing to eat and no time to do grocery shopping.

Keep a small stock of canned food, pasta, rice, and long-life milk for emergencies.

Nothing to worry about related to meal planning anymore.

With these 7 tips you can be more efficient and effective in your professional and personal life.

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