Life Hacks For Parents – Time Saving Tips To Get Some Sanity Back

Perhaps it has just been one too many late nights with a crying kid, or one too many evenings spent working on ‘new math’, but some days I feel like I’m already on the brink before even thinking about that long to-do list. Laundry, groceries, we’re low on diapers, piano lessons, and on and on. I need to work smarter, not harder. These Life Hacks For Parents are great Time-Saving Tips to help you get your own sanity back — or at least some needed ‘me’ time! 

Time Management Life Hacks For Parents

Bulk Shop

Have your list ready to go before you hit the store.

Jot down what you need for meal planning, dry goods you need to stock up on, and anything that you can buy in bulk in one trip at a store like Sam’s Club. This will cut down on the number of shopping trips you need to make each month allowing you to spend more time at home. I love buying my Huggies® diapers in bulk because I get to spend more time at home with my kids and less time shopping!

While you are in the store, have your list already prepared in the order you’ll hit each aisle of the store. This will eliminate the need to keep rechecking your list in each aisle, and the possibility of forgetting something and backtracking the whole store.

When bagging groceries, have all the freezer food in one bag, refrigerated in another, and pantry supplies in another. When you get home, unloading will be so much easier.

Get As Much Delivered As Possible

While not everything can be delivered (like fresh groceries unless you live in certain markets), it is a good idea to look into services like Free Home Delivery at Sam’s Club. I just bought my Huggies® diapers in bulk and they were delivered right to my door for free. I don’t have to worry about running out, and I didn’t have to get out of my pajamas. 🙂

I love shopping at Amazon where they have a Subscribe and Save feature that allows you to get automatic deliveries in a set time period. This way you don’t have to think about shopping at all, your items just show up at their scheduled time!

Create Functional Storage

While buying in bulk is a time-saver, you need a place to functionally store all those goods so you aren’t wasting precious time hunting everything down all over your house. If space is at a premium in your home, consider going vertical with your storage. Tall shelving units, or create high up shelving like above your laundry area for example.

Laundry Room Shelving Kit

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Meal Plan 

Probably the ultimate in Life Hacks For Parents is meal planning. While it does take a bit of time and effort to get started initially, once you have a rhythm down you can whip out a weekly or monthly meal plan in no time. This also makes your bulk shopping list easier to do and allows you to start doing advanced meal-prep. As an added bonus, you usually end up eating healthier!

If you aren’t sure how to begin with meal planning, just think about what you had last week and tweak it from there. You can also subscribe to meal planning services that make it even easier by giving you meal ideas and full shopping lists!

Freezer Meal Prep

Spend one whole day prepping meals for the week, which means less time in the kitchen each day! You can find tons of freezer meal ideas on Pinterest, or even buy recipe books specifically tailored to this idea!

Spot Clean

Instead of doing a deep clean on the whole house, purchase small shower caddies or buckets and divvy up your cleaning supplies into smaller bottles for each room or level of your home. The smaller sized supplies won’t take up much space and rather than having the daunting task of cleaning your entire house, you can quickly clean a room when it works for you.

Have A Set Bedtime

This applies to both your children and you. One of my biggest downfalls was staying up way too late, then a kid would wake in the middle of the night which meant even less sleep for me. I’m no good to anyone if I’m extremely tired the whole next day. Set a bedtime for yourself and stick to it as much as possible.

Your kids should have a set bedtime as well. Children do better in school with the correct amount of sleep and it makes mornings way easier when dealing with children who are well rested.

Guess what else? Parents do better when they aren’t spending their evenings cajoling exhausted children into bed. Don’t feel bad, 80% of children do not go to sleep on time. Need a primer? Check out my Top Picks on Peaceful Parenting Books to help get you and your kids on the right track to a respectful, peaceful, yell-free house!

Stay Organized

Use a digital planner that will allow you to not only keep lists of what you need to do, but notify you and/or send reminders so you don’t forget to do those things. I love using Google Keep. You can see how I use it in my Life Hacks – Simplify With Tech post. 

Life Hacks For Parents – Bonus Tip!

Create A Snack Station

My kids come home from school hungry, they want snacks throughout the day when they’re home, and it’s always “Mooooooommmm!”

Eliminate their need to ask for Mom all the time by creating a simple place for them to get pre-approved snacks whenever they want. Healthy items like fruits and veggies in a fridge drawer, or a spot for healthy dried goods.

Need ideas? Check out my Healthy Snacks For Kids post to see some great ideas on what snacks to include, how to store them for kids, and more!

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