How to Create the Perfect Work at Home Mom Schedule That Makes Your Life Work Better

As I transition into becoming a work at home mom, having a schedule that works became extremely important to my success.

There are a billion things to do each day. How do I get them all done? And which things should I do first? And in what order? How do I keep myself on task?

It is only me here, usually, so do I need a schedule?

At first I thought I did not need a schedule. I can do all the things, sure.

Nope. That did not work at all. I might be here alone for six hours a day, but I do still have a large family to take care of, and all of their laundry and chores that go with keeping a house.

I found myself in desperate need of some structure. Do you feel that way too?

So January was about winging it, and that did not work. February is the month of learning routine and self-discipline. I made a schedule. Now I am in the stage of tweaking the schedule to get it to work well for our whole family.

It is such a relief now to have a daily schedule made that I can check all day long and bring myself back in the right direction when I get distracted.

You can read all the steps below, or you can watch the video I made, where I make my own new work at home mom schedule. I walk through all the steps that I take.

Here are the steps I used to create my new work at home mom schedule:

#1. Write out all the things I need to do each day.

Do not write once/week things or once/month things. These are only your daily items.

#2. Take a clean sheet of lined notebook paper and write down all the hours, one hour per line, from the time you get up until the time you go to bed. Then create a rough draft for your schedule.

Do this one in pencil, or do this knowing you will have to do some scribbling if you use pen.

We are not going to time block down to the minutes. I have never found that to work. Simple tasks can take five minutes or they can take thirty, if someone calls and interrupts you. Try to stick to general ideas.

Fill in each hour with an assigned task or two. This is the rough draft of your schedule.

For example, here is the list I made for myself. You may notice, I left off some things, like “eat lunch” and “put on makeup.” That is why you will need to spend the first couple of weeks tweaking your schedule.

I tried to be fairly specific here with exactly what needs to be done. Of course I did forget a few things, like lunch. Ha! In real life, I never forget lunch.

#3. Create a revised, neater copy of your schedule, adding in and moving around things to make them work.

Here is mine. I wrote mine out on my desk top calendar.

#4. You can even add these time blocks into your Google Calendar and have it send you reminders to do them.

I have heard other people say they like to do that, but I have not done it myself. My phone constantly dinging would bother me too much.

How strictly you stick to your schedule is up to you.

I personally view the schedule as a loose guide for my day. There is no strict schedule following here. If it is a beautiful day outside, I will take a walk whenever I please.

For some of the hours, I tried to give myself way more time than I thought I would need to allow for all of the added tasks that days bring, and for down time too.

It may look hilarious that I have an hour blocked off for Pinterest, but for me that is actually a work task.

If I do not spend about an hour creating pins and pinning each day for my blog, no one would ever read this blog. Pinterest is my number one source for traffic.

In many ways, my particular schedule is more of a part-time blogger schedule, so do not get caught up in what I have on mine.

The idea is to use the process I describe to create a schedule that works for your particular job.

I also found a few websites that have other work at home mom schedule examples, if you are looking for inspiration. You can check those out here and here.

When I made my own schedule, I did not look at anyone else’s first because I wanted to do what works for my own unique set of circumstances and not get over ambitious from looking at other people’s plans. The thing is I am not a person who accomplishes a billion things a day. I tried to keep this as more of a loose guideline than a fully time-blocked day.

You can read all about the time I made a far more complicated schedule here. It has some good ideas, but personally I believe if your life is so hectic you need to color code it, it is too much for me. But I know people are different, and what did not work for me might work beautifully for you.

My conclusion here is that the new schedule I detailed in the video is actually working quite well.

I gave myself way too much time for some things, like starting dinner. That enables me to get more of my writing or chores done during that time. In the video, I said it did not look like enough work time, but it has worked out better than I thought it would.

Life is all about readjusting as needed though. I hope this helps you build an awesome schedule too.

Other Articles You Can Find on this Website About Productivity as a Work at Home Mom:

Goal Planning Broken Down Into the Easiest Steps Ever

You Gotta Try Out this 7 Day Personal Growth Challenge

How to Have a Successful Monthly Planning Session