As a single mum, your days are often filled with the immediate demands of parenting, work, dealing with an ex, and everything else. This can create overwhelm, chaos, frustration, and stress. By taking proactive steps you can ensure a brighter and more stable tomorrow for both you and your family. In this blog post, we’ll explore five practical ways for single mums to take care of their future selves from a logistical standpoint, making life more manageable. It’s about looking after your future self as a single mum and doing things your future self will thank you for.
1. Prepare for tomorrow.
A great way to look after your future self is to set yourself up for tomorrow. This particularly comes in handy if you have little kids. Here are some examples of what you can include:
- Have your clothes laid out for the next day – especially if you’re going to work or the gym.
- Lay out any school uniforms or clothes for the little ones for the next day.
- If you need, pack a bag with everything that you need for the next day.
- Get the kids’ school bags ready and make sure they’ve got everything in there that they need.
- Get the lunches ready for the next day – especially if you are going to work.
- Look at the schedule for the next day and make sure you’ve got everything prepped.
Depending on the ages of the kids, this can also be a team effort. Teaching your kids that they need to be in charge of certain things too teaches responsibility and independence. Doing these things helps you be prepared and look after your future self.
2. Start your own weekly meal planning session.
Back when I was employed, starting my business, and single mum-ing, I found it really stressful if I hadn’t meal planned. I often had to run to the store at 6 pm on the way home to pick up things. This was quite inconvenient with a tired toddler. And what also happens is that you end up spending more money. Because every time you go to the shops, you’re more likely to pick up extras. Especially with young children in tow. Plan out your meals for the week and write a shopping list. Then you have one plan and one shop!
The other thing about meal planning is that it saves you time every week because you’re not thinking about stuff you need to buy every day. You’ve got your shopping list for the whole week, and you get it done in one hit. And then that’s it. If we don’t meal plan, we can spend so much time sitting there thinking, what are we going to have for dinner tonight? It’s a constant and draining decision-making process. And then often there are negative thoughts associated with that, such as I’m sick of cooking dinner, or why do I have to cook dinner every single night? Or I don’t want to cook dinner. And that’s not healthy, or supportive to our future selves.
Starting your own weekly meal planning session really is a life-changing difference that you can make in your life. It’s going to make it more efficient and more organised. And it’s going to make you happier because it takes away all that thinking and the negative thoughts that go along with it.
3. Batch cook.
Cook in bulk so you have enough dinner for two or three nights. I’m all about minimising time and maximising efficiency to make life easier for us. When my daughter was a toddler, and I was working in the city full time, I was very organized about this kind of thing. It just made life flow a lot better. We would often eat leftovers from the freezer when we came home so I didn’t have to cook when my daughter was awake. I felt like we didn’t have that much time to spend together each day, so at least I could sit down and eat the dinner that I had previously cooked. It meant that I could have more time with my daughter.
4. Implement a weekly planning session.
Every weekend, I write out what I have on for the following week. For each day, I list down appointments, shopping time, workout time, after-school activities, quality time with my family, Thrive Tribe events, one-on-one client coaching appointments, podcast recordings, writing sessions, other weekly work goals, social activities, and self-care (that part is important). Listing it out helps me to make sure I get everything on there that I need to do. It takes me about an hour (when I include the meal planning part), but it saves me so much time during the week and it just makes life so much easier.
Every night, I tweak it a little bit for the following day because there may have been some changes. Looking after your future self is taking these little steps and setting yourself up for success.
4. Automate finances.
Have a bit of a financial audit and see what payments are being made regularly and if you can streamline it in any way. Set up automatic bill payments and savings transfers so that you can ensure your financial responsibilities are met without needing constant attention. This frees up loads of mental space!
5. Do the less than one-minute jobs straight away.
The last tip that I want to give you is to just do little things when you see them. If you can see a job that needs to be done that’s going to take less than one minute to do, just do it right then and there. So for example, if you are in the kitchen and you’re making dinner, and you can see that you’ve got some dishes stacked in the sink that need to go in the dishwasher, then you know that’s going to take less than a minute. So quickly just put them in the dishwasher. It’s done.
It’s doing these little things in the moment, rather than looking at them and saying to yourself I’ve got to do this and ignoring it. That’s not looking after your future self. So looking after your future self is taking these little steps and saying to yourself that’s just going to take me one minute, so I’m just going to quickly do it now, and then it’s done.
Logistically looking after your future self as a single mum may require some initial effort. It’s all about creating new habits. But the long-term benefits are worth it. I promise! By implementing these practical strategies, you can streamline your daily life, reduce stress, and ensure a more organized future for you and the kids. Remember, you’ve got the skills and resourcefulness to make it happen!
P.S. DID YOU KNOW?
Thrive Tribe – the global membership experience for single mothers – will be opening again for enrolment very soon! Join the waitlist here.
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