In a little over 24 hours, my crowdfunding campaign on Pozible will close. If you haven’t seen my campaign, With the amazing support of readers of this blog, friends and family I am now over the 80% mark of my target.
Pozible is an all or nothing crowdfunding campaign so to be able to receive any funds to go towards the first production run, I need to hit the target.⠀
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If you haven’t heard about Adapt Relax before it is a functional beverage that I am creating. Functional beverages are drinks that provide a function as well as being a beverage! You would know many of the traditional functional beverages on the market like sports drinks, energy drinks, probiotic drinks, enhanced waters etc. ⠀
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Adapt Relax is a functional beverage that as the name suggests is a drink designed to help ease away the stress and increase a feeling of relaxation. It is 100% natural, non-alcoholic and zero sugar. It uses adaptogenic herbs as the key ingredient.⠀
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There is nothing really like it in the Australian drinks market. If you support my campaign you will be an early adopter of a new trend of drinks designed to improve your health and well-being. I would love to have you part of this journey!⠀
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You can find out more and pledge your support here.
24 tips to make life easier
Being organised and keeping everything running smoothly in the home, doesn’t happen because of one key task. It is the culmination of many, many actions, plans and tasks! Today I thought I would run through the 24 key tips that make my life easier!
- Menu planning – prior to COVID-19 I would plan for a month, but COVID-19 has brought very particular challenges so I have returned to weekly menu planning. Whether you plan for a week or a month, this is one task that will save you considerable time, money, and stress.
- Having a nighttime routine – the reason a nighttime routine makes life easier is two-fold. Firstly to help get the house, myself and the kids ready for the next day and secondly the final parts of my night routine are aimed to help prepare my body and mind for sleep, so I can get better quality.
- Having a morning routine – knowing what you need to do when so you can meet the timelines in the morning is key to smooth mornings. I have a morning routine and the kids have their morning routines that they follow so they can organise themselves as much as possible.
- Meal prep – Meal prep definitely makes my life easier. I take the time out almost every weekend to some meal prep for the week ahead. A few hours in the kitchen on the weekend saves me so much time and stress through the weekdays.
- Double batch cooking – on weekends I will make a meal that everyone loves in at least a double batch. This means there are plenty of leftovers for myself and the family to have for lunch making feeding the family good food easier.
- Have an effective to-do list – for a long time, I have worked out that taking time to create a proper to-do list will enable me to be more productive and work on the right tasks, not just the easy or urgent tasks Having a carefully curated to-do list makes life easier as you don’t have to make so many decisions during the busy parts of the day.
- Leaving each room in a better state than when I entered it – I am not a clean freak but I like the house to be relatively neat and tidy. This is for my own sanity and also because I find mess begets mess and if the house is messy the kids seem to make it messier!
- Allocate key household tasks to other family members – if all the housework, laundry, and errand running were left to me, I would not have time for anything else. My husband and kids all have tasks that they are required to do on a weekly or daily basis. Not only does this take some of the workload away from me and make my life easier, but it also gives the kids great life skills.
- Create a weekly schedule – planning out your week to fit in the key activities you need to fit in and you want to fit is a great time management technique. Often we waste time procrastinating because don’t know where to start. Plan out your week in advance and while you don’t have to plan out every hour of your day nor do you have to follow it to the letter 100% of the time, it will give structure to your week and allow you to fit more in.
- Teach kids to do things themselves – kids are super capable beings, so investing time in teaching them how to do tasks is liberating for both parents and kids! Less work for the parents means life is easier.
- Have smaller sized cleaning materials – messes happen with kids and while they may not always be able to clean it up to an adult standard, it is great to get them in the habit of cleaning up after themselves. It is worthwhile having a dustpan and brush in a smaller size, having cleaning cloths in an easy to get access draw or cupboard and even a small mop can be super helpful.
- Create easy access to everyday items for kids – to help kids be as independent as possible have items they use easy to access. For example have cups for them to drink out of and snack bowls at a height that they can access. When the kids were younger we set up a snack fridge for the kids which was full of foods they could eat at any time and could access themselves.
- Support the kids to set positive homework routines – once kids have homework it is important that kids start learning the skills of how to manage their own workload. I have found the best way I can help kids with their homework is not to micromanage them or do it for them, but teach them planning skills and scaffold them until they can set up their own positive routines.
- Teach family members to cook – preparing meals takes up quite a bit of time each day, so while teaching others to cook does take more time at the start it pays off significantly. Currently, my husband is cooking twice a week and my daughter is cooking once a week. Three nights of no cooking definitely makes my life easier.
- Create boundaries and limits for screen time – screen time is one of the biggest challenges for parents and every family will manage it differently. I have made plenty of mistakes in managing screen time in our home. There is, however, one thing I know that does work and that is having some family boundaries, limits and rules on how screen time occurs in the house that are clearly known and understood by everyone is important.
- Have personal goals – family life is wonderful and it gives me such joy and fulfillment, but I have found that for me to be the best mum that I can be, I need to have a well-rounded life. I need to pursue interests of my own, set goals to challenge myself and have experiences that are separate to the family.
- Have an exercise routine – it doesn’t matter what the exercise is and it doesn’t have to be every day, but if you don’t schedule exercise into your weekly schedule it won’t happen. Exercise can seem to take a lot of effort but it will give you more energy in return and make it easier for you to get through your days.
- Eat well – managing the home, working, investing in relationships, fitting in exercise takes a lot of energy. Taking time out to eat sitting down and eating good food makes a huge difference to your ability to get through the day with energy and patience.
- Sleep well – very much like the last two points above being disciplined and getting into bed at a reasonable time so you can get 7 – 8 hours sleep makes life feel much easier. So much of daily life is impacted by how we feel and everything always feels a lot harder when we are tired.
- Buy less – decluttering is always something you have to do when you have a growing family – kids outgrow toys, clothes, shoes and even beds! But how much stuff we really need for our kids is much less than what most of us – me included buy. I have reduced significantly the amount of unnecessary stuff I buy, but I still have a way to go. I am keen to keep working on this though because having less stuff absolutely makes my life easier as I less to tidy up and less to dust!
- Spend one on one time with the kids – the younger they are the more important this tip is. There are of course all the emotional benefits of spending time with kids one to one, but this time also helps build up a bank. Kids who have had real connection time with you are more likely to then spend time playing by themselves and giving you an opportunity to spend time uninterrupted on other tasks.
- Have a shopping routine – we do a big shop once a week (generally Friday) and then a top-up shop in the middle of the week. By planning this out, I have delegated the top-up shop to my husband. This saves me time and energy across the week.
- Group errands – at the start of the week look at what errands you have to do and when they need to be done and group as many of them as you can. Doing errands in one go saves lots of time.
- Have a wrapping box – a wrapping box makes my life so much easier as I always have it stocked with greeting cards, tags, paper, sticky tape, ribbons, scissors, etc so kids can easily wrap presents themselves as they have parties to go to.