9 ways to automate your life and maximise your productivity

We all know that we need to automate our businesses but wondering how to automate your life?

 

As a work at home mom, you need to make sure you’re making all the other things in life as easy as possible so you can maximise the time spent working on your business!

When you add up ALL the hours of household admin, you’d be surprised what it adds up to. On top of that, the amount of mental load that it creates is crazy! All of those to-dos going around and around your poor brain!

What if you could streamline that part of your life, letting go of that mental load and giving you more time to spend on your business.

Here are my top tips to automate your life and be more productive!

 

Set up automated banking

This is probably the easiest thing you can do to automate your life. Your monthly or weekly banking is probably very similar each month or week. If you automate it, you not only won’t miss any payments but you don’t have to go into the account to move money around. There are a few things that you can automate including payment of bills, moving money to savings, paying contractors and allocating money elsewhere.

Once everything is automated, you just have to go in and check periodically that the accounts have enough money and things are still running smoothly but other than that, it’s all taken care of.

 

Get your groceries delivered

Going to the shops is so time-consuming, especially when you have kids in tow! Getting your groceries delivered not only frees up the time of shopping, but it will also save you money (no more impulse buys) and you can create lists of your favorite things that you buy every week.

Your local supermarket should have the service available but you could also use Hello Fresh. We’ve used Hello Fresh for a while and we love it! We don’t use it every week but it’s great for those really busy weeks. It not only saves you time shopping but it saves you all the planning and thinking time. I don’t know about you but that takes me so much time!

 

Meal Plan

To be honest, this is something that I’ve known that I needed to get better at and I just couldn’t do it but I’ve figured something out that works amazingly well for our family.

It’s kind of a cross between meal planning and batching.

When I’m not using Hello Fresh, I buy veggies that are in season (money-saving) and other staples that I use. I will then batch cook a curry, BBQ chicken or cook up some tofu. This will serve as a base for the next few nights and then we change the vegetable that we want. We all get to chose our own veggie (keeping the children a little happier) and steam it up together. We’ll also have some baked potato, sweet potato or rice also cooked up. Each night, we all make our own bowl and everyone’s happy!

And dinner is so much less stressful and we never really create a meal from scratch!

 

 

Declutter

Even though I run a fairly lean household, I’m still surprised how much time can be used up just by looking for things.

There are probably two reasons for this,

1. you have way too much stuff or

2. you don’t have systems and places for things.

Or let’s be honest, a combination of the two!

If you never heard of Marie Kondo (you’ve probably been living under a rock), you need to read her book. It’s seriously life-changing. The gist of the book is that if the item doesn’t give you joy, you get rid of it. It’s simple but will take you some time to go through everything. Having said that, you will feel amazing letting go of things that no longer serve you! Trust me on that one!

 

Go through bills weekly

In our house, we letters come in, I put them in a tray and then every Monday I open them all up. I address everything then. Things that need to be kept get scanned and files, bills get paid (if I can’t automate them) and everything else gets thrown out.

It doesn’t take long and I love the feeling of having everything sorted!

 

Related posts: Work at home tips

 

Reduce your wardrobe

I know this is in line with decluttering but when you have less to choose from, it takes you less time to decide! Only have items that you wear and love. Even create yourself a little ‘uniform’. This is so much easier when you have a wardrobe of basics with only a few ‘louder’ pieces to chose from. You can also do this with the kid’s wardrobes and give them the power and capacity to choose their own clothes for the day.

If you find it hard to reduce, then I highly recommend reading Marie Kondo!

 

Have the same thing for breakfast

I know, this sounds boring but it’s so easy! I love getting up earlier than the kids and having some time to do yoga or work on my businesses. I get more time doing that when I know exactly what I’m having for breakfast.

Every day I have a smoothie. Most of the time it has the same ingredients but occasionally I mix it up. I love that I don’t have to make another decision for the day. Smoothies are quick, easy and super nutritious!

 

Clean out your inbox

An overcrowded inbox is just overwhelming! Do a KonMarieto your inbox and let go of anything that’s not serving you or bringing you joy!

It will not only reduce overwhelm but you won’t be reading things you don’t need and you won’t be missing emails that you need to read.

 

Get a cleaner

This is probably my favorite tip to automate your life! It’s been the best money I’ve spent!

There’s no way that I want to be spending time cleaning my house. I hate it and I never do a good job! With kids at home, it’s so hard to get the time to do it all at once.

I spend $60 a week to have someone come and do it. The best bit, I don’t feel guilty about it. I’m helping another woman out with her income and she’s saving me so much time and keeping me sane! It’s a win-win!

 

There you have it, my top tips to automate your life, making more time for your business or other things that you love!

Do you have something that I’ve missed? Pop it in the comments!