- Decree or work? I didn’t even have this question before me when my son was born. From adolescence I thought that children should fit into life, and not drastically change it. Therefore, two weeks of vacation after childbirth - that's all, work. However, in practice, everything turned out to be more complicated than I thought. The child requires attention, work - results, the body - rest ... I had to contrive and learn to combine completely different things into a single harmony. How? I share life hacking.
Photo: GettyImages
1. Give the unimportant
The first thing I understood: I am not a one-handed creature and I cannot cope alone. Therefore, I tried to get rid of all the cases that do not fit into the schedule. I have this cleaning, partially cooking, ironing. It is clear that you will not give up completely on these things. Therefore, once a week a housekeeper comes to me and does all these necessary, but not the most important things. From the visit to the visit, I cope on my own - more on that later. In addition, I stopped going to the grocery store for groceries. Now I buy online: it saves time, effort, and you can’t buy anything extra. In a word, delegate.
2. Without time management anywhere
When we returned home from the maternity hospital, it became clearthat my previous schedule is no good. Yes, the child always brings a certain factor of surprise and risk: plans can collapse in one second, like a house of cards. Nevertheless, a working mother should build at least approximately her own schedule and the schedule of the child. To begin, we analyze when it works most effectively: during the sleep of the child or late in the evening. Or maybe early in the morning? Next, we fix the state during the week. On Monday-Tuesday, cheerfulness, and on Friday, fatigue? Or does a second wind open and can you still work? How many hours of sleep do you need to get enough sleep? In general, we analyze everything. The second step is counting the hours that you spend on a particular case. Each of us has 168 hours a week. How many of them go to work? And how much homework? For a child? And how many left it is not clear what? Calculate: I'm sure the numbers will surprise you. And the third step is planning. For example, I like to work until late evening in the first three days of the week and carry out maximum tasks. In the remaining days - close the current unimportant questions.Photo: GettyImages
3. Make up the menu for the week
Personally, I have a lot of effort and nerves occupiedcooking issues. What to cook today for dinner? What about lunch? It seems to be going to cook borscht, and in the midst of the process it turns out that there is no beet. Then I decided to try to make a family menu for the week. For this you can use cards with recipes. How it works? First print out your recipe cards - you can find them on the Internet or type them yourself. Choose what we cook in the week. I get three soups, four main courses, three or four salads, one or two pastries, three or four breakfast options. All the cards are fastened with magnets on the fridge, breaking into days. Complicated dishes, such as bograch soup or Kiev cutlets I personally order from a familiar chef, I prepare the rest myself. Of course, having previously bought the right amount of products in the store (the ingredients are written on cards, you will not be mistaken). Surprisingly, but such planning helped save a lot of time!
4. We will improve cleaning
Yes, the housekeeper comes to me. But for a week with a one-year-old child it’s impossible to maintain perfect order, especially in the kitchen. Therefore, I spend every day about 20-30 minutes to clean up the house. I follow the tips from the book Fly lady. In short: there are areas in the house that are cluttered most quickly. These are hot spots. If you follow them and tidy up, the house will seem cleaner. It is better to spend 15-20 minutes every day cleaning, having decided in advance what zone you are arranging today. For example, on Monday - the kitchen, Tuesday - the living room, and so on. The principle of clean sinks helped me a lot psychologically. In any situation, the sink must be perfectly clean. Ate - wash the plate. Fed the child - do not leave the dishes for later. If you take this as an axiom, then the question of when to wash the dishes does not even arise.Photo: GettyImages
5. We solve the issue of entertainment for the child.
Children are different. Someone baby does not get off hands, someone calmly can sit and play himself. My son can even do an hour alone. Provided that the toy is interesting to him. Book-cubes have become a find for me. They are small, fit in the children's palm, with dense cardboard pages, bright illustrations. First, the son learned to open a box with cubes, then - to get and nibble. And now, in the year, he is carefully considering the pictures. Another favorite is the photobook from the collection “Main Book of the Kid”. Without them, a day does not pass: a son can leaf through it for 20 minutes, look at animals, fruits, transport. And how do you manage to cram everything in 24 hours? Read on: