God bless Instacart. I’ve found if I schedule my grocery delivery a day ahead and stick to my list, I actually spend LESS on food each week using a grocery delivery service like Instacart. Has anyone else experienced this? If I go to the grocery store with even the slightest bit of hunger, the chances of me buying a million more snacks than I need increases tenfold. Instacart tells me I’m saving at least an hour of time as well. By scheduling a bit further out (like tonight or tomorrow) you’ll also save on delivery fees. Estimated time saved is about 4-6 hours per month.

Growing up I thought having a house cleaner was a luxury reserved for the billionaire class. Turns out when I account for the amount of time it saves me scrubbing toilets and floors, it’s actually quite affordable! Depending on the crew and the size of your home you can expect to spend $100-$250 per clean. I only have cleaners come twice a month. They clean for about 2 hours each time. The amount they get done would easily take me double that by myself. So I feel like I’m buying back at least 8 hours of my month using their service. The best part is my toddler daughter LOVES when the ladies come to clean and they let her “help”. She thinks the vacuum is magical and cleaning windows is fun. I hope she keeps this energy in her teen years.

By batching kids’ doctor appointments, meal planning, bill paying and finances, etc. you’ll save yourself a LOT of time. I really struggle with the meal planning aspect because I frankly suck in the kitchen, but I’m pretty good about setting aside an hour or so a week to take care of all our other “admin tasks”. Batching simply means scheduling a specific time and/or day to do the tasks you don’t want to do but need to do. So much more efficient than tackling one thing at a time sporadically. Time saved per month is probably 2-3 hours?

Admittedly, this one is also very difficult for me being somewhat of an Alpha control freak. I also HATE clutter and mess. But alas, life with two small children is the antithesis of these things. For my home and really all things in my life, I’m working on accepting “done” instead of “perfect”. Perfection doesn’t exist, except in Architectural Digest. So I need to be glad when things are done, even if they aren’t necessarily done just right. When things are done but not perfect, you’ll find yourself with more time to spare. Time saved per month is infinite? Lol or at least a few hours.

Saying “no” to sh*t is a parenting hack! I love the idea of “if it’s not a ‘hell yes’, then it’s a ‘hell no’”. This is a combination of prioritizing what’s truly important and setting boundaries to protect your family’s time. It’s so easy to fall into the “busy” trap. Busy isn’t necessarily productive or necessary. You reserve the right to say ‘no’ to people, places, and things forever and always. You may be surprised at how much time you get back.

When I’m unorganized and overbooked I’m wasting precious time. I Creating a family calendar helps solve this to a certain degree. We put all travel, appointments, obligations, etc. on the family calendar and then it becomes infinitely easier to plan time together and to batch our tedious stuff. I also make sure all the events in the calendar have an alert on them so they don’t slip through the cracks. It keeps us organized and in control of our time. Family calendars are all the rage, y’all.

No one told me how much of my adult life would be spent figuring out what to have for dinner. This is truly such a pain in the ass and I cannot tell you how much I despise wasting my few precious brain cells on this endeavor. One hack I’ve learned is to use weekly themes. Meatless Mondays, Taco Tuesdays, Pasta Wednesdays, Grill Thursdays, Pizza Fridays, Leftovers on Saturday, Sundays are for the Crockpots. Find your themes, write them on the fridge. Have your kids think of fun themes and dinners for each day. Stick to it and you’ll find this routine to be easier than planning from scratch each day. A true time saver and parenting hack. True story: I was baking a pork roast one night this week. My husband had to work late. The baby was fussy. The toddler was melting down. The pork roast was forgotten. By the time I took it out of the oven it could’ve been categorized as a deadly weapon it was so hard. We put the overtired children to bed and the overstimulated parents ate ice cream for dinner instead.