Want to be an Organized Mom? Never do these 5 things

Inside: Do you want to know the 5 things that organized moms never do? Read this post to find out. Learn what to do instead so you can become an organized mom.

Mom with a toddler and baby in a high chair in a messy kitchen. Mom has her hand on her head and her hair is disheveled. — Stressed out mother in kitchen with her babies

I’m a messy mom.

Or at least, I used to be.

I was the mom with the unkempt hair, dragging around a child whose shirt still had food on it from lunch.

My house was always a mess — dirty dishes smothered the counter, long forgotten wet laundry went moldy in the washer and dog fur rolled across the floor like tumbleweeds in the Wild West.

Worse than how things looked on the outside was how I felt on the inside.

I berated myself constantly, demanding “Why can’t you get your act together? What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you just figure it out?”

I looked at the organized moms with their themed birthday parties and cookies baked from scratch and wondered what was wrong with me.

You know what was wrong with me? Nothing. I just hadn’t learned the 5 things that organized moms never do.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed and scatter-brained, no worries, friend. I got you. Read through this post and be sure to grab the free gift I have for you at the end. (Hint: it will help you become more organized and productive while also saving time. Win!)

5 Things Organized Moms Never Do

#1: Overthink

Organized moms never spend more time thinking about doing something than the time they spend actually doing it.

I’m an overthinker by nature. Thinking can be a great thing. By spending time thinking about an issue, you can come up with a solution that will save you so much time in the long run.

But…

The problem is when you spend more time thinking than you do doing.

This is a problem, because thinking about a problem often gives you satisfaction as if you had already solved it.

Simply put, it feels good to think through complex issues and never have to leave the couch.

The problem is that thinking will never get you closer to solving a problem. You’ll be stuck in a cycle of overthinking and that can drum up anxiety and feelings of unworthiness.

Top down view of a woman sitting on the couch with a journal on her lap. | organized moms

Here’s what organized moms do instead:

If you see a problem that needs to be solved, quickly think through a couple of things you can do to solve it. Pick a step to take and don’t worry about making the “perfect” choice.

Perfection is a myth; it doesn’t exist. You will see much more progress by making a decision and taking action.

If that decision ends up being the wrong one, no problem. You can always make a different decision if the first one doesn’t work.

Here’s how this applies to real life. I currently have a section of my kitchen counter covered in mail. It’s not at “weekend project” status yet, and would probably only take about 20 minutes to clean up.

I’ve been thinking about this project the last couple of days. Meanwhile, every day we get more mail and the project grows.

If I want to be an organized mom, I need to walk right over to it and start going through it. I don’t need to figure out the perfect system for dealing with mail before I can tackle the mail that’s currently sitting there.

I can simply go through it, and start with something simple, like throwing out the junk mail.

From there, I’ll easily figure out the next step, which is opening all the envelopes. After I’ve done that, I’ll easily be able to figure out the next step.

If you want to be an organized mom, focus on taking one tiny step.

Don’t worry about being able to see the entire journey from start to finish. Just take one tiny step and decide your next course of action when you get there.

Harry S. Truman has a quote that I love: “Imperfect action is better than perfect inaction.”

In other words, taking any step is better than taking no step at all.

#2: Procrastinate

Organized moms never procrastinate. They know that the longer you wait to do something, the harder it is to do it.

Have you ever let a load of clean laundry sit overnight? There’s this mysterious thing that happens with laundry when you don’t fold it right away.

It sits. And then it sits. And then…it sits some more.

Before you know it, there’s only a quarter of the original clothes because you’ve picked through the pile every day to find something to wear.

When you put something off, it opens the door to put it off again.

Organized mom in pink sitting on couch with her laptop on her lap. She's reaching for a cup of coffee.

It’s a bad cycle.

Procrastinating once makes it easier to procrastinate the next time and before you know it, you have a habit of procrastinating everything.

Here’s what organized moms do instead:

Organized moms finish a task, even if they would rather do something else. They understand that doing hard things now will make their lives easier later.

I love this quote by Jerzy Gregorek, who changed his habits to become a 4-time weightlifting champion. He said, “Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.”

Let’s take that quote and apply it to folding the laundry.

The easy choice is to put it off until the next day and instead go watch Netflix. But it makes life harder when you have to shift through a mountain of laundry every day to find clean underwear and matching socks.

When you make the hard decision to fold laundry right away, even if you don’t feel like it, you make your future life easier and less stressful.

You’ll be able to get dressed quickly, easily find matching clothes for your kids and not add one more stressor to an already busy morning.

Organized mom smiling and looking at a laptop.

#3: Wing it

Organized moms never wing it. They never go into the day without a schedule and hope they’ll magically get all the things on their to-do list done.

And yet, so many of us do that all the time. We go through the day, putting out fires. We’re busy all day but by the end of the day, we wonder why we got nothing done.

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Here’s what organized moms do instead:

Organized moms use a schedule to help plan out their days and keep them on task.

Woman sitting at table, writing in planner as an example of an organized mom.

There are planners for everyone! Choose what works for you, whether it is a paper planner, printable planner, or digital planner.

Related: Check out the 3 best apps for moms to get organized.

#4: Multitask

Okay, okay, this one needs a little explanation. We’re moms, we have to multitask, right? We can’t just say “Okay, child, I need complete silence for the next hour so I wash the dishes.”

Not gonna happen.

But what I mean by multitasking is the constant switching from task to task.

Let’s say you put a load in the washer and set it to wash. Then you go empty the dishwasher. While emptying the dishwasher, you grab some pacifiers and walk across the house to put them away in the baby’s room.

While in the baby’s room, you notice that pile of outgrown clothes sitting in the corner. You pick them up to put them into storage.

While in the storage closet, you notice that box of yarn and think about how you want to crochet a baby blanket. So you pull it out and take it to the living room.

But when you get to the living room, you notice there are toys scattered all across the floor. You put down the box of yarn and start to pick up toys.

By the end of the day, the laundry’s still wet and the dishes are still dirty. Exhausted, you flop down on the couch next to your box of yarn and wonder where the day went.

Like the story “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie”, you’ve done a whole lot of things but have gotten nothing done.

Here’s what organized moms do instead:

Let’s take this example and walk through what an organized mom would do. First, she puts the laundry in the washer. She sets a timer so she’ll be alerted to go put the wet laundry into the dryer.

She empties the dishwasher and picks up some pacis that belong in the baby’s room. She walks them across the house, puts them in their container, then walks back to the kitchen to finish emptying the dishwasher.

After that, she plays with her child for a few minutes and then picks up some of the toys in the living room.

She had noticed the pile of outgrown clothes sitting in the baby’s room so she adds that task to her schedule for a slower day.

Organized moms don’t run around putting out fires. Instead, they intentionally write down what they’d like to accomplish and work through that list before jumping to the next thing.

If they notice a bigger project they’d like to do, they write it on their schedule and plan out the time to do it.

Organized mom sitting at a desk typing on a computer.

#5: Underestimate the time it takes to do something

Organized moms don’t try to pack their day with things to get done. They know they’ll be more motivated if they focus on getting a few things done every day and are successful with completing those tasks.

So often, when we write a to-do list, it contains 75 things to do and we have no concept of how long any of those things will take.

So, we go about our day, getting things done and checking things off the list. But we feel disappointed when we get to the end of the day and there’s so many unchecked items.

Here’s what organized moms do instead:

Organized moms get good at timing the amount of time it takes to do something. This helps them accurately schedule out what they can accomplish in a day.

As a result, while their list is shorter, it’s reasonable and they end the day feeling accomplished and satisfied.

It’s a snowball effect. When you end the day feeling accomplished, you’re more motivated to work just as hard the next day.

Every step forward (even tiny ones) means you make progress toward your goal.

Related: Create a life you love with time management for moms

Want to become an organized mom?

It all starts with creating a solid daily routine that helps you determine when you do chores, when you prep food, and when you have time to relax. Read more about creating a routine as a stay at home mom.

Want to be an Organized Mom? Never do these 5 things