Becoming a parent is a major life transition, which brings about new and different responsibilities. Time management for moms can be challenging for several reasons.
Moms often feel the weight of carrying the mental load for their children. Moms also often feel pressure to “do it all:” be an amazing mom, wife, worker, daughter, friend, etc. Having these high expectations for the amount of things needed to complete in a day for it to be “successful” can contribute to a lot of unnecessary stress and make it challenging for moms to manage their time. When everything feels like a top priority, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and either panic or shut down.
The Eisenhower Matrix is a helpful tool for time management for moms. This tool breaks down the items on your “to do” list into four categories:
- Urgent and Important
- Urgent and Not Important
- Not Urgent and Important
- Not Urgent and Not Important
Before we take a deeper look into these categories, let’s define “urgent” and “important.” Oftentimes, moms have difficulty managing time because everything feels urgent and important–it feels like it needs to be done well, and it needs to be done now. However, there are likely a select few tasks that are actually both urgent and important. Tasks that are “urgent” are tasks that cannot be delayed without consequences. These are tasks that require immediate attention and action and must be taken care of quickly. “Important” tasks are tasks that matter a lot to you and that either align with your values and long-term goals or help your life function smoothly.
The matrix below lists some examples of tasks that might fall under each of the four categories, and gives some guidance on what to do for each of the categories.
| Urgent | Not Urgent | |
| Important | Do these tasks as soon as possible. Examples: – Change child’s diaper – Take sick child to the doctor – Submit project for work if today is the deadline – Call to get the heater fixed–your family is cold! | Defer these tasks until all urgent and important tasks have been completed and schedule a future time to complete them. Examples: – Schedule annual doctor’s appointment – Reply to friend’s text about a future event – Plan birthday party (months out) |
| Not Important | Delegate these tasks to the appropriate people who can manage them. Examples: – Pull weeds that have grown in front of your door – Make dinner – Put away frozen groceries – Feed the dogs | Remove these tasks – they are often time wasters. Examples: – Cleaning the baseboards – Shopping sprees for nonessential items – Mindlessly scrolling social media |
Tasks that are urgent and important need immediate attention and matter a lot to you. These align with your values and goals and have consequences if they are missed. These are going to be the items that you tackle first on your list.
Urgent but not important tasks are the ones that need immediate attention but may not need to be done perfectly or that don’t matter as much to you. Asking for help with these tasks and delegating them to family, friends, kids, or even outsourcing them if it is in your budget can alleviate stress and help moms manage the time that they do have better.
Not urgent yet important tasks are the ones that matter a lot to you, but that do not necessarily require immediate attention. Eventually, if they are put off too long, they will become urgent tasks, so it is important to do them: we encourage moms to schedule a time to complete these tasks, but not stress too much if they don’t get done right away.
Not urgent nor important tasks can be removed from the to do list. These are fillers that don’t bring a lot of value to your day or reduce stress when they are completed, so making the choice to not invest time in them can be helpful for moms when there are often quite a few urgent and important things that still need to be done.
As you go through your day, add your tasks to the section in which they belong, and respond appropriately.
While time management for moms can be tricky, using this matrix, communicating your needs to those around you, being creative with your scheduling, lowering expectations, and removing unnecessary items can help you have a more peaceful day filled with things that matter the most to you and your family.
If you enjoyed this blog post or found this beneficial, you can read more at riverrootcounseling.com/blog or you can schedule an appointment to dive into this individually with one of our licensed perinatal mental health therapists here at River Root Counseling.
In health,
Denise Vukmanovich