Productivity – Get into Autopilot!

Moms have it tough these days. With many people still working from home, the demand, both physically and emotionally, is more taxing than ever before. While we love more time to spend together as a family, more people at home for longer periods of time = more mess, more chores, and domestic responsibilities. Working moms also must figure out how to handle the work-from-home situation (which is already not easy) plus these added domestic responsibilities.

Do you know someone who seems to have it all pulled together – Super mom, super worker, super wife – and makes you wonder, “Does she have a superpower? How in the world does she have the energy or the time to keep everything together?” Actually, not quite…believe it or not, she probably just created a very efficient habit / routine for herself.

Think about it this way – Your morning routine in the pre-COVID days – Did you have to think about what order to brush your teeth / hair / shower / make coffee / eat breakfast this morning? Probably not, but you probably did it in the most efficient manner for you with the least amount of effort (so you can sleep-in that 1 extra minute!). The only difference is you’ve had a lifetime to master the morning routine to get into the autopilot mode. Then think about the time when your morning routine was somehow interrupted. Recall how much more effort it took to finish up the routine.

Ergo my point – The more you put mundane tasks (e.g., cooking, cleaning, laundry, organizing, etc.) on autopilot, the more effortless they become, and the more mental energy you free up to think about & plan for other things.

To give you a few ideas, here are a few that has worked well for me:

• Get into a habit of looking around to see if there is anything you can bring with you when leaving a room, to minimize the amount of time you spend tidying up later. If you’re in your home office but needs to stop by the restroom, and say, the kitchen is on the way, try bringing that empty coffee mug with you and drop it off in the dishwasher on the way. That way, things don’t pile up in a way that would require real cleaning up afterwards. Also, try not to just drop it on the counter to deal with it later. I know it’s very temping, but spending the extra 2 seconds loading that coffee mug into the dishwasher takes minimum amount of effort now, and leaving things on the counter only leads to more things ending up on the counter = more mess to clean up later.

• Folding the laundry while watching your favorite TV show – If you love to unwind at night by watching TV, try to spend just 15 min of that time, once a week, folding laundry while doing it. Not only will it not feel like such a chore anymore, but you might also be able to get your significant others to help!

• Another habit, and one I’m trying to get my husband to develop, actually, is to bring everything down with you from the car that you came in with, i.e., that bottle of water, jacket/coat, tennis gears, wallet, shoes, backpack, etc. Hey, if he was able to get all those into the car in 1 trip, he should be able to get all of them out of the car and into their proper places in same 1 trip. Then cleaning out the car is not even on the list of chores that needs to be done anymore.

If you’re like my husband, you’re probably thinking – That is so much planning of every little thing and it’s exhausting. Yes, it can be in the beginning, but that’s why making it into a habit is the key, because then you’d just do it without even thinking about it.

Developing a new habit is hard, so try to look for only 1 to 2 things to master at a time. Study shows that the average amount of times it takes for a task to become automatic is about 2 months, and consistency is the key. I find it helpful to set an alarm or calendar reminders / alert in the beginning, so I don’t forget (i.e. set an alarm every Saturday night during your TV winddown time to fold the laundry!), and to reward myself when it’s accomplished (e.g., watch more TV shows or sleep-in with the time savings!). Trust me, it might be tough in the beginning, but it’s such a life safer later once 80% all your chores are on autopilot.