I think I've tried every time management and time trick going. Not only for myself, but for my clients, who also hope that I can help them to be more efficient, get more done, find more time.  More often than not I can help them find that elusive extra hour, even though I've never found time management utopia for myself.  As the old saying goes, "Physician, heal thyself!"

The trouble with the art of time management is that it doesn't cater for the crazy, juggling whirring world of conflicting priorities that is the life of a working mum.  Is there a perfect time management technique for working mums? Or is searching for this as useful as tilting at windmills?  Here's just a selection of the many, many techniques I've tried, in my quixotic quest for the "perfect time management solution":

Urgent Important Quadrants

I forget what the proper name is for this, but I have just one word to say about it: "Yeurch".  This was Stephen Covey's idea wasn't it? You know the one - where you divide a page into four quadrants, with urgent important, urgent non important, non urgent important and non urgent non important?  Stuff and nonsense. Sacrilege perhaps to slate the great Covey - I really buy into his big rocks theory on time management - but the quadrant thing just drives me mad.  For a start, the stuff that is non urgent and non important never even gets written into that naughty little 4th quadrant. If I'm procrastinating on writing an article, making a call or doing my accounts, I don't write into the 4th quadrant: "browse autumn fashion trends on PC", "waste time on twitter" or "pick up ski brochure from doormat and mentally calculate cost of next skiing holiday and fantasize for 2 hours".
 

Prioritization

Sometimes I prioritize according to Michael Neill's time management suggestion (Michael is a well known American Success Coach whom I respect hugely). According to Michael's simple system, you just classify things as "A", "B" or "C".  

"A" means "Bad things happen if I don't"; "B" means "Good things happen if I do" and "C" means "That'd be nice!"  I love this simple technique when I'm feeling focused, but it falls down with all the inevitable overlap of work and life.  A WaHM's life is like a Venn diagram - work in one circle, home in another and a big grey blobby overlap of messy juggling in the middle.  

As a mum who works from home and runs her own business, I might class "write article for blog" as a "B" (good things..someone might like the sound of me, click through to my website, call me, become a client).  But  "Call Revenue and Customs to sort out tax mess" and "Make boys' dinner" have just got to be "A".  Well, have you ever dealt with a hungry toddler who's been at nursery all day?  Have you ever tried to argue with Revenue and Customs that you haven't responded to their error that has caused them to fine you and then fine you some more because "Actually Mr Taxman, I was focusing on making some bl**dy money so that you can claim their bl**dy share. And besides this Mr Taxman, it was actually your error in the first place?"  (You might note a certain personal bitterness in this example).   So the "A" priority stuff of being a mum and being the family Administrator and Financial Controller frequently stops me from working on my business, which should be "A" more often.

Do the Worst Thing First

Mark Forster, a time management coach and author, suggests that we do the thing we least like doing first.  This is my least favorite time management technique! 

Just get the file out:  Mark also suggests that, when procrastinating on something, we "Just get the file out". This one works for me, but I give original credit for the idea to my mum, who used to tell me to "Just write your name at the top of the paper" to encourage me to start a dreaded essay.

Post-It Notes

 
I use these to write short reminders like "M football kit", "Send invoice", "Buy milk" or "Jo birthday" and stick them in strategic places like the front door where I can't miss them.   This works well until my youngest son decides to appropriate one of the bits of paper to draw on and then I find it stuck to the bottom of my shoe when I'm on the way to school with M sans football kit.   

Nice Stationery for Mummies

Earlier this year, I bought a calendar from an online shop called Organised Mum. It sits in the kitchen with nice little picture stickers of things like a football (denotes "extra curricular activity"), a suitcase (denotes "holiday") and a present (denotes "birthday").  These stickers are supposed to help me organise myself and my family.  It even has a little plastic overlay so you don't have to keep writing regular weekly activities, and a tear off shopping list and "to do list" on either side of the calendar.  It really appeals to the homemaker in me and makes me feel like a proper mum.  Alas, whilst I keep it in the kitchen to impress other mums, it's more for show than practicality. The shopping and to do lists aren't big enough, the space on the calendar never fits in all the various things going on and fundamentally, I'm a technophile, formerly wedded to my PDA and now my beloved iPhone. The calendar remains permanently in July.

Chuck Out the To Do Lists

I once tried "binning" my to do lists (not list - lists plural), because Thomas Leonard, the founder of Coachu (the coach training school I trained with) said lists were bad.  Thomas Leonard died a few years back and he's like the Godfather, the Granddaddy, and the Patron Saint of coaching.  He is widely considered by those in the know to be the original and the ultimate coach.  If Thomas said it, so be it.  And boy, was Thomas Leonard wise - I've learnt a lot from him about how to live and how to help create the "perfect" life for my clients. But then I realised that when Thomas said "bin your lists", he may have been a brilliant coach, but he was not a working mum.  Lists are essential for working mums.  Challenge me on this and you'll get a fight. Have you seen how I handle a windmill?  

Priorities, big rocks, first things first and just getting the file out are all very well, but as a mum, I have to be strong, firm, focused about "work stuff" and "non work stuff".  I know from experience - my own and my clients - that if I'm not, I can spend half the day catching up with stuff that doesn't serve my business at all.  So what's a WAHM mum to do?  Quite simply, she must write lists, lovely, satisfying lists.

Praise Be! To Do Lists

Oh, my precious!  "To Do Lists" represent the simplest time management technique, as slated by Saint Thomas and many more.  I live by lists. I love my lists.  I have lists from yesterday that get consolidated into today's list.  I have "household to do" lists, I have "tolerations" lists and I have "business" lists.   Oh, the relief of getting all that stuff out of my head, cooling down my hot burning brains! Oh, the pure pleasure of crossing through something on one of my To Do Lists when it's finally done. I like to make each item on my list into a small "do-able" task if I can, so that I get to do more crossing through. Sad?  Undoubtedly.  But effective? Satisfying? Empowering? Most definitely.

Here endeth my reflections on time management as a WAHM.  PLEASE let me know if you've found time management heaven for mums.   In the meantime, I'll take a break from tilting windmills; I'm off to cross "Write first blog entry for www.workshifting.com" off my lovely To Do List.  Aaaah!

Photo by: Ali Nassiri