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Diana Rene: 0:06

You're listening to The Decluttered Mom podcast, a podcast built specifically for busy moms by a busy mom. I'm your Diana Rene and in 2017, I had my second daughter and it felt like I was literally drowning in my home okay, not literally, but I felt like I couldn't breathe with all of the stuff surrounding me. Over the next 10 months, I got rid of approximately 70% of our household belongings and I have never looked back. I kind of feel like I hacked the mom system and I'm here to share all the tips, tricks and encouragement. Let's listen to today's show. Welcome to another episode of The Decluttered Mom podcast.

Diana Rene: 0:53

This week, we are going to do a little bit of a continuation from last week, when we were talking all about the things that are going to make your life a lot easier if you do prior to school beginning, or at least at the beginning of the school year. And this week, as promised, are things that you can just be doing throughout the year that are really going to help you at any point throughout the year, no matter if it's a less busy season or an overwhelmed season or a survival mode season any of those all of these things are going to just help you through it. So, just like last week, we are going to go through six different tips that are just going to help you throughout the year to make life easier. Are they completely life-changing? No, but they will help you. So let's just jump into number one. No, but they will help you. So let's just jump into number one, which is to be prepared the night before. And that sounds like duh right, but I think so often we overestimate our time and energy for our mornings or we're just so tired by the end of the day that we just don't have it in us to be able to, you know, do anything extra.

Diana Rene: 2:08

But going back to last week, when I was talking about the PM checklist for my girls and what you can do with your kids and checklists, just going through and making sure that things are prepared for the morning as much as possible is going to take the pressure off of your mornings. And if you start your morning less stressed, less overwhelmed, less rushed, less hurried, then it's just going to set your entire day on a different foot than when you're running late and you're rushing and you're frustrated and you can't find the thing that you're supposed to have for work and Susie can't find her red shoe that she has to wear because it's red day at school, which you just found out about Spirit Week, like 20 seconds ago. You all know what I'm talking about, right? And so the most that we can get ready for the night before, the better off we are in the morning. So what does that look like? That looks like making sure lunches are packed, making sure backpacks are packed, ready to go by the door, making sure everyone's shoes that they're wearing are by the door, making sure that anything you need to bring to work tomorrow is in your bag by the door. So just preparing anything that you're going to be walking out of the door with, having it done the night before, is just going to take that edge off on the morning of when you're leaving and rushed and chaotic. So that is tip number one. Again, these are not totally new. These are not going to change your entire life. They're just going to make your life a little bit easier. Are not going to change your entire life, they're just going to make your life a little bit easier.

Diana Rene: 3:47

For number two, I want to recommend using either alarms on your phone or personal tech like Alexa, echo, all of those type things to just give yourself reminders. We don't do this in our house, but I have friends who have Alexas in each of their kids' rooms. That give them reminders on what they should be doing based on what time it is in the morning. So if they have to be out of the door at 7 am, then it's setting an alarm to wake them up at 6.15. And then at 6.20, it's saying don't forget to brush your teeth. And then it's at 6.30, it's telling them to get dressed. We don't have Alexas in the kids' room, so we don't have anything like that. However, that is something that you can do if you think it would be beneficial for you or for your kids if they get off track easily.

Diana Rene: 4:37

Something that I do is I use alarms on my phone to remind me when school pickup is, and that probably, like on first glance, just makes me sound like a terrible mom, like you can't just remember to go pick up your kids. Well, there was one time when my oldest was in kindergarten, I was really focused on something that I was doing for work and I like just kept working. Through the time I would normally leave, my youngest had been sleeping, like taking a nap. She wasn't feeling well, so she slept a lot longer than she normally did and, like I, was just used to the routine of like my youngest would wake up, that she would get a snack and then I would go pick up my oldest from school. And that didn't happen because the youngest one was oversleeping, because she wasn't feeling well. I was really in it with work and I was focused. And so I got a call from the school saying like hello. It made me feel like the worst mom in the world and I know it happens, and it probably happens more than we even know just in an entire school. But from that point on I set an alarm. It goes off every Monday through Friday at the exact time that I need to leave, and does it get annoying some days? Yes, but it's just a good reminder just in case. 99.9% of the time I don't need it. But on that tiniest percentage point, I want it and I want to make sure that it reminds me. This is especially useful if you have multiple kids that have multiple pickup times, because that can get even more confusing, especially if you ever just get out of routine.

Diana Rene: 6:17

The third tip is to just bring a snack and water for school pickup If you pick up your kids from school and they don't walk home or take the bus home. This was another tip that was given to me by a mom who had older kids than me and she told me, for the first few weeks especially, just always have a snack when you pick up, because a lot of times they're getting used to the new routine, they don't really eat a lot at lunch because they're talking to their friends or they're messing around and they don't really get much time to eat lunch to begin with, and by the time that you pick them up they are in meltdown mode, they're hangry, and if you can just hand them a snack and a water right when they get into the car and they get buckled up, then everyone just feels better and they can kind of refuel and decompress at the same time. I honestly just do it all year round, but I think, especially in those first few weeks, it's just a really great idea to help them get over that overwhelmed, over-exhausted hurdle at the end of the day.

Diana Rene: 7:23

Tip number four is to pick out your outfits for the entire week on the weekend. So I like to do it on Sundays. My girls are at ages that I have them do it for themselves and I do it for myself, and I think that's something that's important that we tend to like when we're putting in systems and routines in our home. We tend to think about like what our kids are doing and we forget to like do it for ourselves and take care of ourselves. Right, and so kids get overwhelmed when there are too many choices, right. So do adults. How many times have you walked into your closet and been like I have no idea what I want to wear today? Times have you walked into your closet and been like I have no idea what I want to wear today? And when we can just make that decision one time on the weekend for the whole week, it just takes off. Yet another decision that you have to make every morning while you're already in a stressed and running late mood. And then it also just makes sure that everything that you need is actually clean and can be worn. And then it's also making sure that everything is there and it's not like you know, the sweatshirt your kid needs to wear is like tucked under the seat in the car. We want to make sure everything is there, especially if your kids have any type of spirit days or anything like that. That just makes it even more important to do this. But we do this every week during the school year and it just helps the decision fatigue factor for yourself and maybe even for your kids. It helps prevent any meltdowns over what to wear. It makes sure everything that you need is ready to go, and so there are just so many benefits to this.

Diana Rene: 9:12

Some of the questions I commonly get whenever I talk about this number one is like what if you live in a climate that is not like, not reliable, and it could be like 80 degrees or it could be like you need your winter coat, and for that I grew up in Michigan very unreliable weather and now live in Colorado very unreliable weather so I get it. So just always have layers, that's that's my girls always know like. I need layers. That way, if it's 40 degrees in the morning and I'm freezing, that's fine. Even if it's going to be 80 degrees at afternoon recess, I can just take off my other layers and I'll be good. So dress in layers, make sure that everything, all of your layers, are available. That's what I say to that.

Diana Rene: 9:59

The other question that I often get is like what if you don't know what you want to wear on a specific day. So I think that if you or your kid is someone who has a really hard time determining what to wear, that is going to happen no matter when you pick the outfit right. So whether you pick all five outfits on Sunday or you pick them out every morning while you're trying to get ready for school and for work, that indecision and that like oh, I don't know what to wear is like that's going to happen either way. We might as well just have it happen once on Sunday and not have to do it every single morning Again when we're in already rushed feeling. If your child is someone who just has a really hard time with knowing what to wear, then what I would suggest is for them to pick five outfits with you but then not have it assigned to a specific day. So, like in our house, we have, like this is the Monday outfit, this is the Tuesday outfit because that works really well for my kids. But I have worked with clients before where we pick five outfits, the kids help or even pick everything out. That really helps them to feel in control too right, and then they just have these five outfits so they can pick which one to wear in the morning. For some kids this does help, but I would say, for the majority, having it like a specific outfit for a specific day is the best route to go Because, again, if we're even giving them the five outfit options, it might turn into that meltdown that we're trying to avoid from the beginning, especially for kids, is making sure that you have everything needed to put on the body for the day.

Diana Rene: 11:50

So it's not just picking out the black leggings and the red dress that's great, that's a great start, but we're also picking out the underwear, we're picking out the socks, we're picking out the hair bow, we're picking out anything that's going on the body from head to toe. That way, again, there's no frustration, there's no decision fatigue and, most importantly, we know everyone has enough clean socks for the week and we're good to go and you don't have to worry about it. Tip number five is, if you drive to fill up your gas tank and to clean out your car every Sunday, if you have a really messy car, that might feel very overwhelming to you, but that's exactly why it's because it's messy, because there is no consistent tidying of the car right. So what we try to enforce in my home which can be hard with a mom with ADHD and potentially other people in the household having that as well is anytime we come into the house from the car. We try to make it a rule that you bring in to the home anything that you had with you in the car. It doesn't always happen. It isn't like a hard and fast rule. It is just something that we all aspire to do, because it does help the car feel cleaner and tidier and doesn't let things build up as much.

Diana Rene: 13:16

Right, but every Sunday um, I let this slide a little bit in the summer, to be honest, but during the school year I'm pretty strict about it. Every Sunday I go and I make sure that the gas tank is full so I don't have to worry about getting gas in the morning because we all have been there right when we're like oh, I'll just get it in the morning. Well, that equals us being late a hundred percent of the time. Like, nobody actually has that time to go get it in the morning. So I fill up the gas tank and then, while the gas is filling up in the car, I just go through the car. I toss all the trash in the trash bins at the gas station and then when I get home, I just bring everything else into the house, if there's a bunch of stuff because we hadn't been good about bringing things in. On a daily basis, I grab a laundry basket, I bring it to the car, I put everything in, I bring it into the house. Sometimes the kids do that too. Sometimes that's their job is to just take the laundry basket out, put everything into the laundry basket, bring it in and then put it away, not just bring in the laundry basket full of stuff into the house. And so by doing this every Sunday, just stuff doesn't have as much time to build up. It's easier to keep the car tidier and we all know how. When, like think about how you get into a car that's really messy and how you feel in it, and think about how, when you get into a car that's like super tidy and like you don't have to like move 18 things to just sit down, you just feel better, it feels like roomier, it feels lighter, it just feels like you can breathe and it just again is going to start your day off on a better foot if you have a car that you feel good getting into.

Diana Rene: 15:01

And for tip number six is to do a brain release every Sunday. And if you're not sure what a brain release is, I'm going to briefly explain it here. But we also have a podcast episode that I did which goes through my entire brain release routine and how you can do it also. We will link that in the show notes for you. But a brain release is essentially a brain dump. I just hate the term brain dump, it's just weird to me. So a brain release is sitting down, getting everything out on the paper, not judging what you're writing down, just getting every single thing that you can get out.

Diana Rene: 15:41

Because, as we all know, us moms have things like floating in our brains of all the things we have to do and we feel like, oh, I can just remember that and that's just constantly bogging us down. So if we can just get it out on paper and then prioritize and schedule our to-dos which again I explain how to do that whole process in the brain release episode, how to do that whole process in the brain release episode then we are freeing our minds, we are setting ourselves up for the week and we are going into the week knowing exactly our plan for what needs to get done. It's going to make you more productive, it's going to make you more efficient and it's also going to make you not feel so bogged down mentally by all of the stuff that you have to get done in your busy mom life. All right, you guys, those were my six tips for things that you can be doing throughout the school year that are just going to help you a lot. Busy mom life is hard. Right, it's hard and it can be messy and it can be overwhelming, but these are things that we can do, that are very simple, things that we can do, our kids can do, any other people in our home can do, to just make it a little easier. That is the goal. If we can just make the hard stuff a little bit easier, we are going to instantly just feel better.

Diana Rene: 17:01

So shoot me a DM. Let me know what you think. Are you going to try any of these? I'd be very curious. Have you tried these when I've suggested them in the past? Have they helped? I would love to hear more. You can reach me at thedeclutteredmom on Instagram and I hope to chat with you there. Otherwise, I will be back with another episode next Tuesday of The Decluttered Mom podcast. Thanks for hanging out and listening to The Decluttered Mom podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world if you could write a review or share this episode with a friend or your Instagram stories. And if you're on Instagram, be sure to follow me at thedeclutteredmom and send me a DM to say hi. I'd love to hear what you thought about today's episode. I hope you'll come back next week and hang out with us again.