Time management for the single parent home

Single parents are always racing against the clock

Being a single, working parent has many challenges. All parents have a hard time keeping a schedule together, but not having another parent to call on for some of the chores makes it seem almost impossible to keep it together. I've been told many times, "I don't know how you do it."

Compared to what our schedule was like when I was also a part-time student at Antioch, or when I was commuting over an hour a day from East Los Angeles to Burbank, our weekdays almost seem like a breeze now!

Even so, I get off work at 5, and picking up the girls from the Boys & Girls Club gets us home most nights around 6. My daughters are also involved in extra-curricular activities both at school and at the Club so sometimes we'll get home closer to 7.

Then of course, there's dinner to be made, homework to get done, baths, and then getting everything ready for the next day. Here are a few tricks I use to make it a little easier for us.

• Do as much as you can the night before. I set my coffee-maker to brew first thing in the morning. I pack the girls' lunches and put them in the refrigerator. I lay out my clothes and my youngest daughter's clothes for the next day. My oldest daughter lays out her own clothes. I also prefer baths at night, which actually helps my hair look better in the morning when I put a towel on my pillow. I also move the next night's dinner from the freezer to the fridge for the next day.
• DreamDinners. Most of our weeknight dinners come from DreamDinners. I assemble the meals once a month at their location, and then it all goes in the freezer. They send me home with a freezer list where I can keep track of what we've eaten, and how long each dinner will take to cook the next day. One night a week, we have fast food. Obviously, that's not the healthiest dinner, but I believe teaching my kids moderation now will help them from going overboard when they're not living under my roof anymore. 
• Use a timer for homework. I'm a member of the FlyLady community, where I learned that anything can be done for 15 minutes at a time. I've now passed on that lesson to my girls when they're whining about homework. We set the timer for 15 minutes, and then they get a 5 or 10 minute break. Sometimes, when the timer beeps, they're so caught up in what they're doing that they'll complete it before they take their break.
• Involve your kids. Both of the girls are in charge of puting away their own laundry. My oldest daughter gets the mail every day, and also keeps an eye on the washers and dryers in our apartment building's laundry room so that I know when I can get a load in. My youngest daughter is in charge of making our beds and setting the table for dinner. They're both in charge of clearing their own places after dinner and I do the dishes. (They still do a lot less around the house than they should, but it's got to start somewhere, right?) The single parents section at About helped me find and create chore charts, which I've saved as a word doc, and can update as the girls get older.
• Set regular (and early) bedtimes. I've just shook things up around here by moving my oldest daughter's bedtime to nine. My youngest daughter is actually pleased that she's got a half-hour in their room by herself and is out by the time my older daughter comes in, which has also cut down on the nighttime fighting that used to happen. They know that there's no getting out of their bedtimes since I've been consistent. (Well, except for Wed. nights since we all watch Lost together.)
• Relax. Sometimes, baths don't happen. Sometimes, I let them buy lunch at school because I don't feel like making it. Sometimes, I let my daughter finish her timed reading early if she's finished a book. If the routines are consistent enough, then the hiccups will just be that - a small set-back that can be corrected tomorrow.

There are only so many hours in a day, and using them wisely and efficiently allow me more time at night to do what I want to do after the girls are in bed. And I go to bed as ready as I can be to do it all again the next day!