20 Easy Ways to Simplify Your Mom Life

Mom life is full — full of beauty and love, for sure, but also full of hard work! It’s a tough job, but simplifying as much as possible is KEY. Simplify your mom life with these strategies to bring more peace, joy, and intention to your home.

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Mom life is fast-paced, crazy, and chock-full of hard work. Don’t get me wrong — I absolutely LOVE being a mom. I’m not being trite when I say it’s my most treasured responsibility and the one I’m most proud to embrace. But dang… it is not easy!

The list of needs to be met, places to go, and tasks to be tackled is never-ending. How is one woman supposed to do all the things??

Well… first of all, you can’t. Let’s just get that out of the way right now. Give yourself some grace and realize you can’t do everything yourself. You need the support of your husband, your kids, your friends, your employees, your neighbors, and whomever else you have in your life.

BUT, simplifying as much as possible goes a long way toward being able to be the mom (and all-around woman) you were created to be.

20 Ways to Simplify Your Mom Life

Simplify your mom life with these strategies to bring more peace, joy, and intention to your home.

Simplify your meals

You don’t need to cook gourmet meals every night. Dinners don’t need to be fancy to be delicious and nutritious.

And — here’s an unpopular opinion — your family doesn’t even have to love everything you fix. *gasp* I know. But it’s true. Sometimes dinner just needs to be functional, and if they don’t like it, they will survive.

Related Post: 5 Quick & Simple Meals (To Save Time & Energy)
Simplify your meal planning

Similarly, you can also simplify your meal planning! These 5 tips will help you meal plan in a streamlined, stripped-down, super simple way.
Prep meals ahead of time

Batch prep meals (i.e. perform similar tasks together) for greater efficiency, or prep when you have time… and the kiddos aren’t around your ankles!
Simplify your pantry/grocery list

You don’t need a million food items in your pantry to fix good meals. Most of them will probably expire before you use them, anyway! Simplify your pantry with versatile ingredients that you can use in a variety of dishes, such as grains, rice, & beans; spices; oils & vinegars; and canned tomato products.

Related Post: 25 Pantry Meals You Can Make With What You Have on Hand
Always have a back-up plan

Be prepared for dinnertime disasters — missing ingredients, cooking mishaps, still-frozen meat, and other such “oopsies” — with back-up plans.

(I walk you through exactly what you need to make this happen — among many other dinnertime strategies — in my book The Every Mom’s Meal Solution Handbook!)
Streamline your laundry

Whether it’s all-at-once or once-a-day, find a laundry system that works for you! (i.e. that you actually stick with, not that you necessarily most enjoy) If you’re interested, I have almost completely eradicated my laundry back-up by using this laundry system.
Have a 15-minute family pick-up every evening

When cleaning piles up, it quickly becomes overwhelming, demoralizing, and almost impossible to tackle in a busy day. Keep it at bay with small, daily maintenance, such as a 15-minute family pick-up.
Simplify your cleaning supplies

You don’t need 100 different sprays and cleaners. Get a couple great multi-purpose cleaners, instead. (You’d be amazed what you can do with vinegar and baking soda alone!)
Purge your kids’ toys

If picking up after your kids (or getting them to pick up after themselves) is consuming a large portion of your time, perhaps a big purge is in order. Or try keeping only a few toys out at time, swapping them out for others every few months or so.

Related Post: 5 Tips for a Pre-Holiday Toy Purge
Make clean-up easier

In that same vein, make picking up easier for your kids with bins, crates, and baskets. The easier the system, the greater the likelihood they’ll stick with it!

Related Post: 5 Secrets to Keeping a (Reasonably) Tidy Home
Declutter

We ~~devote~~ waste so much time and energy on our “stuff”. Organizing it, sorting it, looking for it… Clutter is a drain, so get rid of it as much as possible to simplify your mom life.
Relinquish the small decisions

Much of my “mommy fatigue” comes from ALLL the decisions that need to be made. Can you relate?? So, as my kids get older, I’ve been handing age-appropriate ones back to them.

For example, their outfit choice is one of the first decisions to go. Sure, they end up going out in public with clashing ensembles or socks with sandals (my 3-year-old’s current favorite bold choice), but I don’t care. With all the important decisions I need to make and battles I have to fight, that one is an easy one to relinquish.
Plan a week at at time

Unless you’re really good at flying by the seat of your pants (I’m SO not), you will do yourself enormous favors by planning your entire week in advance. Laying out your week will help you be more productive and less stressed, will calm some of the chaos, and will help you be a more peaceful and intentional mom.

Related Post: My Favorite Planner EVER!
Simplify your schedule with routines

Don’t reinvent the wheel every day if you can help it. Establish some daily rhythms. This will help diminish decision fatigue and will make you far more efficient!

Related Post: How to Create a Summer Routine for Your Kids
Whittle down your to-do list

If you’re a stressed-out mom, it’s ~~very possible~~ almost guaranteed you are trying to do too much. Look at your to-do list with ruthless eyes, and cross out everything but the absolute essentials (whatever that means to you). Ask “Why is this important to me/us?” and if you don’t have a good answer, let it go!
Subscribe to a budgeting program

Take all the guesswork out of your finances and streamline your budgeting process with a program or app that works for you. We have been using YNAB for the last year and LOVE it (though we do tweak it a bit to fit our budgeting style).
Pare down your wardrobe

If picking out your clothes every day is a major time and energy drain for you, consider establishing a capsule wardrobe and donating the rest!
Unsubscribe to emails

Going through emails is a major time expenditure for a lot of people. Be honest — how many unread emails do you have in your inbox right now? I know I’m terrible at letting emails pile up, so this is definitely an area I need to improve! And I can do that by getting friendly with the unsubscribe button.
Listen to podcasts & audiobooks

Wish you could read more, for business or pleasure? Listen and learn while you’re doing other things with podcasts and audiobooks. (Here are some fun podcasts to listen to with your kids!)
Train your kids to help out/be more self-sufficient

Finally, if you have kids over the age of 2, there’s no reason you need to do everything yourself. Get the kids involved! Not only will this simplify your life, but it will benefit them by instilling responsibility, work ethic, and the self-esteem that comes from contributing to the family.