There’s nothing that’ll teach you more about productivity than raising children. In my experience, being a mom around the clock defeats all the organization methods I’ve read about and tried. From the matrix of urgent-important to the atomic habits, there is no system built around the fundamental premise of caring for others: you only have time as an exception. The problems is systems you use only exceptionally don’t work and instead become just paper trail under laundry, diapers, creams and toys. Worse, I’d get my hopes up, dream up these big projects I’d consistently work on, and then a flu would get to someone, a strep infection, it’s Easter holiday, physical therapy has to happen, the dogs need allergy meds and the dryer is not drying anymore. I’d feel this anger and yet have nothing and no one to hold accountable. So I’d take it full circle and feel incredibly stupid for thinking this magical organization system would help me prioritise the things I dream of.

Back in the days when I had just one child in full-time daycare and a regular, adult-friendly job, I discovered the bullet journal method. It’s a sistem of journaling created by Ryder Carroll to help him manage his life despite the challenges of ADHD. It’s a simple, intuitive, completely flexible practice with a community of its own, styles and tools, a hobby even when you combine art with journaling. And it worked wonders for me, a minimalist, aesthetically pleasing space where I managed everything essential.

Fast-forward one year and one more kid, and 30 pretty, pre-drawn out pages were staring blank at me. What followed them was a more realistic representation of my life: toddler, newborn, monthly timeout from daycare, I’ve got no clean clothes and my house is making it all worse. A few disorganised pages, colourful scribbles on top of my plans, my plans copied over day after day, since nothing’s getting done. I’d keep the journal on the living room table, so I’d see it day in and day out, but seeing is not doing.

It took me months to understand what is wrong with my efforts to organise myself. I didn’t expect to do what I did before having a second child, but I didn’t expect to do nothing at all either. This is a story I keep hearing from other moms, friends, clients, mom strangers at birthday parties. We never have time to do anything for ourselves and we don’t even know where to start. So we do everything for the important people in our lives and still feel like a failure. Make time for yourself is useless advice, it’s a rug that beautifies the true challenges of full-time parenting. If I could, I would. And sometimes, even when I can, I cannot. Time is not energy and both are needed to truly engage with something other than the role of mom.

So, a pretty process is not the goal. I don’t want a beautified journal and I don’t want a perfectly curated life. I want to have a good experience of both planning and living out my days. Today, I don’t trade sleep for planning and cleaning up and organising and decluttering. I don’t live by deadlines I’ve written on page 27 of a journal. I run my life as I need to, not as a mantelpiece of how good I am. I am ugly efficient and I’d love to share with you the ugly little tricks that help me keep up.

Do it with ‘em

Alone time is the one thing I didn’t think I’d miss before becoming a mom. I remember my emotional confession to my therapist, once I found out I was pregnant: I’ll never be alone from now on. Joke’s on me (lovingly).

The usual planning and organisation process requires time and focus. Helpful workbooks guide you in exploring your past and coming up with a future you’d like to live. Pretty tools turn your plans into maps, or you might print and cut out scraps for a vision board. The usual process isn’t for moms though. Ten different toddler requests in just 15 minutes and the loud thumps of baby accidents don’t exactly nurture focus and reflection.

My workaround is squeezing planning into my day, not the other way around. I usually organise myself while the girls eat their breakfast, feeding a baby with one hand and writing with the other. Or I’d pretend play their assistant and “organise” organise.  Sometimes I do it while taking a stroll outside together or while our eldest takes a bath. The point is you don’t need precious alone time to plan your daily actions. And no, I don’t wake up before the kids, why would I?

The “vision board”

I’m lucky enough to have planned out a long-term direction for my life before our second daughter came along. I had the opportunity to dig deep and come up with a list of ingredients for, what is to me, a meaningful life. And so I come back to it whenever I need to realign my current plans or make any significant changes to my vision.

However, some big projects have not made it into my initial map. For these, I create a “vision board”. Think mental vision, as the execution itself is minimal and, well, ugly. I stick a huge piece of paper to a wall (homemade A2-sized sheet or some paper cut from the girls’ IKEA paper roll) and start working it out straight on paper. A name, a purpose (why am I doing this) and a goal (what does success look like), followed by a rough breakdown of actions (3-5 groups of action), and, optional, a timeline to this. When planning your groups of action, think about the stages of your project, about the biggest checkpoints that let you move to the next type of activity.

The beauty of this process is that you can do it with no special materials whatsoever (marker, paper, sticky tape). I like to place mine in a traffic area - my hallway usually, so that I see my “vision board” many times a day and can quickly make changes to it. The last project I started I planned out while walking the baby in one arm, scribbling as we paced the hallway.

Plain paper and pen

My bullet journal, a pink Leuchtturm1997 notebook, is one of my favourite possessions. It’s smooth and clean, and it instills in me the feeling that everything is manageable, in order and under my control. Yet when life gets in the way, my journal is the first to go. I need tools fast, while stealing a moment here and there, something I can scribble on without ruining my experience of a clean bullet journal.

This is the reason why my daily planning happens on scraps of paper, wherever, whenever. Sometimes I batch cut A4 sheets into four and stash them around the house. When I run out, I take whatever’s near - old shopping lists, old invoices, paper napkins. Anything goes, as long as it does the job.

Just a calendar, just a note

In addition to my paper lists, I use two tech tools: my phone calendar and the notes app. I’ve tried family organisation apps and productivity tools and project management software. Yet, when overwhelm settles, I find that the extra effort of keeping my apps organised is much better spent on managing the overwhelming circumstances in my life. If the kid is sick, I’d much rather spend my time taking care of her than reorganising to-dos on my phone.

The calendar app and the notes app are my no-frills allies. I need my calendar so that once I plan something, I can forget about it. I just add an event in my calendar, set two reminders and move on. Any other content, recipes, documents, work, writing, I create as a note. That way I can access anything wherever I go, on any device, whenever. Yes, they are basic tool. They work, they’re free and that’s enough.

If it ain’t broken

This is a principle more than a method, but it makes sense to me as a way to think about personal organisation. It gives me great pleasure to plan and organise into neat lists and orderly graphs. And sometimes, organising is more pleasurable than actually living out my plans. So I do catch myself trying out new tools and fancy methods just so I can experience more of the soothing sensation of order.

However, whenever organising becomes an end in itself, I am aware of the disconnect between me and the world around me. It’s as if the hobby of organising makes it harder for me to be present, to live in the here and now. And to me, this goes contrary to the purpose of organising myself. I do it so I have a higher capacity to connect with experiences and people. I do it to create space in my mind and life, not so I can take up more of it.

And so, if your process ain’t broken, resist the temptation to upgrade it. If whatever tools you use do their job, you probably do not need newer, fancier ones. If you’re not quite sure that your current way serves you well, spend some time thinking about it, what works well, what bothers you, what would planning look like once you improved your process. Most of the time, thinking about change is more fruitful than diving into it directly.

An ugly tool to help you get started

I hope these ideas inspire you to do some kind, yet effective organising. In case you are still stuck, here’s a few prompts to jumpstart your planning.

Help, I’m stuck!

To create a process that works for you, start by observing a normal day:

1. What are your main activities?
2. What does your schedule look like, roughly?
3. What gets done and what doesn’t
4. What do your successful planning sessions look like? Where, when, how?
5. What happens on the days you don’t manage to get organised?

Once you’ve penned down your answers, notice what works and test it out for a few days. Then reflect, adjust, repeat. Inevitably, there will be days when you just don’t get to plan. That’s OK too. There’s always tomorrow.