I love learning how others organise themselves in order to set themselves up for success. We’ve all (well ok so some of us) have heard the phrase, even Beyonce has only 24 hours in a day. However I actually have no idea how she spends her average day. How do busy, successful, seemingly thriving people organise their lives to get through it all?

I wish more people laid down what works for them – openly and honestly – in more interviews / interactions with the general public. It’s not because I want to be nosy that I want to know, I guess I want a benchmark for what’s achievable. If there’s a highly successful, organised, fit, well groomed woman I see in the press, with a tidy home, 7 children and her sanity in check, I’d like to know if she has an army of helpers…just so I know to ease up on trying to compare myself with her. Yes, yes, I know I shouldn’t be comparing myself in the first place, but I come from a culture that always asks, ‘Does she have two heads?’ ie if he/sh a regular human can do it, why can’t you do it too?

Putting it on paper is so important

So I’ve decided to lead by example. I will not claim to be all the aspirational adjectives I’ve laid out above, but boy I’m a trier! When I was set to return to work after having my second Muse, I sat down and had a talk with myself. I needed to work out how I was going to organise myself to get through the days and the weeks. Here are my two starting pieces of advice:

Prioritise. I had a blank sheet of paper in front of me. I decided before I started to populate it, I needed to work out what was important to me. What would I want to make space for each week and then how would everything else fit around it.
Commit to paper. Or actually if you’re me, commit to spreadsheet. You already know how I feel about spreadsheets when it comes to Mummy’s Muse, well I use spreadsheets in my personal life too.

So once I had this idea, I literally created a spreadsheet that had the days of the week along the top (Monday – Sunday) and the big chunks of the day, down the left hand side (pre 9am, 9-12, 12-3, 3-6, 6-8 and 8-10.30). The things that made the foundation of my spreadsheet spaces were the following:

My day job – I work four days a week at a media agency in Central London.
I go to Church on a Sunday with my family.
I’m responsible for pick up once a week from nursery.
I lead on bedtime most nights of the week (lead being the key word, I don’t always do it alone).

So what else is important to me that had to fit around all of this?

Exercise. I try to exercise ideally four times a week, more realistically three times. One of these times I take my Muses to the gym with me. The youngest Muse goes to creche, the older one does a class where she plays or produces some more colourful paper for me (to cherish…).
Mummy’s Muse! I work on Mummy’s Muse for part of the day I don’t work at my agency job and also in the evenings after my Muses have gone to sleep.
I try to attend one additional meeting at Church during the week as I like the sense of community and encouragement I get from it. It literally keeps me going.

The hacks that seem to be working for me

Are you tired yet? I’m tired just writing this! So what have I done to organise myself so I don’t drown simply trying to live? I’ve mentioned the spreadsheet, that’s basically where all the plans live, but these are some other things I’ve learned to do:

I prep all my work clothes on a Sunday. Prep means I put the outfits together, make sure everything is clean and ironed. This means – especially on mornings when I go to the gym before work – I don’t need to think when it comes to getting dressed for work.
I sort out all the Muses clothes for the days of the week on a Sunday. Reasons, same as above. Just to clarify, they don’t go to the gym before nursery. Ha ha.The Muses spend one day a week with their grandma. This is a God send. It’s one day less that we have to prepare their meals, shower them etc. I’m very grateful for this.
I have a cleaner – twice a week. Just a few years ago this is something I would have never thought I’d have, but due to the fact I’m working on MM and have two small children it’s been so necessary for me. One day in the week is a bigger clean and the other day is a smaller clean. I also get all the laundry done before my (incredible) cleaner comes so she can fold. Folding was literally consuming me on maternity leave.
I online shop. It tends to arrive on a Saturday morning. I like Amazon Fresh as I can order pretty late the day before and still get it the next day.
I organise food in advance. I decide what we’ll be eating on the weekend for the week ahead because there’s often a very small window between getting back from work and bedtime. On weeks when I haven’t got ahead of meal prepping, the whole, ‘What should we eat?’ question is such a bore and it can be so difficult to work out meals under pressure. Also the little Muse has zero patience when it comes to waiting.
The Muses head to nursery three days a week. Again a lifeline as someone else deals with feeding and entertaining them.
I have a husband who helps with the Muses. He leads on getting them ready in the morning and dropping them at nursery.
I schedule my rest. Normally a nap on the day I don’t go to my day job, Saturday and Sunday.
I try my hardest to sleep between 22.30 and 23.00 and I get up between 5.45 and 6.15. This means my post work work window is tight. I try to get the Muses into bed by 19.30 / 20.00 (I get quite stressed when it doesn’t go to plan, and it doesn’t often because…children). Which means I have about 2.5 hours where I have to be fully focused on moving the needle on Mummy’s Muse. I have more time on the weekend. I’m considering hiring a babysitter sometimes on the weekend while I work in the house.

So that’s it! An honest account of how I’m surviving. I’m sure some will read this and feel suffocated at how I organise everything. In the past I think I would have been embarrassed by this, but now I’m not in the slightest. It’s what I need to be able to function and to achieve what I want to achieve. I don’t ever want to achieve success at the expense of what is truly important to me. For this reason I lay those things down first and build everything else around it. I would love more people – or being honest – more women to share the details of how they make all they do possible. I’m sure we could learn so much from each other.