26 Amazingly Helpful Time Management Quotes for Moms
Life moves so fast in today’s world. It’s hard to be a good employee, manager, parent, sibling or even friend without strong time management skills. These time management quotes and organization quotes will keep some of the best time management tips front and center in your daily life.
Twenty-one days to form a habit. That’s what I’ve always heard. If you do something for 21 days, it becomes routine and “sticks.” Maybe. Sometimes. It depends.
It would be great if that 21-day formula worked every time. I could work out every day…or get up early to do a devotion…or eat healthy for 21 days if it guaranteed I would keep up the habits long term. But it’s just not that simple.
Good habits take time and ongoing efforts. A few tricks can also help.
One hack to forming a lasting healthy habit is to start small. B.J. Fogg, a researcher at Stanford, authored the book Tiny Habits all about using baby steps to work toward the behavior changes you want.
Another proven hack is to tie new habits to existing habits. Use our current habits as a trigger.
After a few bad visits at the dentist, I decided I needed to step up my flossing game. I bought floss sticks and the mouthwash my dentist recommended and committed to spending an extra minute after brushing my teeth every night to use mouthwash and brush. The next dentist visit – NO CAVITIES!!
Setting reminders also helps with forming new habits. These can be simple post-it notes or phone reminders, but I also love using quotes (especially from people I admire) to remind and inspire myself of the changes I want to make.
And it’s amazing how many of the changes we want to make in our lives relate to how we spend our time.
Good time management skills become the foundation for so many other things: healthy lifestyles, strong relationships, good parenting, success at work.
To successfully tackle many of the habits we know we need or want to form, we may need to start by taking a step back to consider how we spend our time.
Time Management Quotes & Tips
Time is really the only capital that any human has, and the only thing he can’t afford to lose. ~ Albert Einstein.
Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time. ~ Jim Rohn
Your future is created by what you do today, not tomorrow. ~ Anonymous
This is the key to time management – to see the value of every moment. ~ Menachem Mendel Schneerson
Below are six proven time management tips and time management quotes to go along with each. They’re habits worth the time and effort. They just might be the baby steps that set you on the path to big changes.
Print out the time management quotes, post them and use them as reminders.
Time Management Tips
Plan Ahead
Even When You’re Tired.
Even when you really don’t feel like it.
The irony isn’t lost on me that life as a busy mom leaves very little time for planning, while failing to plan ahead almost always leads to complete disaster. I’m mildly obsessed with our family calendar. I hulk out if someone fails to add events that impact me to the family calendar, or if they don’t know what’s going on because they haven’t checked the calendar.
I’ve learned that if something isn’t on my to-do list – it doesn’t happen. The same goes for our master calendar.
There are nights I just don’t have the energy to plan ahead for the next day. But when I don’t, I regret it and pay the piper. Ever.Single.Time.
No planning typically equals: forgotten stuff (or people), lots of yelling and headache-inducing stress.
Good time management requires planning ahead. It just does.
Looking forward helps us see the bigger picture.
- We suddenly realize that if we don’t pick up groceries on Monday, there won’t be another time to do it until Thursday and we’ll be pounding fast food three nights in a row. So we make the time to pick up groceries Monday.
- We remember that a project is due Thursday with enough time to block out time on Tuesday to work on it. The alternative? Pulling an all-nighter on Wednesday because we didn’t think ahead.
- We see the camp registration reminder scheduled in our phone and jump online to do it on time instead of realizing too late that the week we want is already booked.
I completely understand that the constant need to be planning ahead can also threaten to drain our lifeblood because it NEVER ENDS. I think the buzz word going around recently in mom circles was “mental load.” The idea that all the stuff in our heads creates even more stress than the physical tasks – and a big part of that mental load is planning.
Planning ahead truly does help us make the most of our time, but it’s also important to make sure we aren’t taking on too much of the planning in our lives. [Keep reading – the tips coming up on prioritizing and taking breaks will help balance this out]
More Time Management Quotes on Planning Ahead
All time management begins with planning. ~ Tom Greening
Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort. ~ Paul J. Meyer
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. ~ Abraham Lincoln
Stop Multitasking
Stay Focused on What Really Matters
The newest research out there shows that multitasking actually isn’t the best way to get things done. As moms, this stinks because we’re loud and proud about our mad multitasking skills.
But I read The One Thing by Gary Keller & Jay Papasan, and dang it, I bought the concept they were selling. That the best way to get things done is to ditch multitasking and focus on one thing at a time. (Spoiler alert: the research in this book also supports the next time management tip on prioritizing)
Multitasking takes a toll. At home or at work, distractions lead to poor choices, painful mistakes, and unnecessary stress. ~ Gary Keller, The One Thing
More Time Management Quotes on Focusing on What Matters
There’s a temptation to multitask everything, but you can’t multitask presence. ~ Cindy Crawford
Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The Sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus. ~ Alexander Graham Bell
Prioritize
Because Doing It All Isn’t Actually Possible
Time management skills are great, but not even a master can do everything. It’s impossible to stop multitasking and focus on what’s really important without knowing the most important thing.
There are big picture priorities like family or faith, but there are daily priorities as well. Certain things that need to get done more than others.
The problems start when we run out of time to do the most important things because we didn’t put those things first. Or when we have so many “most important” things to do that it’s not even possible to get them all done.
For her New York Times bestselling book Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live), author Eve Rodsky interviewed more than 500 men and women to learn about the “invisible work” happening inside their families. She then came up with four simple rules, 100 household tasks and a series of conversation starters to help couples prioritize what’s important and designate who should take the lead on different things.
More Time Management Quotes on Priorities
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. ~ Steve Jobs
It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about? ~ Henry David Thoreau
Remember That Minutes Matter
The Devil’s in the Distractions
I wrote a post on the Top Way to Get More Done Each Day and this was it: don’t waste time. Even 10 minutes of wasted time a day adds up to 60 hours by the end of the year – almost three days.
Let me be clear. We all need time to unwind and relax, and that is NOT what I mean when I say “wasted” time. Choosing to take a break or do something fun is different than an unexpected distraction that interrupts what we’re doing and takes us down a rabbit hole.
The dangers of distraction:
- Quick distractions turn into major time sucks. Case in point: a quick Facebook check becomes an hour-long scroll fest.
- Distractions cause mistakes. A University of Michigan study found that even 3-second distractions – like silencing a buzzing cell phone – doubled participants’ error rates.
- Stopping and starting tasks wastes too much time. A study from the University of California Irvine found it takes an average of 23 minutes to get back to a task after a distraction. It just takes time to shift thinking back and remember where you were and what you were doing.
Distractions cost valuable time. Sometimes they can’t be helped, but there are often things we can do to minimize them. We can silence cell phones and put watches on Do Not Disturb. We can block off time on our calendar to get certain things done and protect it from other meetings or appointments.
A friend posted this quote to Facebook along with the message that she’s signing off Facebook for a couple months. (Don’t worry, she said we can still text, call or even ask her to meet for coffee.)
You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. – John Maxwell.
She’s taking this distraction off the table. At least for awhile.
More Time Management Quotes on Avoiding Distractions
If you want to be more productive, you need to become master of your minutes. ~ Crystal Paine
Look Forward
Dwelling in the Past Steals from the Present
Though I’m not very good at it, I really value reflection: taking the time to stop, look back and think. It helps us be grateful for the good things and process and learn from the not-so-good. We talk about the power of reflecting and rebounding in our post on fighting the fatigue that comes with making so many decisions.
Reflecting involves an intentional look backward for a set amount of time. If we’re not careful, we can get stuck in a dangerous place dwelling on the would’ve, could’ve, should’ve…or the “what ifs.” We can obsess about things we can’t change in a way that’s not very productive.
We’ll make good and bad decisions throughout our lives. We’ll face circumstances that aren’t fair and situations that deeply hurt us that aren’t even the result of anything we do or don’t do – they happen to us.
Time truly is a precious resource and it’s finite. Sometimes just getting out of bed is a win and other days we can make big strides, and that’s ok. Things like looking for things to be grateful for and helping others are proven ways to help us move forward.
More Time Management Quotes on Looking Forward
The future rewards those who press on. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I’m going to press on. ~ Barack Obama
Take Breaks
Before You Hit Your Breaking Point
Elite athletes train hard, work to maintain peak condition during the most important competitions and then they rest before jumping back in. The break is just as important as the training. It allows the body to recover from injuries and fatigue and recharges energy and mental health.
The human body and mind are not meant to run continuously without a break. Even the best time management systems and the ultimate willpower can’t keep us in top form without regular periods of rest.
More Time Management Quotes on Taking Breaks
Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from cares which will not withdraw from us. ~ Maya Angelou
We’ve heard so many good time management tips from the moms in our SALT effect community. What helps you manage time as a busy mom? What quotes inspire you to make the most of your minutes and hours?
