Working from home can be a nightmare you have lots of work to do and then you look around you and see the housework which is mounting up and then you have your family to add into the mix. It’s no wonder that not a lot of anything gets done yet you still feel exhausted each day.

Here are some great tips to make your days productive. Put them into action and see your productivity soars.

1. Use planners

Don’t leave things to chance. Stop leaving things to chance and plan your time so you can work effectively- you can download a planner or have a dedicated notebook or diary to jot down your daily plans. A good planner should challenge you to push yourself and follow through.

2. Meal plan

Do you find yourself needing to think about what you’re going to cook for dinner and then realizing you need to go to the shops to get things to make it? It all takes time and eats into your day. Instead take an hour to plan out the meals for the week and then do a shopping list for everything so you’ll have everything ready to make it. The good thing is if your plans change you can switch the day’s meals easily without needing to go shopping. Better still choose batch cook meals and cook up everything for the week so it’s much simpler to cope with meal times and other family commitments in the evenings.

3. Structure your day.

If you’re working from home, set yourself some hours and stick to them. If you were at a work place you wouldn’t be cleaning dishes or hanging out washing between sending emails so stop doing it at home. You need to be able to switch off from home life and having set work and home times will help you do this. If you find it hard to work when you know stuff needs doing, set aside the first hour of the day to do those tasks then you’ll be able to relax and work more effectively.

4. Learn to say NO

Sometimes it feels like everyone wants some of your time, you’re being volunteered to help at the school, you have relatives who need you to drive them somewhere or friends who have to talk to you right now. There comes a time when you have to say NO. It feels harsh but they wouldn’t come into your regular workplace and ask you to do these things so you’ll need to set firm boundaries here too. Instead set aside an afternoon each week where you can have coffee or lunch with your friend and catch up or you can pop in and help at the school or church.

5. Schedule and ship out.

Some tasks are a real time suck, you find you’ve worked on them all day and feel like you’ve got nothing productive done. Instead look at what tasks you can pass off, either give them to a virtual assistant to do or use scheduling apps for things like your social media. Better still get yourself a virtual assistant to do it all!

If you know when you’re putting out value to your customers in the shape of blogs and new products etc. you don’t want to be spending your time loading your social media, sending newsletters etc. Instead you could be earning more by giving more to your customers. Social media scheduling apps are great; Hootsuite and Buffer are just two of the ones out there. Instead of needing to be present 100% in your business you can schedule posts so you’re still visible online.

If you want a work life balance you need to plan and use the time you have effectively. Some of the happiest Mumpreneurs are known to switch off at 4pm each day and revert to parent mode, they say it means they have that separation so they can wind down with their families in the evenings and hit the work hard again in the morning feeling refreshed.

So, as you can see there are many ways you can free up more time and give you chance to be more productive. The better you use your time the more work you’ll get done. There’s nothing worse than getting to tea time and finding you’re exhausted but have nothing much to show for it.