Welcome to Homemaking Tips Tuesdays where contributing writers share helpful homemaking tips so you can feel more successful caring for your home and family.

{This week, post by: Jaimi}

I looked at the mountain of laundry on the couch, the full sink, and my child whose diaper obviously needed to be changed. Many stay-at-home moms get asked, “What do you do all day?” I sat there staring and wondering the answer to that question myself. What had I done all day if this was the state of my home!?

Can we boil down what we do all day into a successful mom daily checklist?

Is there a way to create a list to help us focus on what we need to get done to stay balanced as stay-at-home moms and homemakers?

I have been working on the Successful Mom Daily Checklist for a few months now. The finished checklist is ready to help you notice all that you DO get done in a day. If you tend to wonder what to do all day when you are a mom at home, this list is for you!

This list works for homemakers without children too. You just have to white out the “kid focused” portions.

The Successful Mom Daily Checklist is something I am really excited to share. It is a guide to help you focus on a well-rounded day with your child while also getting more done.

For years I struggled to find a cleaning schedule that worked for me and my family. Every time we added a child the schedule had to change. Every stage our children pass through changes when they nap-and when we get our quiet time. Things are always changing. I could never find a list that worked all of the time.

Even after 8 years of motherhood, my days are not the same every day. I can’t always clean at 9am every Monday, or grocery shop at 2pm every Thursday. It just does not work for our family to be that scheduled.

Finding a schedule for you as a mom or stay-at-home mom can be helpful. When you find one that works, it can make you feel like a successful mom. There is nothing better than feeling successful and accomplished most days. I feel that now, but it has taken quite a few years to realize that a routine works better than a schedule for our family.

Morning, Afternoon and Evening are the times of the day that I focused on when I created this Successful Mom Daily Checklist. I think it can work for Stay-at-Home Moms, Work-at-Home Moms, and Homemakers without children. (It will even work for the working moms on the days you are at home with your kiddos too!)

Successful Daily Checklist for Stay-at-Home Moms

The checklist is broken down into 3 times of day, so you can focus on just one set of activities at a time.

When you download the checklist, print it out. Then slide it into a plastic page protector. Hang it on the front of the fridge, or pin it to a bulletin board in an area of your home that you are in most.

I stuck mine to the front of the fridge so I could see it and remember to check off the tasks and activities as I complete them.

The plastic sleeve allows you to use a dry erase marker to check off the tasks and then erase at the end of the day. No need to print out a new checklist every day, just print one and make it dry erase.

Don’t have page protectors? Laminate the checklist, slide it into a gallon Ziploc bag, or cover it with clear contact paper. Whatever works best for you.

Start every morning with making and eating breakfast with your children. (I am not saying it has to be a hot breakfast every day!)

Check that off the list.

Even details such as clean up the kitchen, read books, and free play, are listed during the times of the day that seem to work best for a our household with school age children and younger. This checklist would have worked for me when I had nursing infants, and it works for me now with 2 school agers and 2 toddlers.

If you want to alter the checklist, just white out tasks and write in your own that are a better fit.

Tasks on the Successful Mom Daily Checklist

Certain activities or tasks listed on the checklist are broad.

“Activity together” can mean a learning game, or running errands.

“Free play” can be done with you or by the kids on their own if your child is old enough to play alone for a bit.

“Cleaning time” can mean cleaning the bathrooms, sorting laundry, dusting, etc.

“Cleaning Time” is general, so that you can scan your house and clean the area that needs it the most. I think the clean one room at a time idea is really helpful-especially for the sleep-deprived mams out there!

You can combine some tasks too. (The “kill two birds with one stone” idea.) For example, if my children are playing on their own (“free play”) in the morning, I can do my “cleaning time” then. Two items checked off at the same time!

Purpose of The Checklist

I do not want to make it seem that your day is ONLY successful if you complete all the activities listed on this list every day. My purpose for creating this successful mom daily checklist is to give us moms a template for our day so we have less moments of wondering what to do next.

We can glance at our Successful Day Checklist and see right away whether we have completed the necessary items first.

This list uses the productive idea of “work before play,” but it also shows that part of a moms work is interacting with her kids. It does not ignore the housework portion of a homemaker’s job, it balances the work with the play-even though interacting with our kids is part of our work each day. (That is a blessing!)

To get your copy of the Successful Mom Daily Checklist, subscribe to my free weekly newsletter (no spam included), then keep an eye on your inbox for the steps to confirm your subscription so you can gain access to our Subscriber-only freebies page.

If you want to check out some different schedules for moms, you can check out the book Routines and Schedules for Moms for printable schedules based on your children’s ages. Both routines and schedules are shared to help you find one that will work for your family.

This Successful Mom Checklist works well with more detailed time-based schedules or routines for your home. Both will help you feel productive as a mom each day.

You already do so much, this list will just let you see exactly what it is. It answers the question-for your husband or family members-of what a stay-at-home mom does do all day! 😉

Another tip I share with moms is the Done list. Check out what I mean by a Done List and how to use it in your home to feel productive as a mom.

We also have an entire list of Homemaking Tips for you as part of the Complete Guide for Stay-at-Home Moms. Check out the list of homemaking tips.

You are doing great work each day!

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