Simple daily routine ideas for a less chaotic family life

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Family life can feel chaotic when there are so many things to remember, organise, and get done every day, but having a few simple daily routine ideas can make everyday tasks much more manageable.

Routines aren’t about being more productive, or trying to fit more into your day. They’re about making things you already do easier by creating simple systems that reduce decisions, last-minute rushing, and the number of things you need to remember.

In this post you’ll discover simple daily routines that work with busy family life, including preparing for the next day, planning your day, creating an after-school routine, and making dinner easier.

You’ll also find ideas for giving everyday items a home, re-setting your main living areas, and other tips for creating routines that your family can maintain.

The aim of this post is to help you find one or two simple daily routine ideas that solve a problem you regularly have, and build from there, so family life feels a lot less overwhelming.

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What are daily routines?

Daily routines are repeatable ways of organising the things you and your family do regularly throughout the day.

A routine doesn’t mean planning every minute of the day, or following a strict timetable.

It’s simply about having a familiar way of doing something, so you don’t have to make the same decisions, or remember the same instructions every day.

Daily routine ideas

Here are some daily routine ideas that you can pick and choose from, until you find the ones that help you create more predictability throughout your day.

Prepare for the morning

This is one of the daily routine ideas that I do every evening, which is to prepare for the next morning before going to bed.

You don’t need to prepare everything for the next morning each night, instead only do what’s absolutely essential.

For example:

Lay out school uniforms and clothes
Put school bags by the front door
Pack lunches
Get breakfast items ready
Prepare for after school activities

You don’t have to prepare everything perfectly. Choose the things that cause the most stress for your family in the morning, and start there.

Plan your day

Taking a few minutes to plan your day doesn’t take long, and is something you could even do as part of a weekly family routine.

You can plan your day by looking at your family calendar and asking yourself the following questions, which you can also do if you don’t use a family calendar:

What’s happening today?
Where does everyone need to be?
Are there appointments or activities I need to prepare for?
What absolutely needs to be done?

Use the answers to these questions to prepare for your day.

For example, if one of your children has an after school activity, pack anything they need into their school bag before you leave for school.

Focus on what really needs to happen

When family life is busy it’s easy to create a to-do list that’s longer than the number of hours you have available.

To avoid this, choose 2-3 things that you absolutely need to get done each day, for example:

Booking the dentist
Grocery shopping
Washing school uniforms
Replying to important emails
Preparing for an after-school activity
Making dinner
Spending time with your family

Some days you’ll have many priorities, and some days you’ll only have enough energy to get everyone fed, and that’s totally normal.

The purpose of a simple daily routine isn’t to help you squeeze more and more into your day. It’s to help you decide what matters, so that you can stop carrying a huge list of unfinished tasks around in your head.

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Start an after school routine

The time between school finishing and bedtime can be one of the busiest parts of family life.

Children are hungry and tired after school, bags get dumped on the floor, homework needs doing, and dinner needs to be made.

A simple after school routine can make this part of your day more predictable.

Some activities you can add to an after school routine include:

Put shoes and bags away
Eat an after school snack
Finish homework
Have some downtime
Eat dinner

The steps in your after school routine will differ depending on your family’s needs.

For example, your kids may be like mine and need downtime immediately after school, so perhaps homework will come after downtime.

It doesn’t matter what the order of your steps are, what matters is that your kids know what the after school routine is, and that it contributes to a smoother evening.

Make dinners easy

Thinking about and making dinner takes up a lot of time, as it doesn’t just involve cooking, it’s also deciding what to eat, checking what you have, remembering everyone’s preferences, preparing ingredients, and then finding time to cook.

One way to make dinners easier is to incorporate some of the following dinner routines into your day:

Write a weekly meal plan
Work through a list of family favourites
Have leftovers on busy days
Pre-cut ingredients earlier in the day
Have dinner theme nights, like meat free Mondays, taco Tuesdays, pizza Fridays

You don’t need to cook a different meal every night, having a few reliable meals that your family enjoys can make family life easier because you have fewer decisions to make.

Give everyday use items a home

Giving everyday use items a home makes it easier to carry out routines because everyone knows where these items belong, and time isn’t wasted searching for them.

Here are some items that you may use every day:

Keys
Shoes
School bags
Water bottles
Lunchboxes
Coats
Sports equipment

You could keep everyday items together in a simple drop zone near your front door, or you could use the following items to store them

Hooks for keys, or a bowl you already own
A storage bench for shoes, or a small shoe basket
Over door hooks for school bags and coats
A spare drawer for water bottles and lunchboxes
Sports equipment storage rack or a spot in your garden for sports equipment

Reset your main living areas

Another simple daily routine that I do each evening is a quick home reset, where I spend 15 minutes tidying my kitchen and living room, as they’re the most used areas in my home.

Doing this means I don’t spend hours cleaning on the weekend.

Here are the tasks that I do during the reset:

Kitchen

Load and run the dishwasher
Wipe countertops
Place paperwork in a paperwork holder to sort through the next day
Put away leftover food
Sweep or vacuum

Living room

Put toys away
Straighten cushions
Put items back where they belong
Sweep or vacuum

How to maintain your daily routines

Here are some things you can do to maintain your daily routines.

Create routines that work for your family

The routines you choose need to work for your family, your schedule, and your energy levels.

If a routine doesn’t work for your family, or it doesn’t work for you, don’t be afraid to change it, or stop it.

Create routines for activities you repeat

One of the easiest ways to work out what daily routine to start is to look at the things you do repeatedly each day.

For example, do you find yourself reminding your children to pack their school bags every morning? Are you constantly searching for your keys before you leave the house? Or are you constantly having to remember what’s happening tomorrow?

If so, find a way to incorporate these things into your daily routines so you don’t spend too much time doing them.

For these examples this could look like packing school bags in the evening, putting keys in a bowl near the front door, or starting a family calendar.

Don’t start multiple routines at once

Start with a daily routine from this list that solves your biggest problem, then once you’re comfortable with the routine, start another one to solve another problem.

For example, if mornings are the most stressful part of your day, then start with a routine where you prepare for tomorrow the night before.

If after school is difficult, then implement an after school routine.

Keep routines simple

When creating a new routine try these simple tips:

Keep it short
Don’t add 20 tasks to it when five will do
Use the same order

Doing things in roughly the same sequence makes routines easier to remember.

Daily routine ideas – a recap

The most useful daily routine ideas are the ones that make everyday family life easier.

When starting a daily routine, you could begin by preparing for tomorrow, planning your day, focussing on what really needs to happen, or starting an after school routine.

You can also plan meals, give everything home, or reset your main living areas.

Don’t introduce multiple routines at once. Choose a part of your day that feels the most challenging, and start a routine that will help make it easier.

The goal of a daily routine is to create more predictability, fewer decisions, and less rushing in the parts of family life that happen every day.

Ready to get more organised?

If you enjoyed these tips, don’t forget to download your FREE Organised Mum Life toolkit packed with simple planners and checklists to help make family life easier. Get your FREE toolkit here.

What’s one thing you do every day that makes family life easier?

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