MOMENT | Daily Resets: The Small Habits That Stop Motherhood Feeling Overwhelming

0:08Hi everyone, it's Zoe here. Welcome, welcome. It's Monday, which means it's Motherkind. Moment Day, your little shot of inspiration on Monday. Today is with Ingrid Johnson, a professional organizer. And in this short clip, she is going to reveal the one thing you need to be doing every day if you want to keep on top of the chaos. Right, I'm off to tidy. Here it is.

0:40so what can really help you is something that we call daily resets and non-negotiables these are tasks and chores that have to be done every day they're different for everybody but let me give you some examples for example in my life I want to have the dishwasher pressure loaded and unloaded every day. I want to have my washing up. I don't want to have anything in my sink every day. I want to have my recycling and my bins done. You know, I don't want to look at recycling all the time. That's something that needs to be done daily. Some people might have pets that need daily care. They need to be fed and watered and walked.

1:21That's a non-negotiable in people's lives. You might want to sweep the kitchen floor every day and after dinner, make sure that all the pots and pans are washed up and the kitchen counters are clean these things we call daily reset so a couple of times per day you need to spend time 10 minutes 15 minutes to do a bit of a reset moms can do it maybe when they come back from the school run or if you go straight into work after school run it needs to be done before you leave the house you probably if you've got um 15 minutes before you need to pick up the kids from school you can go okay let me just do a quickly you know a tidy up a reset of a couple of bits before the kids come back then after dinner so depending on your family and the busyness you have you have to do one two three times per day then you can think about okay so what's non-negotiable for me if I get nothing done today what do I have to do to make things sticking over because what we see a lot is people are like after dinner I'm so tired I want to sit down but you know we're all you know we've all had a busy day you're gonna have to find that 10 minutes to go let me just load the dishwasher and put that on let me just wash up the last little bits because you're gonna do your future self a massive problem because what's nicer than in the morning to come into your kitchen and go there's no pots and pans inside I can start afresh today and I do this with laundry as well every day I run a load of laundry I put it on in the morning and I wrote because what I don't want to do is end up with whole piles of laundry everywhere and then in the weekend go okay I forgot I've got swimming lesson a party we're going out I have to buy presents I have to do cleaning how am I going to do five loads of laundry now so that for me is a non-negotiable one load every day and then somewhere across the weekend I find half an hour my non-negotiable again to fold it all up and put it all away and once you start to get those non-negotiables and daily resets into place, you're not behind as soon as the weekend hits because you've done a little bit already during the week.

3:32You've done your future self a favor. So then you start to see some time appear in the weekends to do some cleaning, you know, some shopping. And of course, when you're not by yourself, but live with a partner or a husband or with kids that are older, who can do what? I always said to my kids, you know, when they were younger, this is not a hotel. You have to help. You have to unload the dishwasher. You're doing the recycling. When mommy comes in with shopping, help me unpack it. All of those little things, you build it up over time. That's what I was thinking as you were talking about those day and non-negotiables.

4:09We have those and we have those divided between us. And that's really, really helpful because yeah, I know what it's like to just let those tasks build up and then it can just get so overwhelming especially when you know particularly if you've got little ones there is no time in the day because if you're with them then you're with them it's really hard to get anything done isn't it

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4:42oh this has been so helpful is there anything else that you want to share or you think would be useful for people to hear before we close? I think what can really help when you are doing toys with children or doing toys in sorting it all out, when they're little, see if you can make some boxes and put some pictures on it. This is where the blocks go. This is where the farm animals go. This is where the train set goes, little pictures, and have your storage low. And of course, if there are items that you kind of want to supervise when they're playing with it, paint, glitter, arts and crafts, put those higher up that they can't reach.

5:24That doesn't mean they can never play with it, but then you know, okay, I'm going to get it down and get it out so I can control what's happening here. Once they get older, the pictures can be replaced by labels. Also really, really helpful. And you know what? let's put some realism in here Zoe even when you've got labels and pictures and categories and everything in your toy room you know a couple of times per year you're gonna have to go through it and go right I'm gonna pull everything out I'm gonna kind of re-establish the zones great way then to declutter some stuff toys that are not being played with them anymore can you give them to a friend can you give them to somebody else can they go to their nursery there are so many outlets now that would love to have things.

6:10Fantastic giveaway sites like Oleo, Freegal, Freecycle, fantastic as well to give away things. So the volumes, you know, kids have so many toys, but they only play with a few. And having less really is more, not only for them, but also for you. So think about that. And you know what, when you go on holiday, you don't need to buy another new activity book. Look at what you still have in the cupboards, what hasn't been touched from the last time. You don't need to buy a new pencil set every time they start in the summer or in the new year. Look at what you have and see that you use that up because it's so satisfying to use up the stuff that you have.

6:56Yeah, it's really true. And I know that there's just fascinating studies showing that the less toys that kids have, the more creatively they play with those toys and I think it's really important it's kind of a win-win isn't it it's easier for us it's easier for them it's just getting through that initial kind of declutter phase I know something for me is it's the presence yeah they get so many presents which is obviously such a you know privilege and an amazing position to be and we have lots of family lots of family very generous with them but that's often where it gets completely out of control for us yeah that they'll get all and for their parties, you know, they'll get, you know, sometimes 20 presents from a party if it's their birthday and it's, I need to get better at managing what comes into the house.

7:44Does it get donated straight away? Does it get held back? That's what I need to get better at because that's when it just gets totally out of control. Yeah. What can really help is before Christmas and before birthdays is go, right, your birthday's coming up. We're so excited. You know, you're going to get lots of new presents and we would love to find a home for them. So let's create some space together and see that we can, you know, just thin it out a little bit. You don't have to go from a whole full toy room to absolutely nothing. You know, that's not what I'm talking about. And I think also having conversations with family and friends and go, can we maybe go to experiences instead of stuff?

8:23Because, you know, there's so many wonderful things that you can do now with kids, you know, instead of having all of the toys. But of course, you know, every family needs to figure out what works for them and what works best for them. But I think it can be, you know, very, very helpful for both mom and the child to, you know, to be able to play and have the space to play. Yeah, it's true. It's really true. Oh, thank you. I've really enjoyed this. And you've already sort of got me thinking about some things that I want to do. I always ask the same question at the end, which is if you could give one gift to all the mothers in the world, what would that one gift be and why?

8:58Ask yourself, when you go to the shops every week, when you do your weekly shop and you see something and you've got that mom guilt because you've had a horrible difficult week and you've not been around the kids a lot and you feel that you've neglected them a little bit and you're like tempted to put another you know new magazine in your trolley or the latest toy or another outfit or are you doing it for them or are you actually doing it for yourself? And is this another item in your house going to really kind of make things change for you? Or can you just go, actually, no, I actually have gotten into a little bit of a habit with doing this.

9:40And I really, really need to think it through. Where am I going to put it? Is this needed? Do I want it? Do I use it? Do I love it? And most of the time you already have something similar in your house. You don't need to get another thing and another thing, because like you said, Zoe, you know, the kids get so much already with Christmas, with their birthdays. But on top of that, they also get so many other things all the time as well when we're out and about. And I think, you know, teaching those good habits from a young age, you know, starts with looking at yourself and your own ingrained habits as well and what you do.

10:18What an incredible episode. I hope you loved it too. If you've got this far, then I am guessing that you did. So make sure that you share it with a friend and subscribe so you never miss an episode. And I will see you Thursday for more. See you next time.