Create your own P.O.W.E.R. hour routine and change your life with one hour a day!
Motherhood is a balancing act. Balancing the duties of chef, housekeeper, money manager, comforter and counselor can be very daunting and exhausting. Unfortunately the job of a mother is never done. You can’t clock out after 8 hours and go home to escape the craziness of the day. Add working a full-time job to that already daunting list of demands, and it often feels so overwhelming that you can’t breathe. Working moms, I hear you. I know exactly how you feel and I have a solution for you. Change your life with one hour per day! Create your own P.O.W.E.R. hour routine!
Often, I was so tired when I left work, that I would just come home and plop down in my favorite chair and zone out. Eventually, mom guilt kicked in and I would get up and at least cook dinner. Okay, I microwaved little frozen pizzas, but that counts, right? But forget about me cleaning or doing laundry! My day was horrible at work and I was done. Checked out. I could not do another thing.
FINDING YOUR FREE TIME!
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That scenario happened to me more than I like to admit. As a working mom, I was continuously trying to find ways to keep my head above water and my energy levels up. It took a lot of trial and error, but I finally found something that worked for me. I call it P.O.W.E.R. hour and it can work for you too!.
WHAT IS P.O.W.E.R. HOUR?
Schedule one hour each day to focus on your most important tasks from any of the P.O.W.E.R. areas: productivity, organization, wellness, easy budgeting and resources. Don’t worry! You don’t have to do the entire hour all at once. You can break it down into 10, 15 or 30-minute increments if needed. I call those 15-minute increments, POWER Pockets™.
POWER Pockets™ also count towards your 60 minutes of POWER each day! If you use your 30-minute lunch each day for POWER Pockets™, then you are already half way to your daily goal of one hour of P.O.W.E.R.!
What is the benefit of a P.O.W.E.R. hour?
P.O.W.E.R. hour focuses on 5 areas that help you achieve your goals, complete your tasks and still allows you to have quality time with your family and friends every evening. The goal of the hour is to give you more time on weekday evenings with your loved ones.
The P.O.W.E.R. areas are:
Productivity
It is important to focus on being productive on purpose. If you want to get items marked off your to do list and finish projects you’ve started, then productivity is essential. Time management, planning, scheduling and motivation are the keys to helping you achieve your goals and complete your tasks. Examples of how to use your P.O.W.E.R. hour to focus on productivity goals are: planning your week, planning the next day, meal planning, working on a project, or working on your big goal. These tasks are all great ideas for your POWER Pockets™ time. You can get a daily schedule form below!
Organization
Keeping an organized and clean home saves you time, energy and money. When everything has a place, and you can find it easily, frustration disappears. Nothing is more frustrating than searching all over the house for hours trying to find a pair of scissors so you can wrap a birthday present or getting ready to cook tacos only to realize that you are out of taco seasoning. Organizing every area of your home and maintaining a clean home are essential for managing your time. Try to dedicate time each week to clean or organize your home.
Wellness
Exercise, eating well, meal prepping, sleep and self-care are all critical components of a healthy lifestyle. Those factors contribute to our energy levels and motivation. Staying healthy and happy is essential to your overall well being. You can’t take care of others if you don’t take care of your self first. Schedule some P.O.W.E.R. time each week for exercise, self care, meal prepping or a well-deserved nap!
Easy Budgeting
Life is stressful when you don’t have enough money, so budgeting and good money management can help eliminate some of the stress caused by lack of funds. Setting up a sound, budgeting system that is easy to manage and stick with is important. Use an occasional P.O.W.E.R. hour to pay bills, review your investments, balance your checkbook or monitor your budgets. It’s great to schedule your budgeting P.O.W.E.R. hours on the days you typically pay your bills like on the 1st and 15th of the month. If you have a private office at work, you can use your lunch break to complete your bill paying tasks.
Resources
Tasks, chores and budgets are not always fun, but pretty printables, checklists, and easy step-by-step guides can motivate and keep you on task. I try to make a cute printable or an easy guide for any project or big task I work on. (You will find them embedded in the posts and also listed in the Resources tab).
How to use your P.O.W.E.R. Hour:
Schedule 60 minutes throughout your day for P.O.W.E.R. hour tasks. Use POWER Pockets™ to help break the 60 minutes into more manageable time increments.
Try to include a 10- minute tidy-up in your hour each day. Run through the house and pick up laundry off the floor, put shoes and toys back where they belong, fluff pillows, remove clutter from countertops, etc. I am not a morning person, so I usually do my tidy-up right before bed (I’m always the last one to bed). Then, in the morning, all I have to do is make my bed and load any breakfast dishes into the dishwasher before I leave for work. I ❤️ coming home to a clean house!
You can learn how to make the most of your day with POWER Pockets™ and find your time. Get the FREE guide!
WHAT TO DO DURING YOUR P.O.W.E.R. HOUR?
P.O.W.E.R. hour is devoting a total of 60 minutes each day to tasks from any of the 5 P.O.W.E.R. areas. For example, spend the hour (or part of the hour) deep cleaning bathrooms, meal prepping, or planning your weekly schedule. Or use the P.O.W.E.R. hour for wellness- like exercising, meal prepping or self-care.
POWER Pockets™ are great for productivity, wellness and easy budgeting tasks. These tasks can typically be done outside of the home. Use the remaining P.O.W.E.R. hour time to focus on cleaning tasks when you get home. Remember, POWER Pockets™ are a component of the P.O.W.E.R. hour. They are not separate. The ultimate goal is to be productive for one hour total each day. The P.O.W.E.R. hour routine is designed to be customizable- do what is best for your needs and schedule!
When to schedule your P.O.W.E.R. hour:
It doesn’t matter when you do your P.O.W.E.R. hour or what you do during your P.O.W.E.R. hour, you just need to do it. I am NOT a morning person at all, so I prefer to do my chores and tasks in the afternoon and my tidy-up at night. If you are more of a morning person, then do the P.O.W.E.R. hour and tidy-up before work. You could even break it down and do 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening. You can use POWER Pockets™ to help you reach most of your 60 minute daily goal before you even get home!
Break It Down
The goal is to plan, schedule and then DO something for one hour a day that will help you complete many of your tasks for the week without feeling so overwhelmed. Break the hour into 10, 15, or 30 minute increments- whatever works best for you and your schedule. Use your POWER Pockets™ to make the most of your daily idle time.
I do the P.O.W.E.R. hour routine 7 days a week. However, if that is too hard to fit in your schedule, try scheduling 3-4 days for P.O.W.E.R. hour and gradually work your way up to 7 days a week. The goal of the P.O.W.E.R. hour is to reduce your stress- not create more! Create a P.O.W.E.R. hour routine that works best for you!
This plan also keeps you from working 8 hours at your job and then coming home and working 4-6 more hours on housework. That schedule leaves you with ZERO time for family, friends and self. By working really hard for one hour and being completely focused on the tasks during that hour, you will get a lot of tasks finished. Will you get everything done? No, of course not. But, you will make a huge dent in your tasks list so you have less to do on the weekends. It’s much easier to stop working and carve out quality family time on the weekday evenings when you know you have already accomplished your important tasks. Working for that hour helps you give yourself permission to stop working and start enjoying your family. Create your own P.O.W.E.R. hour routine and have more time for things important to you.
Practice Makes Perfect!
P.O.W.E.R. hour was a life changer for me. Even when I am totally exhausted, I try to push through and meet my one hour daily goal. I hide my phone (so I don’t get distracted), set the kitchen timer, and get busy. I am totally focused on whatever I have scheduled during that time period and I don’t stop until the buzzer goes off. After that, I usually cook dinner (meal prepping is a life saver), help my son with homework, and then I finally allow myself to sit in my comfy chair or have some quality family time.
This P.O.W.E.R. hour did not happen overnight. It took lots of planning, practice and failure. There were days when I reverted back and would come home and fall right into my favorite chair and totally zone out. (Confession- I still do that occasionally! No one is perfect!) However, pushing through fatigue and working for that P.O.W.E.R. hour helps mentally and physically. Being productive for that one hour makes it easier to let go of the outstanding items on the to do list and instead reward yourself with family time or me time. My whole family has benefited from this hour of productivity. My hope is that you and your family will benefit from it too. Create your own P.O.W.E.R. hour routine and see how one hour can change your life!
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