Motherhood Taught Me to Prioritize: Building Routines That Work for You

Before I became a mom, I thought I knew all about time management. Checklists, color-coded planners-the morning routine rehearsed until perfected. It wasn’t until I juggled conference calls with the feeding schedules of a newborn and my own, though, that I learned exactly what prioritization feels like.

Motherhood brought a whole new level of unpredictability-nightless nights, days never going as scheduled, and an endless chorus of needs from tiny humans who could not wait until “after this meeting.” shockingly, this stage of my life taught me something very potent: It is not about having the perfect schedule. Rather, it’s about designing routines that work for your current reality, not some idealized version of it.

Letting Go of the Perfect Routine

Back when it was just me, it was easy to follow strict routines and hold myself to rigid standards. I’d get frustrated if a workout got interrupted or if a project took longer than expected. My routine was a straight line, and any bump felt like a failure.

When my first child arrived, all those neat lines got scribbled over. A planned 5 AM workout would give way to a 4:30 AM feeding. My carefully mapped-out work schedule had to accommodate nap times that refused to follow my…