Do you ever feel like you can’t get anything done with toddlers around? I know the struggle—my little ones are 4 and 2, and between snacks, questions, and playtime, it can feel impossible to focus.

In this episode, I’m sharing 11 realistic strategies that help me actually get work done with kids at home, without relying on generic productivity hacks. These are the practical systems, rhythms, and small shifts that free up space for work, rest, and family life.

Key Insights

• Simple ways to boost your energy and focus as a mom of toddlers
• Practical home systems that create more time for work and less stress
• Real strategies for balancing business tasks while parenting littles



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Hey, friend. You're listening to Harmonious Mompreneur, where faith, family, and business come together.

I'm your host, Phylicia Pough, a Christian wife, mom of two, and life and business system strategist for moms.

If you've ever felt like there just aren't enough hours in the day or find yourself craving more time for yourself but feel guilty about it, you're in the right place. While many strive for balance, I believe it's harmony, an integrated flow that works for you, that truly sustains.

Each week, I'll share insights from my personal journey and practical strategies to help you design systems that bring peace to your business and home life. So give your kids another snack, take a deep breath, and let's dive into today's episode where we'll start creating your harmonious Mompreneur life.

Do you ever feel like you can't get anything done with your toddlers around? They're constantly at your heels, asking for another snack, thinking you're a jungle gym, and asking a million questions. Listen, I understand.

I am right there with I have two toddlers. They are 4 and 2. Right now, we're not doing daycare, and we're also prepping for the homeschool journey. So when I say I get it, I get it.

Today in this episode, I am going to be sharing some simple strategies that have helped me actually be able to get things done with the kids at home. Now, I'm not giving you generic productivity hacks that are not realistic for moms.

I'm literally sharing the things that that I've tried and tested in my life and that have been helpful for me. But like I always say, nothing in this motherhood journey is one size fits all.

I'm sharing my experience, and you can take what may be beneficial to you and leave the rest. So before we dive deep into the topic, let's talk about what productivity actually is.

So when I looked it up, it said that productivity means yielding results, benefits, or profits. Yielding results, benefits, or profits.

And I like this definition because it talks about yielding benefit, which does not have to be tied to a tangible output. For example, rest can be considered productive because there is a benefit attached to it.

So going back to the definition, is the work that I'm doing yielding any results or any profits. As I think about that, though, this lets me know that we can actually be doing work but not be productive at all.

What I want to tackle today is going back to the starting line to first figure out how can we get to a place where we have any space at all to get work done with kids at home. And then how do we make that time productive? Okay, so let's go ahead and hop right in. I have about 10 things that have been helpful for me.

And like I said, take what can apply to you and leave the rest. So, number one, the first thing that's helped me is I reduced sugar from my diet. I did a whole episode on this earlier on in the podcast.

It was called two Things I Did to Boost my Energy as a Mom of Littles. And that episode is available in the membership. But I was prompted to eliminate or reduce sugar from my diet.

And I did it for, I believe it was 30 days at first. And after that 30 days, I went ahead and kind of made it a lifestyle change. And so it's not 100% eliminated, but it is highly reduced.

I would say it's about 98% eliminated. And what I found is that when I eliminated the sugar from my diet, I had more energy.

I used to need naps when my kids were home just to keep up with them through the day. I no longer needed to take a nap during the day. And I also realized that once I cut out sugar that my PMS symptoms got so much better.

So there was not a lot of cramping, there was not a lot of moodiness, and I didn't have to take any medicine for it either. So reducing the sugar from my diet, it gave me more energy, relieved my PMS symptoms.

So this allowed me to have more space to get work done because I wasn't napping and I wasn't, you know, curled up with cramps. So that's the first thing. Number two, moving my body. So exercise, boost your energy.

Even on the days when I don't feel like working out, when I do, it 100% boosts my energy and my mood. And I try to work out at least three times per week.

But again, going back to the same thing as the sugar, when I have more energy, I'm able to have a clearer mind. I'm able to be in a position to do work. I'm able to keep up with my kids. I'm not having to nap.

And so, again, this is giving me space to be able to get work done. Number three is cycle syncing. Now, this is something that I have recently just started doing research on and tapping into.

Basically, when it comes to your period, there's four different phases. The menstrual phase, follicular phase, luteal phase, and then the actual menstrual phase.

Quick correction When I was editing, I realized I made a mistake with the different phases. So the four phases are menstrual, follicular ovulation, and luteal. Okay.

So basically, depending on which phase phase you are in, your hormone levels will fluctuate, and this will kind of determine your energy levels and determine your mood, things like that. And so what I've started to do is to be intentional about doing certain tasks during specific phases. All right?

So, for example, when it comes to recording my podcast, I will record during my ovulation phase, when I am most energetic, when I'm feeling good.

And there's lots of information out there about recommendations for the type of activities you can do, the types of exercise you can do, and the types of things that you can eat to support each phase. I am still tracking. I will definitely report back and do a whole episode about this. But this has definitely helped me to kind of navigate my.

My energy and be able to plot work in specific time frames that allows me to be more efficient in that specific time. Okay, the next thing, number four is meal prepping. Okay, Meal prepping. This is something that I just started doing this year.

Meal prepping, I consider to be a home management system, and I have a whole training about home management systems in their membership. But when I started meal prepping, this freed up my time during the day, my time with the kids. It helped to reduce my decision fatigue.

Because what was happening is that every day I was trying to figure out what to prepare for the kids for, especially for dinner. That was the most challenging time. And I just, in general, don't like to cook. And so I would be stressed out thinking about what I should be cooking.

The kids would be hungry, and when they're hungry, they're a little bit more moody. And so it was just not a good. Not a good feeling. I did not enjoy dinner time, and so I decided to start prepping my meals.

I talk in another episode about what that exactly looks like, but again, what prepping the meal did for me, like knowing in advance what I was going to cook and also preparing that at the top of the week. That allowed the prime hours in my week to be available for work instead of cooking, instead of trying to figure out what to cook. Okay.

And so I started meal prepping again because cooking was just causing too much stress for me day to day. And now that that time is freed up for me to be able to do some work. So that's number four. Moving on to number five. Number five is reducing clutter.

And I know this can be a little bit controversial for some because I see in the online space a lot like, oh, the dishes can wait, or, you know, it's more important that the kids have a comfortable, lived in home. All those things. I get it. I'm not that mom. I'm the mom who wants to tidy up.

We have reset times, we reset the house every day because I cannot operate in clutter. So let me give you a couple of stats about clutter. One study said that clutter increases your cortisol levels, which is your stress hormone.

Another study said that people waste an average of 55 minutes a day looking for things that they own but cannot find. Okay. As a mom with kids at home with limited time to work, I don't have that kind of time. I can't waste time looking for things in a cluttered space.

Okay, and one more stat that I found, it said that clutter in your workspace can reduce productivity and focus up to 40%. And like I said, for me, I can work better and I can think clearer when I'm in a less cluttered space.

And what that looks like just foundationally is that everything has a place and I involve my kids in daily cleaning and resetting. So because we've reduced clutter, I have a clear mind, I can think, and this positions me to be able to get work done.

All right, now, by the way, if you are enjoying what I am sharing, a lot of what I have shared is related to self related to home management systems. I did mention it before, but I have a home management systems training and the membership which dives deeper into some of these topics.

And so if you want to join the membership, you can go to harmoniousmom.com all right, so let's continue on with the list. Moving on to number six. Again, we're talking about how to get work done with toddlers at home.

And I feel like those first five things were more personal, more home management, and the last few things are going to be a little bit more technical. So number six, I encourage independent play. I let my kids be bored.

I do not take on the responsibility of keeping them entertained all day, every day. Okay. I believe that this also helps them to be creative. It boosts their creativity.

Even just the other day, my kids were playing with the high chair and they were pretending that it was a car and they were driving and it was so cute. They were like, bye, bye, mommy, we're going to the store. And so in those moments when they are independently playing, that gives me time.

It could be A time where I can get some quick work in. Okay, moving on to number seven. I work during nap time. And this is another one that causes an uproar in the online mompreneur space.

Listen, it worked for me. I have built my business during nap time and what I do now. So my youngest one, he's two, he still takes one nap, which is about.

Could be from two to three hours. And so while he's down, I will communicate to my older toddler that this is mommy's work time. Okay?

And I try to get her to play independently, to do some type of activity, coloring, playing on her. We got her this little computer thing. And so if I have a call or I have to do a podcast interview, I will schedule it for this time.

And the other day I was being interviewed on a podcast, and I told my daughter, like, hey, I have a meeting and go ahead, stay in your room until the meeting is over and I'll call you down. A lot of times she does not stay in her room, but this time she actually did.

And when I called her downstairs, when I was done, we actually celebrated because it was a milestone. So it was just a really fun time. So I do work during nap time. I also have work blocks once they go to bed.

And for me, this works because I can have space to actually think and do things without interruption. Right. So moving on, the next item number eight is that I plan ahead for daily tasks.

So usually I do this on Sunday, and I write on my planner, I'll look at the week, and I literally will map out the tasks that I need to do for each day. I only put three to four things in each day. So, for example, one of the things that I've started doing is that I do a daily outreach sprint.

So on my task list, every single day, I have to reach out to at least five people, start a conversation with five people. So I plan ahead for that. I know that's something that I have to do every day. It's written in my planner.

And then I'll just have a couple of other tasks that are in alignment with, you know, whatever I have going on in the business.

Whether I'm launching something or if I'm just doing client work, doing some things just behind the scenes operationally, I will map that out ahead of time so that when I actually do have the time to do something, I am not wasting that time trying to figure out what I need to be doing. All I need to do is look at my planner and know, okay, this task needs to get done.

And since I do plan ahead for the task, I also kind of prep the tasks, if you will. So, for example, with the daily outreach Sprint, I'm just not randomly picking people.

I actually have spent the time to put people's information into a database so that again, when it's time for me to do this, this outreach, then I can literally just go to one place and go down the list. All the information is compiled into one space. And I am not, you know, wasting time trying to figure out, oh, who should I reach out to?

I'm not scrolling through my messages and all these things. I have notes about contact and all those things. So planning ahead for the daily task and also prepping the task definitely helps me to get work done.

Moving on to number nine is that I limit distractions. So some of the things that I have found helpful with this is that I have no notifications on my phone for social media. No notifications.

So if I want to actually see my notifications, I have to open up the app. But I don't get any push notifications for my social media.

I also have a timer for social media, so I'll usually do a 10 minute timer post and then another 10 minute timer for after my post. And this helps me just to reduce the scrolling. Now sometimes do I still find myself scrolling? Yes.

But the timer has definitely helped me be more intentional with that.

And another thing that I do is I limit video calls with my family, primarily, like my sisters during the day, because we can sit on the phone literally all day and then nighttime will come and I'm like, oh, man, I didn't do anything because I was chatting with them on the phone all day.

So I try to limit those calls during the day and kind of put them in little blocks where it's more so our transition time or right before the kids go to bed. So that was that. Limiting distractions. The next thing I think we're at number 10 is that I follow a daily rhythm. Okay.

And I talk about how to create a daily rhythm for yourself. This is a part of my Harmony by Design framework. And there's an entire module in my course related to the framework about structuring a daily rhythm.

Okay? And a daily rhythm for me is not about a routine. And I'm going to get into this in the next episode. But a routine is more time based.

A rhythm for me is more pattern based and more flexible. And so every day I kind of have this flexible flow that I go through with myself and with my kids. And in the next episode.

Actually, I will be sharing my exact real life daily rhythm with you. So make sure you tune into the next episode. But following this daily rhythm provides structure for the kids and it just helps me to guide my day.

And typically on a given day, I know like where the spots are that I have that I can do work. So that's number 10, following a daily rhythm. And finally, number 11 is that I've set up systems to support me.

Systems is a huge part of how you design and experience work life harmony. There's a module in our course membership on systems for your life and for your business. The meal planning, that's a home management system.

And so I have systems in my business, I have systems in my home that help me to be able to execute and get the things done that need to get done.

The systems really reduce the decision fatigue and they eliminate wasting time trying to figure out what needs to be done and how it needs to be done. All right, so I've gone through 11 things that have helped me to be able to get work done with toddlers at home.

I'm just going to go through the list again really quickly. So number one, I've reduced sugar from my diet. Number two, I move my body. Number three, cycle syncing. Number four, meal prepping.

Number five, reducing clutter. Number six, encouraging independent play for my children. Number seven, working during nap time. Number eight, planning ahead for daily tasks.

Number nine, limiting distractions. Number 10, following a daily rhythm. And number 11, setting up systems to support me.

So now if you want the step by step systems and trainings that go deeper into a lot of the things that I talked about here today, it's more than I can share in a single episode.

So definitely join me inside the Harmonious mom legacy lounge@harmoniousmom.com you'll get the full archive of podcast episodes like this, plus more trainings and resources designed to support you as a mompreneur. Thank you so much for tuning in. With grace and gratitude, I will see you in the next episode.

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