Busy Parents
Hi – I’m Ashley, Productive Parents Founder.
My Story
My homelife wasn’t always smooth sailing
In the span of a year and a half, I gave birth to 3 kids and moved into a surburban home.
I was overwhelmed by these new responsibilities.
…About halfway through this rocky 20-year adventure, I stumbled into the personal productivity space.
Methodologies like ‘Getting Things Done,’ tools like the OmniFocus do-to list app, and equipment like the ScanSnap scanner were life-changing…literally!
Over the years, I’ve done all the driving around, activity and schedule coordination, meal planning, party and holiday hosting, household renovating and maintaining, shopping and supplying, routine and one-off bill paying, boo-boo fixing, memorabilia and record keeping…
Along the way, I’ve spent countless hours optimizing my productivity systems, using apps and workflows for:
- Task managing (Todoist, Things, Trello, and OmniFocus)
- Project managing (Apple Notes, OneNote, Bear, and Craft)
- Email taming (Airmail, Spark, Apple Mail, Outlook, and Gmail).
- Family coordinating and communicating (Calendar, Fantastical, Messages, Reminders)
- Record keeping (DevonThink, DropBox, Photos)
- And much, much more…
I’ve spent years experimenting with what works (and what doesn’t) to run a household productively…so you don’t have to.
Why Productive Parents?
Homemakers need productivity systems designed for our unique needs.
Most personal productivity advice focuses on the needs of knowledge workers in an office, not homemakers.
That’s a big problem.
Because even though we all manage information and tasks, what and how we manage are completely different.
Office Workers
- Focus on just a few projects at a time, often collaboratively.
- Rely on a team of support staff to take care of all the necessities (like paying the electric bill, so the lights stay on).
- Leave it all behind at the end of the workday.
Versus
Homemakers
- Engage in a jumbled mix of one-off tasks, multiple special projects, and weekly routines (such as meal planning and kid transporting)
- Work solo. (Though we inform and direct our partners and kids.)
- Never stop, year-round, 24-7.
As homemakers, we need methods to tackle our information, so we can recall it at a moment’s notice. We need ways to track those one-off things we sudden remember at 3am. And we need to keep it all at our fingertips from everywhere we happen to be.
There are many apps, systems, and techniques that enable us to productively manage our households. We’ve rounded them all up here, so homemakers like you can find some relief from overwhelm!
Resources to get you more productive
You’ll find some helpful resources at Productive Parents—with more on the way soon!
FREE – Advice on the Blog
Find actionable advice to tackle your household activites. Organized by categories like “File” or “Schedule” so you can zoom in on areas of particular interest.
Free – YouTube Walkthroughs
Sometimes seeing is best. Check out our YouTube content for walkthroughs on how to set up mission-critical systems.
FREE – Homemaker’s Toolkit
Are you running your household with the right set of tools? Find out which apps will help you lighten your mental load.
Ultimate Guides
Gear up your systems and workflows with our detailed app-specific Ultimate Guides.
Stay in touch
Tell me about your household productivity needs…
I’d love to hear about your household productivity triumphs and concerns. Drop me a quick note here:
Follow on social:
Got a question?
Ashley Grant
Founder, Productive Parents
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