Having a solid evening routine is more powerful than all the other routines you have in your life. Morning routines, bedtime routines, and even after-school routines are still so important to creating a productive day, but having an evening routine is the foundation and sets up the other routines and your day for success. This post is about creating the best and most productive evening routine for moms.

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Let’s say, for example, after picking up the kids from school, you end up sitting in the middle of a messy living room, doom-scrolling for what you thought was only minutes but turned into hours. Now your kids are asking what’s for dinner after they have also been watching cartoons and neglecting their homework and chores.

Now it’s 8 p.m., and you still have to cook dinner, clean up, check homework, do the kid’s bedtime, and a million other things – and don’t forget the wet laundry that needs to be rewashed and dried!

Man, I’m exhausted and stressed just typing out that paragraph. But it’s so real because I am guilty of those exact things. I’ve been there before, feeling overwhelmed with so many things to do but not knowing where to start and not having enough energy.

Mom life can be exhausting at times, and it’s okay to take some time for yourself in the middle of the day. What is not okay is when those bad habits become toxic and affect your life, your sanity, and your family.

The solution is creating a productive evening routine to regain control of your time. Don’t let the stress and anxiety of the wet laundry and the other tasks pushed to the side roll into an unplanned, chaotic next day. Create a solid evening routine to stay on top of your time, productivity, and sanity.

Let’s start putting together your perfect evening routine!

Afternoon Routine vs. Evening Routine

For mom life, your evening routine starts after picking up the kids from school or daycare. The afternoon routines and evening routines are such a blur because there is so much going on once everyone arrives home from school or work. There are places to go, things to prep, food to cook, and cleaning to be had!

Everyone’s schedule in the family meshes together, and it’s a delicate dance to ensure that everything that needs to be done gets done and that you still get your me-time at the end of the day.

I like to combine my afternoon and evening routines because this time goes by fast. For the sake of this post, we’ll just refer to this time period as the evening routine.

Evening Routine vs. Night Routine

The evening routine and the night routine are two separate beasts. The evening routine is the closing shift of your home where the after-school tasks, meal prepping, end-of-day cleaning, and preparing for the next day’s tasks take place. The night routine is more calming as you get ready to go to bed to have a good night’s rest, and it serves as the perfect time to focus on refilling your cup at the end of the day.

Evening Routines

The evening routine is typically when the family returns home from school, work, or running errands after a busy day. It’s the productive time after school when homework needs to be done, dinner needs to be made, and everyone is preparing for the next day.

The evening routine is also the closing shift of your home and the time for a nightly home reset so that you and your family are set up for success the following morning. By having an evening routine, you regain the power and control over the next day’s morning routine and what happens during your day.

Night Routines

The nighttime routine, also known as the bedtime routine, sets you up for restful sleep. This is the period of the day when the kids are sound asleep, and moms start winding down from the day’s busy schedule.

While the evening routine is productive, busy, and chaotic, the night routine is calming and restorative. The house is quiet, clean, and ready for the next day, and it’s now time to get unready, unwind, and drift off to dreamland.

How To Create The Best Evening Routine

When creating your realistic evening routine that fits best with your family’s lifestyle, keep in mind these ten tips:

1. Plan out your routine

Get out a piece of paper and write down a rough draft of what your daily schedule looks like now. Once you have that written down, see where you spend most of your time, how you can optimize your time, and where you can make changes to plan your ideal evening routine.

When creating your evening schedule, answer the following five questions to incorporate your answers into your routines:

1. What are your priorities?
2. What are your daily non-negotiables?
   • For example, what time does work end? What time do the kids need to be picked up? Are there any after-school activities, like football or dance, that you need to take the kids to?
   • These are the events that are mandatory in your family’s schedule.
3. What do you want to make more time for? A good example is having more family time in the evening since everyone is separate during the day.
4. What goals do you want to achieve, and what habits do you need to do daily to achieve them?
5. What distractions or habits do you want to do less of that keep you from achieving your goals, take time away from you, or negatively affect your mood/mental health?

You’ll find that creating an evening routine that works for your family will give you more flexibility and time back for the things you love. Plan your routine around your answers to these five questions, and cater your evening routines to your non-negotiables, goals, good habits, and things you love.

2. Time block

Speaking of planning out your evening routines, time blocking is a game changer when creating a productive evening routine. When you time block, you have a dedicated time to get specific related tasks done only in that block.

For example, I have a Dinner Block from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. During this block, I start cooking dinner (which I know sometimes takes me an hour to cook, depending on the recipe), and we eat dinner together. Those are the only tasks I have during that block, with the main focus of the time block being “dinner.”

Having a time block also helps you keep track of your time. In the example above, I know that when I see 4 p.m. on the clock, it is time to start dinner, and I have an hour and a half to complete any tasks related to having dinner ready and eating together.

What are the time blocks you want to include in your evening routines? Think of main categories like an After School Block where you get all the homework tasks done or a Bedtime Block where the baths, bedtime stories, and brushing teeth tasks get done.

3. Cluster Your Tasks

We have this saying in nursing where we try to “cluster care” especially during the night shift.

We are thrown into the deep end to learn how to be multitasking and efficient machines. And one of the ways we learned to do that is by clustering our care, meaning we bundle everything we need to get done in one swift visit. You want to complete as many tasks as needed in that one stop before you return and check on your patient in an hour when it’s time for rounds again.

So, when you plan your evening routine, see what tasks you can cluster together and get done around the same time. These are the tasks you will put in your time blocks.

For example, I’ll leave all my cleaning tasks for the Nightly Tidy Block, where we essentially put the house to sleep. We do all the cleaning that needs to be done, such as cleaning up the kitchen, doing the laundry, sweeping and mopping the floor, and cleaning up the living room. The kids do their chores during this time as well because this is our family’s cleaning block.

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4. Set up time constraints

Set up a timer for certain tasks that you need to stay focused on or that you need to limit.

Sometimes, when we do our Nightly Tidy and the house is really a hot mess, my significant other and I will put on an hour countdown on the clock to do as much cleaning as we can in that hour. The goal is not a perfect clean but to keep our bodies in constant cleaning motion around the house by picking things up, putting things away, wiping things down, etc.

You’ll be surprised by how much you can clean in an hour when everyone keeps their bodies moving and contributes to the cleaning. For four people in a family, that’s four hours of cleaning in one hour!

The same principle applies when you need to limit your usage of things so that you don’t overindulge. I’m talking about social media, television, or extending work into home life—anything that takes away from your goals, your evening routine tasks, time away from your family, and time away from your self-care time at the end of the day.

There’s no need to deprive yourself of things, so go ahead and scroll on social media if you feel the need, but limit it to thirty minutes or however you feel is appropriate so you don’t end up doom scrolling for three hours.

5. Meal plan for the week

Carving out time during the week to meal plan your dinners will save you time and money. It doesn’t even have to be a rigid meal plan. Pick 3-4 meals you can cook for your family that week, and make sure to mix up the difficulty of cooking.

When I meal plan, I like to have one slow cooker recipe on hand just for those days when I know I’ll be too tired to cook anything and still need dinner on the table. It’s also okay to plan a takeout day once a week if your budget allows it and your family schedule calls for it.

Depending on your schedule for the week, you can choose from four options and decide when to cook what meal. After deciding what to cook, shop for groceries on your grocery store app and submit the grocery pickup for the next day.

When planning out weekly meals, these are the categories to pick from:

• Slow Cooker Meals
• Easy Meals Under 30 Minutes
• Tacos/Mexican Food
• Asian Food
• Quick & Easy Pasta Recipes
• BBQ
• Take Out/Restaurant Meal

MOM HACK: On Tuesdays, we usually plan for a Wing Night because the wings are on a special deal every Tuesday at one of our favorite restaurants, making them relatively cheap. We are also rewards members with that restaurant, so if we spend a certain amount, we get $10 off. The cheapest we’ve ever gotten 20-piece chicken wings was around $3.95! So this is your reminder to scour special deals near you and sign up for their rewards programs to get even more savings.

6. Use a planner or tool to keep you accountable

Back in the day, I was a pen-and-paper physical planner kind of girl. I still love using physical planners, but I find that I stick to my routines more when they’re digital and accessible.

Determine what planning tool will keep you accountable when planning your routines. You can use pen and paper, an online planning tool or worksheet, an Excel or Word document that you can print out and hang on the fridge, or Google Calendar.

It makes a difference when you can see your schedule and stick with it because you know you will consistently use it in the format you prefer.

My preferred method now is Google Calendar because I can mix and match colors, change plans quickly without having to erase them and share events with my family members so that they are also on board with the planning.

7. Prepare for the next day

When preparing for the next day, think, “Is there something I can do now that my future self will thank me for tomorrow?”

What things can you prepare ahead of time so you don’t start your day in chaos the next morning?

An example is if you need to bring the kids to daycare before work in the morning, have all their snacks made, diaper bags packed, and shoes in one place by the front door or kitchen counter so it’s all prepped and ready to go. Prep your coffee the night before (even better if you can do automatic start!) so that you don’t have to worry about making coffee while trying to make it on time for drop-off.

The more you can prepare the night before, the more you will set yourself up for success in the morning. You will have a calm start to your day when you’ve already dealt with the things you didn’t want to deal with the night before in the morning.

Take this time to plan for the following day, whether in your digital calendar, to do list, or physical planner. Look over what needs to be done, what events need to be attended, and plan accordingly.

Think of the tasks you can do the night before to make your mornings smoother. This will take the pressure off of your future self and help you get started on the next day.

8. Nightly Tidy aka The Closing Shift

Think about how you would feel waking up to a clean, organized, no dishes in the sink, and everything picked up in the house in the morning. Now, think about how you would feel if the dishes were piled up from the last two night’s dinners, wet laundry in the washer, crumbs all over the floor, and trash stinking up the whole house.

I’ve been both, and though I still have mornings when the house is a mess, I strive to have it cleaned the night before and ready for the morning because it makes me feel good about my day instead of starting the day feeling defeated by looking at all the mess.

Waking up to a clean kitchen gives me so much more peace and is the best way to kick-start the day.

The closing shift is when the house resets for the night and is ready to be lived in for the next day. Then, the reset happens again the next time for the next morning. It’s putting the house to bed every night.

You don’t have to spend hours deep cleaning every night. Set a timer for 45 minutes, and have everyone in the house do their chores, clean up, and help put the house to bed. You aren’t the only one living and using the house.

Start with a list of non-negotiable cleaning tasks that need to be done every night and adjust as needed. Here are seven non-negotiable cleaning tasks to get you started:

1. All dishes washed
2. Counters and dining table wiped down
3. Take the trash out
4. Vacuum and/or quick mop the floor
5. Pick up around the house
6. Wipe down bathrooms
7. Start a load of laundry

9. Start small and adjust as needed

I’ve gone through many morning and evening routines because I am constantly tweaking them to better suit my current season of life. Create your evening routine, try it out for at least a week, and see how you feel afterward.

Are there things in your evening routines that you’re doing too much or not enough of? Adjust your routines until you find one that makes you feel good. You want a routine that fills you up, not one that does not make you feel good.

You might have to switch things around to see what works best for you and your family. So start small, assess along the way, and adjust as needed.

10. Different evening routines

One reason we fail at following our routines is that we think having one strict and rigid routine will work for all of our different moods, energy levels, and seasons of life. We will not always feel 100% energy levels every day, and our routines need to adjust as needed.

The perfect evening routine is the foundational routine, which is flexible and can adjust depending on our day.

We know to follow the routine, but what if the kids need more help with their homework? It’s okay to spend that extra thirty minutes with them because they need more of you, but now you’ll remember that you’ll have to make something easier for dinner that night because now you have less time to cook.

Creating your perfect evening routine is a process, and routines are meant to support your life right now. Have different routines for different seasons, moods, and energy levels.

Best Evening Routine Printable

The best evening routine that will work for you and your family is one that is personalized to your lifestyle and family schedule. Start organizing your evening routines with my Evening Routine Printable to get you started.

How to use

1. Download the Evening Routine Printable here.
2. You can print out the first page of the printable or download it to your iPad (it can be printed on 8.5″ x 11″ paper).
3. There are six boxes to plan out your evening routine time blocks. Under each section, there are five spaces to put in the tasks or goals you want to achieve during that time block with a checkmark box.
4. Name each top box with a time block name and add the timeframe of each time block. For example: Dinner Block 5 p.m. – 6 p.m.
5. In the white boxes under each time block name, cluster the tasks you want to accomplish during that timeframe.
6. You can put the printable in a clear plastic sleeve and checkmark each box with an erasable marker as you complete each item, or you can use this as a guide to keep track of the times of the time block and the tasks associated with it.

Your Evening Routine

Creating an evening routine that fits your family’s lifestyle can be a game-changer in helping you stay productive, stay on top of your daily tasks, and maintain your sanity in the chaos of motherhood. Remember to be flexible with your evening routines and find what works best for you and your family. Take back control of your evenings and make it work for you! Your future self will thank you in the morning.

This post was about creating an evening routine that fits your family’s lifestyle.

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