brain food for my mummy mojo - tips pls!

I've had one of those stupid mornings where I effed around (my excuse is horrible sinus headache) and got very little done, but also didn't even give the kids a good morning either. And now I'm just frustrated at myself, cos it's a beautiful day and it could have been an awesome morning.

So i guess it got me thinking. Sometimes I think I fall into the trap of feeling there's so much I COULD do, that I become indecisive & do nothing at all. So there's the daily housework to be done, plus there's the bigger once-off or occasional things to try & get to. Plus trying to give the kids some quality time. I've been feeling for a while that I need to structure more day more to become more efficient. I feel like I bounce from meal-time to meal-time, always cleaning up or preparing food, feeding or changing nappies. We have playgroup & mothers group, do playground runs etc, but then that seems to mean I'm just always trying to do housework when I'm at home with the kids. At the moment the washing is on, I need to clean the kitchen, vaccum the house, clean the bathrooms, mop the floor, hang out the washing, I'd like to fill the green bin, plus i should be doing some end of FY bookkeeping.... and then my brain fries & I make a cuppa tea & stick the TV on for DS becuase i've still got heaps to do!! Not the kind of parenting I want to do, nor the way I want to run my day! I figure when i was working we'd do courses & get ideas on how to be more efficient, and I think I need that for my parenting day - some ideas... some brain food so I can do a little continuous improvement program on myself :lol:.

So what do you guys do? Any smart tips on ways to structure your day to give some quality time with the kids, get the housework done & gosh, maybe even steal 5 mins of me time? (I think I've just used mine up on this post ;)).

:hello: Most of my time wasting is done on the computer so I have decided to schedule set times for when it is on. Im tired of making excuses too - or on the other hand seeing how much I get done one day with the computer off and then have it on the next day and not get anything done. So for me it will be making that "down" time and sticking it to it. Other than that I am also in the process of doing up a list of stuff I want to do with the kids regularly to give this place some rhythm. Things like story time craft time, letter of the week, number of the week, indoor play, outdoor play, play doh, tv morning, etc. which are mostly from the parenting passageway site. That way I can also intersperse housework with the things I do with the kids. Not that I don't do them now but I think if I do a rough routine for myself for the days I am at home I might keep myself more accountable! Hope that sorta makes sense!