12 Strategies for How Busy Moms Use Alexa
Reading Time: 12 minutes 
12 Strategies for how busy moms use Alexa
Do you want to automate motherhood?
Hey mom!
You are busy. You wish for more hours in the day, a way to duplicate yourself, or a magic wand to wave and get more of the mundane tasks completed.
Mom, it’s time for you to get a virtual assistant.
Many of us have already “hired” her, we just don’t know how to use her to her full potential or what to delegate to her. Today we are going to maximize motherhood with 12 strategies for how to use Alexa for busy moms.
Many of these tasks may be easier to set in the Alexa App, if you prefer to “read” what you are doing than to vocalize your tasks and commands.
Wakey, Wakey!
Use Alexa as an alarm clock.
I know, I can hear you already. You are saying, that is what I use my smart phone for. Well, if you have your phone near enough to you so you can hear it when the alarm sounds, you will hear other things as well.
1 in 3 adults do not get enough sleep.
You can help to make sure you are not lacking in zzz’s by putting your phone in another room, all noises off, each night.
We do not need to be “available” 24/7 just because modern technology has made it possible!
If you get up at the same time each day:
Say, “Alexa, set a repeating alarm for 6:30 AM.” She will ask you, “Which days?” You can then say, “Weekdays” or “Monday, Tuesday, Friday”.
To turn the alarm off, simply say, “Alexa, stop alarm.”
You can wake up to news or music, as well which are other functions we will be discussing.
Put some clothes on!
Ask what the daily forecast is so you know what to wear.
Do you hit the ground running? I do. I often do not have time to change my clothes, update make up (if I had time to put on make up), or drive back to the house once I have left for errands. This means I need to get it right the first time. Before you pick out your clothes for the day, ask Alexa what the weather will be in your local area.
Busy mom tip: teach your child how to ask Alexa what the weather will be the following day and have them pick out an outfit appropriate for the heat, cold, wind, or snow.
There are a couple of different ways to do this.
If you have your location entered into your Alexa App, you can just ask, “Alexa, what’s the weather today?” and you will get the current temperature and highs and lows for today. You can follow this up with specific questions like, “Alexa, will it rain today?” or “Alexa, is it windy?”
If you do not have your address entered into Alexa, simply do the same as above, but state your city and state. For example, “Alexa, what is the weather today in Des Moines, Iowa?”
If this is a feature you love, you can get more detailed weather forecasts using an Alexa friendly app. Big Sky is one of the most popular. Go to amazon.com and put “Alexa skills: big sky weather” to learn more.
Wake up to a weather forecast by setting your alarm dismissal as a trigger to telling you the daily weather.
Shake your groove thing!
Set up a morning energy playlist to start you and your family off on the right foot.
Alexa can link to most music services as well as play free music from Amazon, iHeart, and Pandora. Any free service will have ads to support it.
If you have a paid music service, create a morning playlist that suits your family.
Busy mom tip: Have Alexa playing a beat to get the family energized or soothing to calm morning rush tensions when everyone comes into the kitchen.
“Alexa, play (if you have a music service) Spotify’s Kara’s morning routine music playlist.” If she has a hard time finding it, you can link it on your smart phone and then press “other device” so the music is played on Alexa instead of your phone.
Just like the weather, you can have this playlist triggered by the dismissal of your alarm so that music plays as soon as you wake up.
Bring the family together!
Get a daily activity or thought to bring your family compassion towards each other.
What is going on today?
Alexa can give you all of your appointments for the day.
Do you want to hear all of your appointments for the day, while you are cooking breakfast for example?
You can sync your digital calendar to Alexa.
This allows you to hear, add, or delete events. You will be given the option to also sync your email, if you want Alexa to tell you those as well.
To sync your calendar:
•Go into the Alexa app on your phone.
•Go to the menu button.
•Then head to settings.
•Choose: Calendar and Email.
•Select which type of account you will connect: Apple, Google, Microsoft.
•Follow the remaining instructions for the specific account you chose.
Once your calendar is synced, you can have Alexa give you a daily rundown of your commitments.
“Alexa, what’s on my calendar today?”
Busy mom tip: do this regularly in front of your children, at all ages, so that they learn that you keep a calendar and how to use it.
I totally forgot!
Never fear, Alexa is here. She can send you reminders.
It is super handy to have Alexa tell you everything you have planned for the day, but it is only 8:00 in the morning and you have a dentist appointment at 11:30, how are you going to remember to get ready and leave the house in time?
Alexa can give you reminders throughout the day.
You can do this two different ways: through the app or verbally with your echo or dot.
It takes more time to go in and manually enter the information into your reminders and most moms have less time.
I recommend just asking her.
“Alexa, reminder.”
She will then ask you questions about the topic, time, and date to get your reminder all set up.
Busy mom tip: it is much easier to set up reminders when you are setting up the events themselves. If you verbally set up an event you can just add, “Alexa, remind me to get ready for the dentist at 10:30am on February 12, 2022.”
“There’s nothing to eat!”
Alexa can keep a grocery list.
This is a function I would definitely teach everyone in the house! This may be so fun for the kids that it will end the “empty box of cereal in the cupboard” moments.
To create a list, you simply need to say, “Alexa, create a shopping list.” You can have separate lists.
“Alexa, create a Costco list.”
“Alexa, create a camping pack list.”
Once you have the list created, simply say, “Alexa, add flour, broccoli, and cottage cheese to my shopping list.”
If you are worried you will forget to delete your shopping list, you can date it, “Alexa, create January 17 shopping list.”
What can you do with the list once it is created?
You can share this list with your teenager and have them pick up the groceries!
Simply go to the Alexa app and click the menu button.
Select “Your lists,” then “View lists,” then “Shopping list.”
Tap on the three dots in the right hand corner.
Select “share” and share via text with your shopper!
You can also check the items off as you shop if you keep the Alexa app open to your shopping list.
Busy mom tip: if your children are younger and you want them to learn to contribute to the grocery list, first teach them to make fun lists on Alexa, like a birthday wish list.
No need to nag.
Create a chore chart on Alexa!
Alexa has a lot of different skills she can do. I highly recommend you go to her “Skills Blueprints” page. This will show you many things Alexa can do that I have not covered!
One of my favorites is the chore chart skill.
•First you need to get the Chore Chart skill, this is easier to set up on a computer, in my opinion.
•Go to Alexa Skill Blueprints homepage. Find Chore Chart and click on it.
•Click “Make Your Own” and follow the instructions.
•When you are done adding all of the people, you will start adding the chores.
•Don’t worry about who does what and when that is another step.
•Once you have added all of the chores you will “assign.”
•Choose you first child from the members dropdown menu.
•Next, select a chore from the chore dropdown menu.
•Then assign the day/days it needs to be done.
This is a great time to set a reminder for your child!
You can assign points to chores. At the end of the week, you can have a friendly family competition to see who got all of their points.
Each chore can be “checked off” when it is completed.
Busy mom tip: You can “pop” in with Alexa at any time and see who has completed which chores without asking or reminding anyone!
Sweet Reminders
Alexa can create a “honey do” list.
This is the same as your shopping list, it is just made for your “honey.”
You can create any kind of list in Alexa.
There can be items that are done in a day, week, or long range goals.
When you have the honey do list completed you can share it with that someone special!
You can also update the list at anytime, “Alexa, add hang family picture to Honey Do list.”
Busy mom tip: Your sweetie may have a list of priorities he would love to see done at the house for you, as well. This is a great opportunity to talk about mutual “honey do” lists.
No more boogeyman.
Use Alexa to automate your home environment.
Alexa can automate may of your functions in the home. She can turn off and on the television, music, thermostat, garage door, lights, etc. All of these require a “smart” connectivity.
The one I find the most useful is having voice command lights. You can teach your little one to turn on or off the lights with, “Alexa, turn the Mandy’s bedroom light on.”
This way, if Mandy wakes up in the middle of the night and is scared, she can have light. If she needs to make a midnight run to the bathroom, she can light her way.
To use Alexa with lights:
•Open the Alexa app.
•Select more.
•Choose Add a Device.
•Select Light.
Choose the brand you want to connect and follow the instructions.
Busy mom tip: Teach your child how to interact with Alexa, using the jokes or stories, before they need to depend on “her” for something that causes them fear.
Ten to go.
Alexa can be a personal trainer!
Did you know that if you go to amazon.com you can find an entire section called “Alexa Skills” with over 100,000 apps?
These are independently made, but connect with your Alexa app.
There are many, over 1800, designed specifically for health and exercise.
Find the one (or couple) that you love.
•Go to amazon.com
•Right next to the search bar, to the left, is a dropdown menu that defaults to “All”.
•Select “Alexa Skills” in this dropdown menu.
•Then choose a word to put into the search, workout, exercise, personal trainer, cardio, stretch, etc.
You will see many choices, follow the instructions when you click on the app.
Once you have it, you can say, for example, “Alexa, begin 7 minute workout.”
Busy mom tip: Spend some time with your children going over the various workouts, like Weekly Workout for Kids.
That’s a wrap.
Let Alexa read the bedtime story.
Do you have some nights where you are too tired to do the nightly story? Let Alexa tell you all a story!
In the Alexa Skills apps, there are 34 different bedtime story apps.
“Alexa, tell me a story.”
“Alexa, pause (or resume” the story.”
“Alexa, stop the story.”
Busy mom tip: listen to the stories, if you are not familiar with them, ahead of time to make sure they are what you are looking for.
Continuity creates calm.
Alexa can create morning and daily routines.
Many experts say a key to successful parenting is consistency. It is exhausting being consistent!
Ask Alexa to help you out!
You can create daily routines for your family.
An example is:
- Before it is time to get up, have Alexa turn the lights on low.
- Set a “wake up” time for Alexa, they have to verbalize to have her turn off.
- Alexa can brew the coffee while you are doing your morning routine.
- Get the weather report while still stretching and waking up in bed.
- Alexa can tell the kids to wash their faces and brush their teeth.
- Before they come to breakfast, Alexa can remind them to make their beds.
- When everyone arrives in the kitchen, a soothing morning playlist can be playing.
In the evenings, Alexa can help everyone wind down for the day.
- Have a bedtime timer. Everyone can get “caught up” in what they are doing. A timer will let everyone know the bedtime routine is going to start in, for example, 30 minutes, so family members can finish up anything they are working on.
- Do a stretch, meditation, mindfulness type of activity, all of these can be found in Alexa Skills.
- Alexa can read a bedtime story. If you have a wide age span, have Alexa read two different stories in different rooms. (You will have to have the two devices connected to different sources-phones, tablets, etc, but this can be done!)
- Use Alexa to create a “night time ambiance.” If you have smart switches and bulbs, you can have Alexa dim the lights.
- Choose a sleepy time music playlist or white noise. You can have Alexa play this for a specific amount of time.
How do you set up a routine on Alexa?
If anything is remotely complicated, I recommend using a computer or laptop. This is one of those applications where when referring to a screen, bigger is better.
•Open the Alexa app.
•Go to More.
•Select Routines.
•Choose the plus sign.
•Select “When this happens” and follow the steps.
•Choose “Add Action” and follow those steps to choose what the action is in your routine.
You can select multiple actions for the same routine, like the examples I provided.
•Be sure to save!
Busy mom tip: Talk with your children about what keeps them from falling asleep at night and what helps them wind down. Then look to the Amazon Skills to see if you can find something on Alexa that you can incorporate in the routine that can help. An example is, you may find a calming meditation like Cool Koala can be helpful.
Bonus:
Alexa can also:
Look up recipes
Find answers on Google
Find local places to eat with great reviews
Send your shopping list to Amazon (or other connected carts)
Get news updates
Create Pet Sitter guides
Whose Turn? Alexa can choose whose turn it is for something
Track expenses
Find daily deals
Trivia games
Jokes
and so much more!
Moms always seem to be juggling a million and one tasks, and Alexa is the perfect virtual assistant to help you out. With these 12 time-saving Alexa tips, you can save yourself time and energy. You may actually feel like you have moved from “survive” to “thrive” mode!