clock 

This part of the series may have been better served at the end, after going through each sphere of managing a household. But, maybe not. Managing our time is a gigantic part of managing the home, and it may require a few hits to get the point across. Rather then doing one long post about it, I’d rather break it up into several nuggets.

The one thing I have found that has worked very well for me, is using a day timer. What this is, is a daily planning page that maps out my entire day, to the hour, if needed. I have tried a couple, and so far the one I like the most comes from simplemom.net. They call it a Daily Docket and allow you to download and print it out for free. They also have this one.

I see time a little like money: you have to tell it where to go, otherwise it will just disappear. Sitting idle much of my day isn’t going to keep my house in order. I must break my day into a system and stick to it. I must do things for a specified allotment of time and then move on.

If I spend too much time on housework, then my kids go ignored. If I spend too much time with the kids (day in and day out), then the house goes ignored. If I don’t take the time to do some planning ahead, I’m frazzled and don’t know what to do next. I won’t know what’s for dinner, I won’t know what’s next in our lessons. Having my time organized is a must.

But how do I get there? Write it down. Use paper. Use the computer. Use a whiteboard in a central location. Use a binder. Just get it down and follow it.

Planning is the key to time management. We must plan how we are going to spend our time, or it will spend us and we’ll have nothing left at the end of the day (except maybe more work then we started with).

We will take a deeper look into this as we finish up the different realms of managing a household. How will each realm fit in? How do I know how much time I need to spend in each one? This is where our priorities come into play and each household will be different. So, to break it down thus far, consider this:

  1. Write down your priorities in order from most important to least

  2. Decide how much time to allow each priority (my favorite is 15 minutes at a time)

  3. Write down your day, in a general format. Don’t plan too much. You can use a day timer or a sticky note. Just make sure it works for you.

  4. Put your priorities in the prime of your day

 

Keep everything flexible. Use a new sheet everyday to plan out your day. If it turns out you cannot get everything done because the baby was more fussy then usual, that’s okay! The baby comes before a to do list. But knowing that you worked from it and got some things crossed off is still a successful day! Tending to a baby who needs you (or a teachable moment, or an emergency of some kind) is still a successful day!

The goal is to be as attentive as possible.

A few useful hints:

  • Have your children work alongside you throughout the day. This gives much opportunity for training, spending time with your children and important relationship building.

  • Clean as you go. This saves minutes (which add up to hours) of cleaning later

  • When taking breaks, consider reading a book with your child or coloring/drawing with them as a break. Again, this is wonderful relationship building and it certainly doesn’t require much effort to read or color! (No more than it would to read and type on the computer!) :-o

 Next week: Is There Life After Cleaning? Yes!

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