Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Make Your Schedule Work for YOU! Pt 2

Welcome back to our exploration of that thing called a schedule. In the last post, we discussed the first four steps in my 10 Steps to Creating YOUR Schedule! We made a list of everything we do in a typical week (to include boring, everyday stuff like cleaning). We made a list of our priorities in life. We then combined the lists, placing each activity with a priority, and then we prayed over the lists.

Today, after having a day or so to think and pray, we can sit down and continue.

5. Grab your calendar and mark down anything that occurs on a weekly basis at a specific date and time. Bible study, church, meetings, playdates, work, school…you get the picture. Your schedule has to work around these.

6. Create your priority schedule. With the remaining activities on your priority list, start filling in your schedule. Start at the top and work your way down. For me, I start under my God priority. The first thing I work in is my quiet time at 5:45-6:30 in the morning. This way I start my day off in the right mindset! Then comes my husband—gotta make him a priority, so I schedule date night before my week gets too cluttered. Keep working your way down until you reach the bottom.

7. Make a cleaning schedule. I used to be one of those that didn’t have a schedule and I would end up spending hours on Saturday making everything just right, or hurrying to clean up the house before company came over. Then I discovered Flylady… If you’ve never heard of her, run over to Flylady.net, you won’t be sorry! Talk about a time (and sanity) saver. But here is what my general cleaning schedule looks like:

Monday—Great Room plus Daily Mission (DM) from Flylady
Tuesday—Bedrooms (wash linens every other week), DM
Wednesday—Bathrooms, Meal/Grocery planning, DM
Thursday—Laundry Room/School Room, Grocery Shopping, Errands, DM
Friday—Van, Great Room, DM
Saturday—Yard/Porches
Sunday—Laundry catch up (my goal is to not have to do this, but some weeks…)

***Side Note: These are intense cleaning days, it doesn’t mean I ignore the room completely until the next time I’ve scheduled to clean it.

My suggestion is to work cleaning into your schedule 15 mins at a time. Flylady’s motto is that you can do anything in 15 mins—you’d be surprised on how much you can accomplish! I can clean the entire bathroom, to include sweep and mop, in 15 mins!

8. Don’t forget down time! There is nothing wrong with watching TV. There’s nothing wrong with reading a book. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with sitting on the back porch sipping iced tea while the kids run around in the backyard. Everyone deserves, and is better for having, some downtime. If you know you won’t give it to yourselves (I’m mostly talking to the perfectionists out there…you know who you are), schedule it in. Now. It’s a must.

9. Move things around, try something new. Now you’ve got this schedule all laid out. Maybe one or two things aren’t looking right. Maybe you realize you’re not devoting enough time to one area, or maybe too much to another. Change things up. Like I said earlier, I used to do my quiet time at night, but because I was so tired, I only had that time maybe once or twice a week. Since I’ve moved it to the morning, it happens almost every day without effort.

10. Put your schedule to work—but be flexible and open to change. This is a work in progress. Every Sunday night for the first few weeks, sit down and tweak the schedule as you see fit. Once you get the hang of it and everything falls into place, you’ll be all the happier, and more accomplished!
Know what I did today?

Changed the bedding, cleaned the kitchen (a doc apt through off my schedule yesterday), 2 load of laundry, homeschool (2 hours for preschoolers), a review for my critique workshop, 2 blog posts, caught up on emails/blogs, and spent time with hubby and the kids—and it’s just now 3:00 pm. All I really have left to do today is to vacuum the bedrooms and make dinner. Then I have an FRG meeting later tonight, and maybe some writing time.

It’s amazing what we can accomplish when we have a plan. No matter how loose or strict it is, it’s a blessing if it works for us!

4 comments:

  1. Looks like you are really doing well with this! Great job :) I like that you are including down time in the schedule!!

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  2. I'm a big scheduler too. One thing that helps me is getting groceries early on Monday mornings. My kids are in school and the store isn't busy. Every little thing helps!

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  3. Aurie--down time is def important for EVERYBODY. And not just like quiet time with the Lord (though that is muy importante), but mindless downtime.

    Jill--I go early on Thursday mornings. Granted, I still have kids. In fact, I just got back not too long ago. Stoked that I spent $70 less than usual. Not sure how I did that b/c I only had $8 worth of coupons. lol...

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  4. what a totally awesome, inspiring post.

    I made a schedule. I just have a hard time sticking to it. It's time for quiet time right now.

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