I have been working on this for some time, and have been meaning to blog about it--and since Desiree over at the Happy (Atheist) Homemaker also wrote about this topic this week, I thought it was time to get my own butt in gear.
Rhythm of life Pt 1: FLYing by the days of the week
The topic is how we schedule life. There are several ways I do this, so I thought I would make a different posting for each application. This first post is on the way I structure the week for taking care of the home. I don't know when I first realized I needed to do this, but it was a few years ago, probably around the same time I discovered FlyLady*, who completely revitalized my ways of thinking about my home and how to maintain it with peace and joy. Ok, still working on the maintaining, the peace, and the joy, but she really has a great method to get you going on these things as a lifestyle, and her ideas--the ones that really worked for me--are the foundation for what I am doing now in my home. I am finding more and more that if I do not PLAN on something to happen, set aside time for it and make it an expectation, then it does not happen. This is true for everything from cleaning the bathroom to reading to my kids to date night with my husband.
Maybe the rest of you reading this never have problems remembering to get things done in a timely manner, or have more self-discipline than I do, or something. You can stop reading now and go spend the time you would have spent reading this post sitting comfortably, surveying your perfectly clean and well-ordered house and patting yourself on the back. You deserve it.
Any of you who are not yet perfectly in control of your homelife, I am writing this partly to help myself focus, since I am revamping the life schedule a bit and writing it out helps me work it through thoroughly, and partly in case some of you might find it interesting or even helpful.
Here are some of the FlyLady ideas for scheduling that I find have become part of the fabric of my daily/weekly existence, in a very good way:
The weekly home "blessing."
FlyLady has her own way of doing it, but here is how I make it work for me: schedule into the week two days when I plan to "bless" my house with quick-n-dirty cleaning. I do this on Mondays and Fridays, and these are the days I vacuum (i.e. get the helper monkeys to vacuum! ; ), swish the toilet, wipe down the bathroom, and imperfectly dust the house. By now this routine is so ingrained that I always remember it, even if I have a reason for not getting it done. But that is seriously half of the battle. And since this is very specifically NOT deep-cleaning time, it should only take about 30 minutes.
Breaking up the house into "zones."
I mentioned previously how the zones have worked really well for the girls: each girl has a zone in the bedroom she neatens as part of her morning routine, and then each girl has a zone in the living room she neatens as part of the evening routine. But it really comes in handy when working out my own deep cleaning chores. Flylady suggests breaking up your house into zones and then spending one week in each zone in rotation, spending 15 minutes a day doing a deep cleaning task. I have tried that, but was dissatisfied with how dirty the rest of the house seemed to get inbetween (between the wood-burning fireplace that puts out a lot of ash dust when D cleans it every morning and the dirt driveway that sneaks in on everyone's shoes, our house gets really dirty really fast). So I am trying a variant of this now: giving each section of the house a zone, and then spending 15 minutes in that zone on a different day of the week (this is time specifically for deep-cleaning, so is in addition to the bi-weekly home blessing and regular daily maintenance like doing dishes and picking up). So it is a daily rotation, not a weekly one.
So right now that looks like:
MONDAY: living room
TUESDAY: entry/back door areas
WEDNESDAY: kitchen
THURSDAY: bedroom (we only have one, which the kids use)
FRIDAY: bathroom
SATURDAY: shower room (they are separate in our little cabin built before indoor showers were the norm)
Sunday is the day of rest, of course. ; ) But I do usually try to clean the sink and counter in the kitchen on Sunday evening--nice to start out the week Monday morning with this welcome.
Saturday is also the day I take our bedding out to the back deck and shake/beat the dust out.
So when I am in the kitchen zone, I might clean out a cupboard or wipe down the cupboard fronts or wash the kitchen windows--the idea is to do one task that takes only about 15 minutes that you don't normally do when you are in the kitchen. It is basically maintaining the home in little increments, and it really works well, although only when you let go of the perfectionist need to have the entire house clean all at the same time! (Although thanks to mothers-in-law, there will still be times for that too! it is just not required on a daily/weekly basis.) The Flylady idea is that you end up having done an entire Spring cleaning in your house every 5 weeks--just a little bit at a time! She is more systematic about it, but I think my way works well too, it just may take longer than 5 weeks.
The beauty of scheduling is that there is a regular flow to the week, so housework has a logical time to be done, and once I get into the rhythm, I find yourself doing it without even thinking about it! And it all gets done, but not in the crash and burn kind of housecleaning I used to do, that leaves me irritable and exhausted--and so discouraged when it all looks dirty again the next day.
Other ways I use the weekly schedule:
Wednesday is both outdoor day (for garden work, girls getting to get really dirty outside) and anti-procrastination day (for doing anything I have been putting off!). Recently this is also my big cooking day, when I can motivate myself to be creative in using up foods in the fridge and cooking more elaborate meals. It just so happens Thursday is the day I get my weekly box of CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) veggies, so it makes sense to make room in the fridge and use up whatever veggies are still hanging around from the last week.
This may sound like a lot to tackle on poor old Weds, but somehow it works for me! Esp. since we are usually home all day Weds. and if the girls have had a good start to their homeschool week they can have an easy school day and their chores that day are also outside or things we have been putting off. It also works because cooking and working outside are two things I tend to procrastinate on!
But I think I also like Weds. (and Mondays and Fridays) as key scheduling days because they are so logically placed in the way I perceive the week. It is just the way my brain works.
Friday is also correspondence day. This means I consciously think of who I might need to call or email--consider this loving people long distance day. So I try to reach out to one person that day.
Scheduling special family time:
And each night of the week has a special focus, too, for building special family time. Each child gets one night a week to stay up and get quality one-on-one time with mom and dad, doing what she/he wants. G has Monday, M has Tuesday, B has Wednesday, E will have Thursday once he is old enough to notice his sisters are doing it. Friday night is date night (usually means I make pizza and D and I watch a movie on the computer. ; )
And my ideal has long been that one night a week is family night--either Sat or Sun night, when we would watch a family movie, play games, etc. But since we have never planned it officially into the week, we have only been doing these kinds of family things sporadically! So I need to get that into gear.
So that is the overall look of the week.
If anyone would like to share what YOU do in your weekly schedule, please do so in the comments! I find this kind of thinking about the week SO helpful, and would enjoy reading how you do it in your home.
Next topic: the rhythm of the day
* http://www.flylady.net/ I will write more about other helpful Flylady ideas in another post--some of them I cannot believe I ever did without.
On The Road - Oh My!
2 months ago
I must admit, it sounds nice to have a schedule but I don't think it would work for us because my husband's work schedule rotates. Between his 2 jobs, his classes, my work and the girls after-school and weekend activities we have to have it all written out on a calendar just to keep track of it all. Some days he's home and we can get a lot done, and some days I'm a single parent and it's all I can do to pick up fast food and get us home in time for bed. My "schedule" is all about flexibility; I try not to plan too much because then I get frustrated if I can't check some things off my list. For example, I was sick this past weekend and feeling like I got nothing accomplished. But I did clean one bathroom on Sat, and then another one on Sun. So maybe I needed a more realistic to-do-list for a feeling crappy weekend.
ReplyDeleteI do try to not do it all at once. One day I may focus on floors and try to do all the sweeping and vaccuuming, etc. And I try to do my dusting whenever I'm talking on the phone! The one thing I like to do all at once is the laundry; I try to get it all done over the weekend so we can start the week with the clothes we need. Since my girls wear a uniform for school, having the laundry done by Mon is a must. I pile all the foldables in the basket and then put a movie in and fold it all at once.
I dust while on the phone too! How funny to think of some of the long phone conversations we have had when we were both probably dusting at the same time. : ) I don't have a cordless, though, so it is mainly just the desk. Which usually needs it anyway!
ReplyDeleteFlylady would say that her system is even more important for moms who work outside of the home, because their time at home is so precious and it makes sense to get home-maintenance ingrained so it does not take much thought or effort--also good for tired mom after a long day of work and after-school stuff. BUT I have a feeling if I had your schedule I would do what you are doing--being a stay at home mom (well, a work at home mom when I started investigating the FlyLady's ideas) gives me lots of time to implement such things.
In fact, it is probably BECAUSE I am a SAHM that I need to schedule life--I have so much leeway that I have to be purposefully efficient. I am writing about these schedules partly because I am trying to encourage myself to implement even more structure into our daily lives--I cannot believe how quickly the time flies and how much more I want us all to be doing in a day. I won't go on now, since I plan on writing about it in stages.
One thing you specifically mentioned is laundry, and ironically, that is the one thing I never try to schedule. I just do it when it seems like a good time (diapers are the only thing I usually have to time, so I don't use them all up and have to use disposables while washing them). But really, this means I do laundry at least every other day, and the days I am home I will often do several loads. So maybe it is on its own "schedule"--I do it CONSTANTLY. ; )