I was not taught how to efficiently run a home while I was a child. I spent years learning the things I should have learned before I had my own home to manage. Over the last 15 or 20 years, I have talked to many young women who found themselves in the same situation. We are taught how to manage our careers and our social lives, but although most young women will marry and have children, we are not taught to run a household. Even those who do not marry or have children will generally have a home. And even if you have a successful career, a cook, a housekeeper and a butler, someone is still going to have to know enough about running a home to know if your household staff is worth the money you're paying them. In spite of these facts, how to manage a home is virtually ignored in our society. I had to go back several generations to find the information I was looking for.
There are simple, easy ways to stay on track and "get it all done" while still being rested enough to minister to and serve our families with a smile. Creating a detailed list of what needs to be done each day, keeping a schedule and having a daily routine will enable you to accomplish more each day than you ever thought possible.
There are some things you will need to do each day, no matter what. Like brushing your teeth. Trust me on this one. Your whole family will be happier if you brush your teeth each and every day. Twice a day is even better, but you knew that, right? (If you didn't, you probably need to be reading a different blog. Perhaps one called "Personal Hygiene: 101.) Anyway, I digress. Figure out what you need to do each day. Put things on your list like Read Your Bible, Prayer, Personal Hygiene, Make Your Own Bed -- You only have to make yours because you have, of course, trained your kids to make their own beds. If not, put that on the list. You can work with them right after you make yours until they can do it on their own. It may not look like a freshly made hotel bed when they finish, but it should be what they can reasonably accomplish for their age and skill level. Investing a little extra time now will reap great dividends in both your and your childrens' future.
This list will become your Daily Routine. If you have never had a daily routine, it can be a bit daunting to start one. However, small good habits can lead to great changes in your life. It is worth the effort to develop new habits that will help you accomplish your goals.
I have a Morning Routine and an Evening Routine. So do my children. Our routines are different, reflecting the different responsibilities we have. Developing the habit of morning and evening routines has brought a wonderful peace and stability into our home. Everyone knows what they need to do to get their day off to a good start. They also know what needs to be done to wind down the day and prepare for the next day.
Your routines will be different from ours. Our list changes as our needs change. (Some things on the list never change (like brushing our teeth.) Below is just a sample of what a Morning Routine and an Evening Routine might look like:
Morning Routine 1. Rise Early (Go to bed early enough to get plenty of rest. Everything looks better when you have had enough sleep. Make sure you are up early enough to avoid being rushed. It is hard to have a peaceful day when it starts in chaos.) 2. Make Your Bed (An un-kept bed makes the whole room look messy. It only takes a few minutes when you first get up, and it is so much nicer to slip into a tidy bed when you are tired later.) 3. Prayer and Bible Reading (Of course. Who wants to start their day without God's grace and help? But if we don't make a conscious effort to put first things first, the busy-ness of the day will often crowd out the most important things.) 4. Exercise (You can do this whenever it works for you, but I notice that I am far less likely to stick with my work-out goals if I don't tackle this in the morning when I am fresh. Maybe you love to work out, but I, um...don't. I have to make myself, and getting this monkey off my back early helps me. Another thing that helps is to have an absolute minimum work-out. Maybe a 15-minute strength training session that you do first thing. That way if you skip --I mean, get interrupted for some completely valid reason and absolutely cannot do-- your longer workout later, you have at least done something each day. But then, you would probably never come up with good reasons to skip a workout, right?) 5. Eat a Good Breakfast (Statistically, people who eat a good healthy breakfast are more alert, creative and actually weigh less than those who skip breakfast. Don't skip!!) 6. Get Fully Dressed (Even if you are a full-time homemaker or you work from home, get fully and nicely dressed. Studies show that people who dress fully and nicely are more productive. Besides, you feel better about yourself when you know you look your best.) 7. Fix Your Hair & Make-up (see note on #6) 8. Morning Chores -Put laundry load into dryer (This is the load that went into the washer the night before. See Evening Routine.) -Clean breakfast dishes (A clean kitchen makes the whole house seem cleaner. And I timed myself. It only takes 10-15 minutes max. If you left last night's dishes and the crud hardened onto the plates, then it will take much longer. Which is probably why you're dragging your heals on this one. Hop in there and get it over with. Then promise yourself you won't leave the dishes undone anymore.) -Choose 1 or 2 household chores (such as cleaning a bathroom, dusting, mopping, etc. Again, time yourself. I can scour a bathroom from top to bottom in about 20 minutes. I can mop the floors in 3-5 minutes. It doesn't take that long to bless your home. And any job done is better than no job done.) Evening Routine 1. Family Devotions (When school is in session, we start our day by reading our Bible together, then our first class is Bible, our second is Character Training. They aren't long classes, but they are important and come first. In the evenings we have a family devotional time. In the summer, we read our Bibles and continue our evening Family Devotions. It is just a great way to start and end the day as a family.) 2. Always go to bed with a clean kitchen. (I make sure the living room is also clean. It is so nice to wake up to a house that is clean and ready for the day. I am a little more ready to face the day when the kitchen and living room are ready for me.) 3. Put a load of laundry in the wash. (Let your washer work while you sleep. Then tomorrow you can pop it in the dryer, and fold it. By doing a load a day, you rarely get buried under Mt. Laundrymore.) 4. Brush your teeth and hair. (We wouldn't want to scare the bedbugs, now would we?) 5. Wash your face and take care of your skin. 6. Lay out your clothes for the next day. (I do anything I can the night before to help smooth out the morning. I cook most of our breakfasts, so I will often prepare some of the breakfast the night before, as well.) 7. Go to bed on time. (Okay. I admit to being a worst offender of this one, and I don't recommend it. It catches up with you in terrible ways, like loss of patience, exhaustion and even health issues. I have a bad habit of saving way too much work to be done after the kiddos go to bed. I need to find ways to incorporate my work into my already busy days, instead of giving up much needed sleep. I usually get 5-6 hours, though. That is much better than the 2-4 hours that I got for years. 7-8 hours would be better. Most people need at least 6-8 hours of sleep to function at their best. Studies show that 8 hours brings optimal results. Is that movie you're watching really worth being so tired that you drag through the next day? Wisdom thinks ahead.)
Once you have your list made and you've mapped out your morning and evening routines, print them up and put them where you will see them. Having a written reminder of your routines will help make sure you stay on track. If I don't write things down, often the urgent but not so important things will crowd out the most important things. There are always things that call loudly for our attention, but often they are things that don't really matter (One thing that comes to mind is the loudly ringing telephone demanding to be answered right away that turns out to be a telemarketer. Urgently demanding your attention, but not important.) These loud and urgent things get us off track. They keep us from our Bibles and prayer. They keep us from ministering to our families. And often, they really don't even need to be done. Sometimes we need to simply say "No." When we have a daily plan, it is easier to see at a glance what we really need to be doing. It helps us stay on track to accomplish the goals the Lord put in our hearts.
In future posts, I will talk about having a Weekly Plan, having a Household Notebook and teaching these things to our children. Adding these things to your Daily Plan will bring you from dreaming about what you want to accomplish, to actually doing it.
