Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Embracing the Schedule



Welcome to the June edition of the Simply Living Blog Carnival - Around the House cohosted by Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children, Laura at Authentic Parenting, Jennifer at True Confessions of a Real Mommy, and Joella at Fine and Fair. This month, we write about what we do to keep the little things from overwhelming us. Please check out the links to posts by our other participants at the end of this post.

The greatest thing my family ever did to keep up with our housework was our system of 5 Things. Not only was it the first "New Year's Resolution" to ever make it out of the month of January, we are now 6 months into it with only a few adjustments needing to be made for our surprisingly nice spring and our drive to start family biking. So, if you haven't read that post, go do read it now. Then come back and I can tell you how we created a system for keeping it up with the rest of our schedule.

Soon after starting our 5 things, my 3 children came down with the chicken pox. It was a very mild case for them all, and it was a solid month of quarantine, waiting for them all to finish. In that time, I learned I needed to embrace The SCHEDULE.

My husband and I are not schedule oriented. We like to go with the flow, see what happens, and just enjoy. Turns out, that is harder to do with kids. Even homeschooled ones. The first thing I had to look at is how to display our schedule. Some people prefer the ease of online calandars, so everyone can sync up and know what is going on, wherever they are. Unless you are my husband, who does not want a smartphone, or even one that connects to the internet. So we went to the great, old fashioned wall calendar. A giant one.



I filled in our recurring events, and found a day for each household chore (aside from daily dishes and laundry). I also arranged things for plenty of open days so it would be easy to move around if we decided to ride, or didn't feel well. You know, Life. Then I used a highlighter to make it easy to differentiate between chores, homeschool group, adult nights, and meetups. I also keep an updated planner to take on the go.

Then each evening at dinner, we look at the calendar, discuss what our plans are, and write our 5 Things on the refrigerator white board. It is great to include our children in the process, and they really get into participating the planning, making them more apt to help in the execution.

Who knew something as simple as a giant wall calendar could have such an impact on how our house is run.

Thank you for visiting the Simply Living Blog Carnival cohosted by Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children, Laura at Authentic Parenting, Jennifer at True Confessions of a Real Mommy, and Joella at Fine and Fair. Read about how others are incorporating simple ideas around their homes. We hope you will join us next month!










4 comments:

  1. I'm not really a "schedule" person, either, despite the fact that my planner is basically glued to me at all times. However, having an open system for cleaning means it all gets done, which is what works for us. I like knowing I can do a little bit each day and keep up with things instead of watching as the chaos ensues and I feel trapped by cleaning. Thanks for joining us!

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  2. Oh wow; I could never keep up with that! I tend to take things as they come. I don't really plan on anything.

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  3. I love this idea. It doesn't sound so stringent that you can't still be spontaneous sometimes, but I too find it freeing just knowing what needs to be done each day. It's like the decision making part is already done for you. :)That's half the battle for me!

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  4. I am not sure I would ever or could ever stick to a cleaning plan! I do have a planner for everything else tho'!

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