Keeping the Daily Routines

Soon we will be entering a new month. In May Flylady's habit of the month is moving. I have to be honest with myself. . . other than running around with Baby Gee and Dizzy I don't have time to move. Unless somebody else takes care of the boys for me, that is, and for free (yeah, right!). So this month I am making my own 'habit of the month' instead of following Flylady's. I will be drinking more water and work on building my daily routines.

Let's start with the water. How many glasses of water would you guess I consume a day? Well, unless you count coffee, hot tea or sweet tea (which are all made with water!!). . . then the answer is 0. Yes, a big, fat, unhealthy 0. Rarely do I drink a glass of water unless I'm dining out or staring at health magazines while waiting in line at the grocery store. So on Saturday I purchased a gallon jug, sliced up an orange and filled it with drinking water. It's pretty good.

Then, because I"m really not getting enough done around the house on a regular basis, I drew up some daily routines. I made one up for Morning, Afternoon and Evening. I did this last week with moderate success. However, when I do all the routines it really makes a difference in the house. Here are the routines:

Morning!!

1. get up, straighten bed Su M Tu W Th F Sa

2. start coffee & bottle Su M Tu W Th F Sa

3. get dressed to shoes Su M Tu W Th F Sa

4. read Bible Su M Tu W Th F Sa

5. reboot laundry Su M Tu W Th F Sa

6. online time Su M Tu W Th F Sa

7. 15 minutes in the zone Su M Tu W Th F Sa

Afternoon!!

1. Clean up lunch Su M Tu W Th F Sa

2. 5m room rescue's: 3 Su M Tu W Th F Sa

3. Dizzy cleans up boys' room Su M Tu W Th F Sa

4. Set out snack Su M Tu W Th F Sa

5. reboot laundry Su M Tu W Th F Sa

Bedtime!!

1. Help children clean up Su M Tu W Th F Sa

2. clean up dinner Su M Tu W Th F Sa

3. Plan meals & day

4. reboot and put away Su M Tu W Th F Sa

any laundry

5. set out clothes Su M Tu W Th F Sa

6. dishes/shine sink Su M Tu W Th F Sa

7. declutter 15 minutes Su M Tu W Th F Sa

Just so you know, that looks much nicer on my publication document saved on the computer. It's nice and bright colors, because they make me happy. I didn't include any cute cheerful images, because that just felt cluttered to me. I added days of the week so that I would have something to cross off, and keep tabs on my progress. I printed off 5 sheets and hung them on the fridge. I think three days last week I did really well. The other days. . . Well, not so much.

I really put a focus on what would help the most. I wanted to make the biggest difference with the least amount of work. There is room for tweaking. . . there always will be! Right now you see three times I reboot the laundry. That's because I"m so far behind. . . oh, wait! Not so far anymore! Because I had it as part of my daily routines I did more laundry last week and I'm closer to the top of Mount St Laundry! You'll notice there are things on there that shouldn't need to be listed. Well, it gives me success!! I can cross it off! I put a lot of those on in the morning because I want an encouraging start to my day. I"m going to have to weed through my evening routine and make it a little more easy to succeed at. By the time The Hubs shows up, I"m exhausted and just finishing dinner or thinking about bathing children can send me over edge. I'm not really sure what I want to do about that. I do try and get as much as I can of my evening routine done as early as I can.

You'll notice that in the afternoon the 3yr old cleans his room. That's his toys, his mess, his job. Not anyone else's. My job is to make sure he does it. I don't care if it's perfect (remember housework done improperly still blesses your home!) or spotless. This is just day to day no more than 20 minutes at a time. I also help the children clean up at bedtime. Instead of expecting them to do it on their own, because that would mean Dizzy is cleaning up his and Baby Gee's mess, and that's not fair, I help them out. I also include Dizzy in the room rescues and other chores. If I don't teach him to clean up, I will always be cleaning up after him. I don't even clean up after myself enough to worry about other peoples messes!! So parents: Please for your children's sake, make them pick up their own messes and help out a reasonable amount! You can start this as early as they figure out the concept of 'pick it up' and 'put it in'. That's how I taught Dizzy!

Happy Flying!

I would like to thank a special Flybaby for inspiring this post! Check out her post on making your morning routine enjoyable!