Hubby and I were going over all the Fly Lady stuff and I was feeling really overwhelmed with all that I was "supposed" to accomplish (Note: I realize now that more people than not have their husbands help with the big cleanings. I was hoping to have his time at home to be free so we could go on adventures with our son instead of spending it cleaning.). The first thing we decided was that maybe we did need to spend one nap time on the weekend working on the house. It would still be less time than we used to spend on the house on the weekends pre-kid and it would lift some of the stress off of my shoulders.
I still didn't know how much I was going to be able to accomplish each day and the three different pages of different lists were all too overwhelming for me. So Hubby then had made a suggestion that I attach time values to each task so that we could see how much time is needed to get all the things done. You should have seen me squirm at this idea. I am sure that I could do hours of therapy on this topic, but for whatever reason assigning times to tasks sounded like the most constricting, controlling, awful thing to do. But, I took a second and realized that he was probably on the right track so I got to thinking about how I function when I am teaching.
When I am teaching I use a schedule. I block out parts of the day for specific subjects and then break down those chunks of time with specific tasks that will help us reach certain objectives. Sure I wrote down times for the chunks and thought about time for the tasks, but I never wrote down times for the specific tasks (I remember hating the fact that I had to write down those times when I first started teaching.).
So I thought maybe I could create a "lesson plan" for my week? I could block out the times of day that I would be able to clean and fill in those blocks with specific tasks each day of the week. That way I would know that everything would get done by the end of the week as long as I got things done each day.
So I sat down and created my "lesson plan" and it felt great. Not only did I feel like it was in a format that I understood, but I also was able to see that I could actually get everything done by the end of the week. I was also able to go through the cleaning lists that Fly Lady has and get rid of a bunch of things that aren't applicable.
I showed the schedule to Hubby and I could tell it wasn't his thing, that he would have done it differently, but it didn't matter. He saw that things were going to get done and he was pleased.
Hallelujah! We had a plan! We are on the same page! We are happy!
I am sure that it is going to need some tweeking as we get started and maybe even more tweeking as Superman's needs change. But for now, it is fabulous!! I even have time blocked off so that I can work on my blog.
So what I want to know today is: what do you do to keep organized? Do you have a to-do list? A routine that you follow? Please leave me a comment and tell me, I would love to hear it!
TTFN,
Mommy C
I live in the same land!! Maybe it's being a teacher before being a mommy. We have a pretty set routine. In fact, my 2 year old knows when he takes his bath, has his snack, and has tv time. And he usually tells me what is next.
ReplyDeleteHowever, when I had my 2nd baby, it took a long time to create a new routine. Probably about 6 months. It does change from time to time, too. But I think you'll be happy with your new lesson plan :)