Planning Polka

Before Bed Boogie 

• Turn the dish washer on
• Turn the washing machine on
• Make sure your sink is empty
• Wet mop your kitchen
• Pick your clothes for tomorrow
• Set your alarm clock

How to Get Things Done

Is too much ‘stuff’ affecting our ability to be contented?

Scheduling Helps

The resource that helped me the most in getting it all together was “Manager of Their Homes” by Steve and Terri Maxwell. The authors have a large, homeschooled family plus a family ministry. They know what they are talking about when getting it all done!

I also used the Franklin Covey organizers for many years. I had one section for monthly calendars, one for weekly, and one for daily, plus different divisions for each category of life I wanted to keep track of. 

But this year when setting up my yearly calendar I got as far as March and decided there had to be a better way than repeating the same, exact writing every month. So I set out to find electronic replacements for my beloved organizer.

I recorded my discoveries here, at my main blog. Please do enjoy!

Organizing Time

That title can be taken as "organizing our time" or "time to organize." Either way is good:-)

I have used the Franklin Covey organizers for years. They have made a big difference in my life. I call mine "My Memory Chip" because it is what allows me to get things done. Without it I never remember anything I am supposed to do. You know the feeling; you sit down at the computer knowing you have dozens of things you need to accomplish. But the minute your bottom touches the chair everything in your head bounces out the top. You can't remember a single thing you need to do, so you end up spending two hours on Pintrest.

My life is like that in every area. I walk into the kitchen and forget why, stroll to the bedroom and swear I was getting something but have no idea what. Simply forget to clean the shower for two years....

Have I ever mentioned that ADD runs pretty strong in my family?

Anyway, the organizer has been a lifesaver because now all I have to do is open it up to the right page and look at what I need to do. Since my organizer is also my purse, I always have it with me. This way:

1. I CAN'T lose it! It contains my drivers license, all my bank cards, etc. So, unlike a plain notebook, I MUST KEEP TRACK OF IT!
2. When I think of something I need to do ("Oh, yeah, I need to make a cake for Sunday.") It doesn't matter if I'm at home, my parent's house, church, or some back road that isn't really even a road and would be better suited for horse-travel than cars! I just write it down on the appropriate day's list:-)

I have had to force myself to form the habit of actually LOOKING AT the thing every morning, but that allows me to focus, center myself, and really plan my day instead of just letting whatever happen, so it's a good thing.

The only problem I have found is the repetition involved. Things that don't get done have to be moved to the next day. Cleaning chores have to be manually written in on each month's calendar. Menus have to be rewritten every month even though they are basically the same.

I usually highlight each type of event in a different color so my brain can immediately focus in on the right type of information. Separate calendars would be easier for that, but I get too confused/overwhelmed when I have more than one calendar to look at.

A couple of weeks ago I got about to March in setting up all the birthdays, cleaning schedules, gardening chores, etc when I decided there had to be a better way.

The Church has had its calendar on Google for several years now (which I am responsible for maintaining anyway) so this seemed the natural place to go. I have discovered:

• You can set up many different calendars and have as many or few as you want showing at a time. Each calendar's information can be set to display in a different color, achieving the same thing as the highlighter markers combined with having different calendars for each type of chore/event. The best of both worlds and whichever you need at the moment!
• Your account comes with a task list. This will organize things to do by date if you want and you check each item off when you complete it. If you don't finish it today, no problem. It can be dragged-and-dropped to tomorrow's list.
• The calendars are available to any internet connected device. This means that if I had a smart phone I could access it anywhere. As it is, If I carry my tablet (and remember to charge it:-P) and have wifi (increasingly that's everywhere) I still have access.
• If I decide I need to, I can print some or all of the calendars to stick in my organizer, all pre-colorcoded!

Now each day's set up is easier. Just log on and check the day's list.

Each week is easier too. Just look it over at the beginning and tweak anything that has changed, and make my shopping list from the pre-set menu.

Each month is easier because, instead of having to fill out and decide about each meal from my master list, I put every meal in as a "monthly repeat" and now just have to move a few things around to accommodate holidays, vacation, and the odd days (you know, some months have 4 Sundays and some have 5. That has to be figured into the menus).

Each year will be easier because all I will have to do is drag and drop the things that repeat, but not on the same day (i.e. "Australia" as the theme for the third Sunday's potluck of every January).

And I can turn all but the one calendar I am working on off while I'm working on it, yet instantly have them all on to see how things correlate if I want.




The calendars I now have are:

• Church (services, events, birthdays, etc.)
• Menu (3 meals a day for each day of the month, many just set on a monthly repeat)
• Chores (This includes weekly, monthly, and yearly chores as well as things like doctor appointments and one-time only chores like "write a new Bible study page for the church site.")
• Farm (garden and animal chores)
• Blog Posts (a list of each post's title so I can plan and not fall behind like I did this week)
• and Schedule (this I use mostly to plan what a "normal" week or school day should look like.)

I have also discovered Google Keep, which a note application available for most devices (but not my tablet, unfortunately.)  I just might be able to put most of my random notes from my organizer in this where they will be backed up in case of loss or fire or whatever. Each note can be color coded and Keep is fully searchable. You can also have checklists and due dates with alarms.

My cell phone is with Verizon, so a little investigating tells me I could set up the phone-book in my phone to replace the one in my organizer which would be easier to update when someone moves, have more space to add information (I think I can even add fields not already listed), and my phone automatically backs up all new info on the Verizon website so if I loose the phone I won't loose my data! I certainly can't say that about my organizer!

Add a password protected Word document saved in Dropbox and a new wallet and, Hey! I might could actually buy a real purse. I just need one with a pocket for my tablet (which my organizer does have) and my phone (which it doesn't). And I won't have to worry about loosing my whole life it I lose it because everything is backed up.

Since my brain comprehends print better than electronics, I don't know if this will work, but I am sure giving it a try:-)

Schedules

In the old days (two hundred or so years ago), a Home Maker (then called a “Good Wife”) not only did the cleaning, she had a vegetable garden, often cared for the chickens (and sometimes milked the cow), cooked all her own food from scratch (including baking her own bread), sewed all the families own clothes and linens, washed them by hand, hung them out to dry, ironed them (no polyester yet), grew most of the medicines her family needed for every day ailments (peppermint for upset tummies, red raspberry for female problems, Echinacea for the immune system, etc), taught the children at least up to what we would call Junior high level and often until college level, all while nursing babies and caring for the sick and elderly. It was a lot of hard work, but oh so rewarding.

There is no reason today’s modern Home Maker can’t achieve the same things and more. We just need to know how to manage our time.

First of all, get your house reasonably under control as outlined earlier. Have a habit of keeping things under control and clean, and good meals on the table. Do some research to see what method of homeschooling fits your family best (if what you try at first doesn’t work, just try a different method. It isn’t that you can’t teach your own. Every parent is a teacher. It is that you just haven’t found your style yet.)

Once you have a pretty good idea what you want to do, it is time to make a plan.

1)   Make a list of everything you want to accomplish in a day. Be sure to devote time to God, eating and sleeping, bathing, teaching, hand crafts such as sewing, cooking, gardening, your own education (more on that in a minute), and some free time (though we need far less than most Americans think we do.)

2)   Make a list of what you want your children to accomplish in a day. Include each school subject.

3)   Figure how much time these things will take and cut them down until they fit into the twenty-four hours God gave us. This is a very important step. You simply can’t get thirty hours of work done in a day, no matter how organized you are.

4)   Prioritize. List each item in the order of importance.

5)   Tweak the previous list until is begins to resemble a schedule.

6)   You don’t have to assign actual time slots to things. Some people do work well that way. However some people work better with routines or to-do lists than schedules. 

For example, I work best if I get up at 5:00 and read my Bible until 5:30. Then I organize my day and practice my guitar until 6:00; write until 6:30, milk the cow, process the milk and start supper until 8:00; eat breakfast, clean up, do my quick-cleans and big cleans until 9:30; Bible lessons and practice poetry until 10:45, etc. 

Other people work better with getting up and reading the Bible until they have read three chapters, practicing one song, writing four pages, milk the cow, process the milk, start supper, eat, clean up, quick-clean, big clean one item, Bible lessons, practice poetry, etc. they may start at 5:00 today and 7:00 tomorrow. They may finish the day’s school at 1:00 or 3:00, just depending on how that day’s work went. This is a routine instead of a schedule. 

(Honestly, I do a mixture. I have a schedule of time slots with meals and bedtime fixed firmly in place. Then I have a list of routines to do within each time slot. I do the most important things first within each slot and if I don’t get to everything, that’s ok. If I practice my guitar longer than normal or over sleep and don’t get time to write before the next time slot (cow milking) I just skip writing for the day. I seldom have a day where I actually get to everything, but over the course of a week or two, everything gets done.)

7)   Add in an extra, unscheduled 5-15 minutes every now and then throughout the day. This is your emergency cushion. You don’t have to panic if Great-Aunt Myrtle calls you unexpectedly for your cheesecake recipe or the toddler decides to build flour castles in the middle of your living room. You have it scheduled in; you just didn’t know what it was for when you made the schedule.

8)   You may need to make different schedules for different days. For example, we do “normal school” Monday through Wednesday, but the children spend Thursday nights with Grandma. So they do work on the on the computer Thursday while giving the house an extra cleaning. Friday they do school with grandma and we run errands. Saturday, daddy will either have a day trip planned or we will just hang around the house or go work at the church. Sunday we have service. I have different schedules for each of these (I don’t actually have them written down except for our basic routine. I just have it in my head what needs to be done when.)

9)   Make sure you leave time to study a new skill. For example, let’s say you want to learn to sew. Set aside fifteen minutes a day to read an instruction book on sewing. When you get it finished turn that same fifteen minutes into your actual sewing time. If you want to learn to garden but don’t know a spade from a rake, get a good book or two (Square Foot Gardening is good) and spend you garden time during the winter reading. When spring comes you will be all ready to get your hands dirty.

10)       Speaking of gardening, make sure you allot time to work in your yard. It needs the attention and you need the fresh air, sunshine and exercise.

More on scheduling next time...

Organizing

How much time do you spend looking for things? Does it frustrate you? It sure does me. I hate wasting time searching for things. Now, loosing things cannot be entirely eliminated, especially if you have toddlers (yes, things really do walk off all by themselves sometimes); but loses can be greatly reduced. 

The key to reducing searching time is:

A Place for Everything and Everything in its Place.

Really.

If you walk into your house and sometimes put your keys in your purse and sometimes on the shelf by the door and sometimes on the dresser in your bedroom and sometimes on the kitchen counter, you will NEVER be able to find your keys. So the true magic key to always being able to find your keys is to pick one place (a small pocket in your purse works well because you can do that away from home too), and ALWAYS put them in that place no matter what. Then anytime you need your keys, you know exactly where they are.

In fact, let’s talk about purses. There are certain things you always carry with you. Pick a purse that has plenty of pockets and assign each item to a specific place. I use a diaper bag for a purse. I put papers in the place with the changing pad (along with a spare diaper and a small case of wipes. My youngest is two so that is all I generally need.). My phone is in one of the outside bottle pockets, my keys clipped to the zipper pull, my camera in an inner pocket and my organizer in the middle (my organizer has pockets for my drivers license, check books, credit cards, money, ink pens, and business cards). The zippered pouch holds things like pads, lip balm, safety pins- stuff I really need, but only occasionally. This bag is big enough to hold a small laptop next to the organizer. 

Anytime I need something, I know exactly where to get it. When I had a bottle baby, I had a special place for the bottles of water and another for the can of formula. Add a place for a spare change of clothes and a few toys, and I’m good to go.

 Whenever I get home, I repack anything I used while I was gone. This way I am always ready to leave in a minute’s notice.

This principle applies to the whole house.

 I have designated one area as the “baking center.” Anything to do with baking goes here in its assigned place; mixes on the top shelf, ingredients on the next, canisters of flour and my mixer on the counter, measuring spoons and cups and whisks hanging on the wall, attachments to the mixer and wooden spoons in the top drawer, bowls on the first shelf in the bottom cupboard and muffin tins, cake pans, pie plates, and bread pans on the bottom. This whole counter is only about two feet wide, but, because it is right by the fridge, I can make anything I want without moving a step or hunting for stuff. Everything I need (except water) is right there. In fact, I could almost get what I need with my eyes closed because it is put where it belongs every time.

How about a “Wrapping center,” a box with wrapping paper, tape, ribbon and scissors?

A “Fix-it Center:” hammer, nails, tape, glue, tacks, clamps, etc.

An “Art Center” would have paints, crayons, pencils, tape, glue, scissors, papers of all colors and textures, chalks, etc. Maybe an easel and smock too.

A “Charging Center” would have a powerstrip with all the rechargeables in the house plugged in. I actually think this is one center that will eventually be built into every new house!

Once you get the idea of making centers and picking places for everything to belong, it gets kind of addicting. And you will love the ease with which you can find things when you need them!

You get what you measure : Conversion Diary

You get what you measure : Conversion Diary

How much time do you spend in:

Prayer
Bible Reading
Talking to your children
Cleaning the House
Cooking
Sleeping
Facebook
Surfing

Which ones of these you can answer without stopping to count tells a lot about your priorities.

Me?
Prayer- 20min give or take a day
Bible Reading- half an hour each morning working on my commentaries plus one chapter to hubby and one to dc later
Talking to your children- not nearly enough:-(
Cleaning the House- Yeah, well...
Cooking- half and hour to an hour
Sleeping-8ish hours
Facebook- Yeah, well (in the opposite direction)
Surfing- Ahmmmm.

I guess I better work on that.