My Afternoon Routine

One of my favorite tools from the Flylady is the concept of routines. A routine is something you do every day, and putting it in a specific order helps you to remember and learn it until you don't have to think about it. And having a little checklist, either on a post it or in your Control Journal can help.


In my recent post about keeping up with the laundry, I shared my morning routine. It looks like this:

1. Make my bed
2. Get dressed to shoes
3. Feed baby
4. Wake other kids
5. Start a load of laundry
   
6. Prep & drink smoothies (hubby usually does this)
   
7. Prep school lunches (hubby usually does this)
   
8. Cleanup kitchen/empty dishwasher
   
9. Baby to nap
10. HANG CLOTHES OUT TO DRY/laundry "reboot"

My late morning routine looks like this:

1. Cleanup kitchen if it's not already done
2. blog post/computer work/desk work 1/2 hr
3. declutter 15 minutes
4. daily mission/detail cleaning/weekly home blessing as needed
5. outside time or other activity with children
   
6. prep lunch

And my afternoon routine (babystep #23), looks like this:

1. Serve lunch/feed baby/eat lunch myself
   
2. Lunch cleanup
3. prep snacks for school children
4. put toddler to nap
5. welcome school kids home/give snacks
6. story time with 4 year old (and anyone else who wants to join us)
   
7. put baby & 4 year old to nap/bigger boys to quiet reading
8. MY QUIET TIME! computer/reading/nap if I want.

It really is helpful to do it the same way every day; it helps me to not forget anything. Since I've been doing it for a while, it does come automatically so I don't consult my control journal, but if I were new to this or found myself leaving things out, I certainly would.

Flylady gives her routines as examples. Use any of these to give you ideas; just remember that you need to make it work for YOU.