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.

Making It Work For YOU

Today is Father's Day in the US. (Happy Father's Day!)

But we live in Israel. It's not Father's Day here. And although we continue to celebrate most of these American traditions, it's something that we do within our family because we want to, certainly not because of any type of social pressure.

My husband has lots of extra work he wants to accomplish this week, and the idea of taking today off (remember, Sunday is a work day here) was adding stress. So, we decided to MOVE Father's Day. We'll celebrate it next Sunday, in one week. With a family fun day and burgers. Yum.

Moving our Father's Day celebration a week works for us. And this Making It Work For YOU concept is a really good one.

Almost every good idea is just that: an idea. A concept. Whoever made it found that it helped him or her, but that doesn't mean it will work for you exactly as it is; you might need to tweak it just a little. And that's OK!

Figuring out how to take good ideas and make them work for you will make your life much more manageable. It will save your sanity.

So, the next time you hear an idea that sounds interesting or even great but you just don't see how it so could work for you, don't dismiss it easily. Give it a little more thought and you just might come up with a variation that works for your family. After all, there's no one just like you!