One of the biggest effects of all the transition this Fall is to my daily schedule. Now I use the word schedule loosely. Yes, I have a planned hourly schedule for my day, but in reality, it just serves as a guide. I am not always following the plan hour by hour, but it helps to have already thought through the parts of the day. It was strange this time around to change Karis’ activities to “SCHOOL” all day long. Makes me miss her, but she is loving all the learning and activities and relationships she is getting to experience every day! I go through this kind of planning with significant changes (seasons, new jobs, babies dropping a nap, etc.). There is more about what that involves here.
Here is my revised version for the Fall. This is something I am constantly tweaking as I learn what really works and what doesn’t.
Here are a few of my challenges and questions I’m dealing with regarding my daily schedule:
- I want more time with the Lord in reading and prayer (though I also know this season of life lends itself more to prayer throughout the day and playing lots of worship music as I go).
- By the time I get the twins down for nap in the afternoon, I’m just tired and don’t follow through well with time with Landis or daily cleaning chores.
- I need more built in time for blogging.
At the end of it all, I need to aim for 2 things – diligence and flexibility. It may seem like those don’t really go together – that you either aim for one or the other. Actually, maybe only I think that, which is where I get trapped. But I need both.
- Diligence – The reality is I have a lot to do. The pace of every day is pretty high and there are not a lot of negotiable things on my to do list if I want a fairly clean house, have food to eat, and stay on our tight budget. If I hit snooze a couple times in the mornings, that time eats into my time with the Lord and blogging time. If I don’t stay active during naptime, I can’t find another time to get cleaning chores done.
- Flexibility – However, I have 4 kids that have lots of individual needs. Their needs for comfort, snuggles, teaching, or training and discipline often come right when I’m trying to accomplish something else. I want to be attentive and compassionate enough in the middle of all my tasks to stop and care for them.
My daily schedule is a constant work in progress. How about you? Do you operate from a master schedule? What are your challenges in keeping to a routine?
I love your schedule! I used to do something like this when my 8 & 6 year old were small and I do a loose version when they are out of school for the summer. We are looking to adopt domestically and I’m sure I will have to schedule like this again when we bring home a little one.
I would encourage you to use nap time to rest & rejuvenate. It is a rigorous schedule with 3 little ones. You might need to schedule in down time for yourself during nap time. Maybe make the time with your oldest of the three at the end of nap time instead of at the beginning. If you don’t rejuvenate, it will make the 2nd half of the day that much harder. Maybe only blog on the weekends when hubby is home and write several posts to go up through the week.
Just some thoughts.
Thank you, Joy! I need lots of input these days. And resting is a consistent thing I’m hearing from others right now.
My biggest struggle with a schedule is not staying “on time.” I’m more of a “process” person, enjoying the journey rather than looking at my watch all the time. When my babes were nursing, I had a flexible schedule that I followed for feedings and naps, but once they got beyond that, what happened in between the fairly regular meals and naps was up for grabs! I tried a couple times to make a schedule like you have here, but it just drove me crazy trying to keep up with it.
This summer, with a 5, 4 and 1.5 yr old at home every day, my husband helped me come up with an activity-based schedule (no set times except for meals) that was my go-to list. We did what we could each day, but I didn’t stress if we only did one or two activities instead of all of them. Now that my boys are in preschool, I’m realizing I might want to have an activities list for my daughter. Otherwise, it’s easy to just get busy with my own chores and not spend intentional time with her. Since help is cheap in China, I’m blessed to have a domestic helper who comes to clean 6 hrs each week. That lightens my load a lot, but there’s still unending laundry and three meals a day to keep up with.
Through links on your blog (THANK YOU!!), I just started using The Confident Mom daily checklist. I realized that I need to take a few minutes each day to do something restful or pampering for myself. Yesterday my “restful activity” was listening to one of her podcasts while cleaning out my junk drawers.
Maybe you could do something restful in the afternoon to recharge and push a few of your chores to the evening after kids are in bed. Sometimes that’s my most productive time in the kitchen!
Thanks for taking time to write, Julie. And I’m glad you are using the Confident Mom’s planner! It’s great!