SISTER WISDOM : build a better life

Part 5 of the series: The Get-Your-Life-Together Plan

Repetition does not make your life boring; repetition makes your life simpler. Conscious repetition helps you to accomplish the necessary and be freed up for the fun stuff.

Your Household Is Your Business

Think of your household like a business organization; how can you run a successful business if only the CEO knows the correct way to do things? That business is going to be extremely limited because there is no method to the daily work. No one can be trained or taught, nothing can be delegated, and even the daily, mundane tasks become a hassle because there's no structure, no organization, no routine.

Sound like your house in the morning? Or the evening? Or anytime? (Except when you and the husband and the kids are all out of the house, right? Then it's pretty peaceful...unless the dog gets loose... Oh, nevermind.)

Use Conscious Repetition

You know a morning routine makes your mornings easier. You know a daily minimum (which is also a routine) makes keeping the house clean a lot easier. Both routines are simply methods of conscious repetition.

Become conscious. You repeat things whether you're aware of it or not. You shower, dress, eat, drive, email, hug, talk, sleep... repeatedly. Running your household requires infinite repetition; that's one reason it's so easy to get frustrated with the home and the family. It's never done, complete, finished.

You never get to walk away from the laundry room, rubbing your hands together, and say, "Well, now that's done for good I can move on to something more interesting." Oh, no. The laundry will be back, again (and with a vengeance). The floor will get dirty, again. The kids will get hungry, again (what is with them?). You get the point.

So, your choice is to 1) waste time making the same decisions and fumbling your way through the endlessly repetitive and, let's face it, boring daily tasks of modern home making or 2) create streamlined, custom methods to get the items accomplished quickly, efficiently, and as best suits you and the household.

Oh, hmmm, which sounds better?

Open Door #2! You win the prize: a simpler life, a smoothly running household, and more mental freedom and time to do... well, whatever you want.

Here's How

Start writing things down. Notice what you already do and how you do it. Maybe set aside a little notebook or just jot things down in your journal or on your computer. What you want to pay attention to is the repetitive stuff.

Find a time to spend about an hour on creating some policies and procedures. This is the easiest and best way to get conscious repetition working for you.

A policy and procedure manual is a book (or books) that businesses use to set standards and define methods for their employees. It makes training easy and create common standards and methods that everybody in the company learns and uses.

A policy tells you what and why. A procedure tells you how.

Here's an example from business.

Policy: An employee identification card is required for all employees in order to gain access to offices and facilities.

Procedure: Upon employment, the employee obtains the form from the Department of BlahBlahBlah, fills out, turns it in, and picks up ID card from the Office of ID Cards one week later.

Here's an example from a household.

Policy: In order to be healthier, we eat smoothies for breakfast during warm weather seasons.

Procedure:

Annie purchases fresh fruit and frozen yogurt every week when grocery shopping.

Annie washes and prepares fruit to some extent when putting away groceries.

Annie puts some of the fruit in the refrigerator and some in the freezer so that there is always a frozen supply.

Annie processes any fruit that is about to spoil and puts it in the freezer.

Joe makes the morning smoothie by using fresh and frozen fruit, frozen yogurt, and juice.

Joe washes the blender and leaves it on the counter to dry.

Joe wipes off the counters.

Joe puts any fruit residue in the compost bucket.

Annie puts the blender away later in the day when cleaning the kitchen.

Mara takes the compost bucket out later in the day when playing outside.

Why Details Matter

Now you're thinking, "Sheesh, that's a lot of detail just to get a smoothie made." Yes. It is. But it ensures that the smoothie gets made and the area gets cleaned up and it defines who is in charge of what.

It eliminates the decision-making process and the guess work: "Should I have a smoothie? Do we have any fruit? Is there any frozen yogurt? Did Joe clean the blender up? Should I make the smoothie today or will Joe do it?"

Can you switch it up? Sure! It's your policy and procedure manual; you can do anything you want, including change it, ignore it, or light it up and watch it burn. It's more useful, however, if you leave the matches alone and go ahead and get detailed enough to create some policies and procedures, then start using them.

If you're the only one involved, you've just defined and streamlined your routine so it will go faster and you will be more efficient. If there are others involved, then you've made it easy for them to know what's expected. That's a relief for you and for them.

Image courtesy of D Sharon Pruitt.