When I got married those 4 short years ago, it took me about a month to realize I didn't know that much about running a household. This was a shock to me. I had been helping my Mom for a long time. My sister and I grew up doing chores, laundry, helping with the cleaning and cooking and errands. I felt confident about this whole home maker stint. No problem.

Finding the Household Rhythm

I found out that managing a household is different than doing certain jobs within the household. Much, much different. There was a certain rhythm to home, growing up, that I accepted and considered as automatic as day and night and the changing of the seasons. Those first few months with my own home, I learned that the rhythm isn't automatic. Ours was very sporadic: bumpity bump bump bump, bumpity bump da da da da da da da zoooooom zoom collapse. (Something like that.) I looked for solutions. I compiled a massive household notebook, read books, made lists, and tried all sorts of methods for keeping things under control. I was still missing the main idea.

Running a household is a lot like directing a group of musicians. Some of us have four-piece ensembles, some of us have entire orchestras. Regardless of scope, however, one element must be in place to keep the others in sync: rhythm. I kept retuning my strings and adding trills to the flute solo when what I needed to do was give my big bass drum a steady beat: dum dum da dum, dum dum da dum, dum dum da dum, dum dum da dum.

Daily Routines are the drumbeat of the household symphony. You can make the beat as fast or as slow as fits you, but it's got to be steady.

Create a Daily Routine

1. Figure out what needs to be done in your household on a daily and weekly basis.
   What areas of your household demand the most attention? These will be different for different homes, but usually meals, laundry, and cleaning are at the top of the list. Paying bills and dealing with household paperwork, doing yardwork, returning phone calls, handling social events, running errands, taking care of pets, personal care... Which ones belong to you? Which require daily attention? Which require weekly attention? (Don't bother with monthly or seasonal tasks at this point.) Make a list, under Daily and Weekly headings, of all the things that must be done to keep your household running. Don't overcomplicate or add in things that you would like to do but aren't doing already. You want to keep this simple as you get started. You can always add more later.
2. Divide your task list into what should be done in the morning and what should be done in the afternoon or evening.
   Think about your schedule, your energy level, and your preferences as you make your division. Most of these items just need to be done at some point during the day or week, and the minute timing doesn't really matter. So if you are working outside the home and have to rush to leave in the morning, don't give yourself a 10-item list to complete before you go. Make your evening routine the longer one.
   If you stay at home and have more energy in the morning than the evening, then flip the two and do more in the morning and keep your evenings down to the minimum requirements. Work with what makes sense for you right now.

That's all there is to creating the actual routine; here's how to get yourself to make it a habit:

3. Don't do daily what you don't have to do!
   Keep it simple. If your morning routine takes an hour or more, you have too much going on. Put it on a diet. Simplify.
4. Don't clutter it up with automatic actions.
   For example, you already brush your teeth every morning; you don't need it on your list to remind you to do it. I remember one lady complaining about how long her morning routine was, and then I saw it: it included a whole section of items like "Moisturize face," "Moisturize hands," Moisturize elbows," and "Moisturize legs." If you have trouble remembering to put lotion on, then sure, add it to your list: but make it one item, not fifteen.
5. Complete your routine at the same times every day.
   Once you get in the habit, you can be more flexible about when you complete your routine; while you're establishing it as normal, though, be a stickler for getting through it at the same time every day, or at least as close to the same time daily as you can. There will certainly be some exceptions. You can handle those. Just try to be as consistent as possible for the first 30 days.
6. Write your routine down and keep it handy.
   It doesn't have to be fancy. Mine's written on a piece of paper from my magnetic grocery list on the fridge and stays in my pantry, beside the coffee. That's where I go first thing in the morning so it gives me an easy way to glance at it and remember where to start.
7. Keep your supplies in a convenient place.
   Any cleaning or other supplies you need for your routine should be right where you need them. The key to making the routine a daily no-brainer is keeping it quick and easy. So put a spray bottle of cleaner and a roll of paper towels in the bathroom and keep a mop in the kitchen, or whatever you have to do to make it happen.
8. Finally, be consistent.
   Maintain that daily, forward movement. Adjust your routine as needed - maybe you really don't need to sweep the front porch every day - but don't skip it or ignore it or forget about it. The more consistent you are, the easier it will become, and the more your household will just look like it runs itself. (We'll know that's not true, of course... it's you directing the orchestra.)

SCHEDULING, SCHMEDULING (YAWN). WHAT'S THE POINT?
Some of us resist schedules because they seem restrictive, anti-creativity, control-freakish. Certainly some schedules are that way. If you're scheduling your time down to ten-minute sections, I think we might need to work on your control freak tendencies. On the other hand, if you schedule nothing and live to follow the natural flow, you not only stifle productivity but you will also end up stifling creativity as well. You live by a schedule whether you admit it or not; a schedule is simply a matter of doing a certain thing at a certain time. When you take initiative to set your own schedule, you can do so according to your own priorities. When you don't set your own schedule, you are not only at the mercy of your own whims (which very often do not line up with your bigger goals and priorities) but you are also at the mercy of others who will not hesitate to impose their schedules on yours... or your lack thereof. So it really comes down to whose schedule you want to follow: yours, thoughtfully laid out, or some haphazard construct of circumstances. Seems like a no-brainer to me, but take the time to think it over if you must.

BASIC SCHEDULING
I like to keep my schedule pretty basic. It includes 1) A Beginning and an End and 2) Time Blocks. There are multiple planning calendars in as many formats as you can dream up. I find them all too complicated for my simple living preferences. This is not true for everyone; my husband loves his Franklin Covey planner and uses it faithfully. I feel restricted by all those boxes with lines and titles. The perfectionist in me just can't leave well enough alone, so I spend more time scheduling in all the pretty boxes than I do actually implementing my schedule. Since the point of a schedule is to simplify and to increase productivity, and I find that the more complex planners accomplish neither goal for me, I stick with my basics and forgo the professional leather-binder look. You might find that a combination of methods works best for you. My advice is this: start simple and be diligent with your simple scheduling techniques. Once you know they work for you, you can tweak and add on and adjust to your heart's delight. Don't start way at the top of the complex calendar hierarchy. The very complexity is too overwhelming to keep up when you're first learning how to schedule, and you'll get discouraged and drop it all.

A BEGINNING AND AN END
This topic makes me think of Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, when she first attempts to teach the Captain's children how to sing: "Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start..." Of course, she drops her little Happy Beginnings song in favor of the inexplicably popular Do-Re-Mi. We, however, shall carry our Happy Beginnings all the way to Happy Endings.

What needs a beginning and an end is your working day. Your entire day is capped on both ends automatically by your bed. You wake up and get out of bed, your day begins. You get sleepy and get back in bed, your day ends. I see no reason to mess with that kind of perfection, unless you need some help on the waking up and getting out of bed part. We'll get to that in another article. For now, we're dealing with the workday itself, the part of the day that begins after you've been awakened by the sound of bluebirds (or the alarm clock) and, I hope, have eaten a halfway decent breakfast. Oh, also, you should get dressed. Maybe even before breakfast.
Your workday beginning may be set in stone already. You have to be at the office at 9:00 am. There you go. 9:00 am it is. For those of us who work in more flexible fields, in which the office hours dictate next to nothing, setting a Beginning is a matter of choice and convenience. If you're a stay-at-home Mom trying to wake, dress, and feed three kids, then give yourself enough time to do that before you try to get down to the rest of your work. If you're a work-from-home small business owner who likes to start the day with a two-hour gym session, then set your workday beginning accordingly.

The End of the workday is just as important as the beginning. Again, this may be dictated by office hours, or it may be a matter of choice and fitting in with what happens in the rest of your day. Perhaps it's 3:00 pm when the kids get home from school. Perhaps it's 6:00 pm when your spouse gets home from work. Perhaps it's 9:00 pm when you realize you haven't eaten anything since noon. (I don't recommend that last time option, by the way.) Choose an End. Put a cap on your working hours. Sure, you can always choose to do "extra" work or finish up projects in the evening if you want to, but that should be something you do because you really want to, not because you have to, and it should never interfere with your family time or social obligations.

My workday beginning is 8:00 am and my workday end is 5:00 pm. Of course there is more that happens before and after those times, but it is within those times that I block out time for work and have specific goals to accomplish.

BLOCKING OUT YOUR TIME
I learned this one from my husband, who implements the concept with his Franklin Covey planner in a way I can only admire. The idea itself is Read the rest of this entry »