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.

Part 4 of the series: The Get-Your-Life-Together Plan

The idea comes from, well, who knows, originally, but I picked it up from a great book called Totally Organized by Bonnie McCullough. This is a great book, by the way, look for a review of it soon.

Here's what McCullough says about what she calls...

"...MM (minimum maintenance) can set you free by 9:30 in the morning or have you ready to leave for work on time-and that means with breakfast wiped away, children dressed, dinner planned, and the clutter cleared."

Oh beautiful for spacious skies. I want to be set free by 9:30 in the morning, don't you?

Let's continue with Ms. McCullough:

"The MM system is easy to use. It calls for daily, organized house "keeping" rather than weekly or seasonal house-cleaning ordeals."

I like avoiding anything that can be referred to as an "ordeal" because, well, that's just not my cup o' tea. However, even with daily minimums, I still have a need for a slightly lengthier weekly cleaning time. But when I'm faithful with that daily deal, my weekly cleaning is quick and easy; and if I have a week where I simply can't get to it, the house is still presentable, just not quite as clean as I'd like it to be.

We'll return to a bit more advice from McCullough momentarily. For now, I'd like to walk you through my version of a Daily Minimum.

My Best Days

My best days are those when I rise early, follow my morning routine, and dive into my Daily Minimum as soon as the kids and I finish eating. Some days I dawdle, and drink another cup of coffee, and give orders to my imaginary maid; those days I don't get through my minimum by 9:30. Some days I get sidetracked and decide to clean out Mara's closet halfway through the minimum; those days I don't get through by 12:30. Some days I go with the urge to flee the house rather than clean it, and load up my pajama-clad children so we can "take breakfast to Daddy," which is really a great excuse to buy myself a latte; those days I don't even remember what minimum means until bedtime, when I rediscover its importance. But all failures aside, the DM or MM or whatever you want to call it is a great tool for keeping a house running without hours of effort. A good routine to add to your arsenal.

My Daily Minimum

(I begin directly after breakfast; I put the breakfast dishes in the sink as I'll return to the kitchen at the end of the routine.)

Kids: send Mara to go potty and get dressed; take Zeke and Robbie with me and change diapers and dress them when I get to their room.

Laundry: start one load.

Bathroom: Hang towels, clear out laundry, swipe counter/sink/toilet with peppermint cleaner, shake out rug, sweep.

Master bedroom: Straighten, put away clothes/shoes/Joe's random stuff/my books, make bed

Kids' bedrooms: Pick up clothes, make beds, straighten, put away toys/books/etc.

Entry/living room: Straighten, return toys to appropriate spots, sweep.

Dining room: Clear off and wipe down bench and table, sweep, mop.

Kitchen: Empty drainboard, empty dishwasher, clean breakfast dishes, get dinner started (I try to get as much done as I can so evenings are easier).

Laundry: Switch load to dryer.

Done.

The Professional Method

Now to return to the professional. McCullough says to "give each room five minutes before leaving for work or starting any major project of the day. You put away, straighten up, and wipe off." That's basically what I do with each room of the house.

McCullough recommends starting with the entry, but since my entry way consists of a 2 by 6 foot space with nothing in it, I don't work that way. I start at the messiest point in the morning - bathroom - and work my way back around to the kitchen, so when I start working on dinner, I already have my cleaning done.

Determine Your Daily Needs

So how do you determine your daily minimum? Experiment. Watch yourself. What actions are you repeating anyway? What part of your house needs attention on a daily basis? If you have kids, and they spread their toys around, you'll have more to deal with and you need to remember that a daily minimum doesn't mean a picture-perfect house all day long. You do have to live there, and so do your kids.

A few more pointers from McCullough:

• Don't get distracted by deep cleaning projects.
• Make the dinner decision early (even if you don't start on your prepping early, as I do).
• And this advice is my favorite: "Don't let the needs of others control your life. ...Don't just drop your world. Do the maintenance first. ...Learn to reward yourself after, rather than before, your MM is finished."

Remember, too, that there is flexibility here. As McCullough points out, a working (outside the home) person could half of the DM before work and half upon arriving home in the evening. Since I work from home, I like to get it all done so I can relax and eat chocolate while ordering my kids around relax and focus on writing and playing with my kids for the rest of the day.

Get started

You can be as simple as you want about this. Make a list on a piece of paper or an index card, post it somewhere obvious (bathroom mirror? kitchen cabinet?) and just be sure you complete everything on it sometime by the end of the day. The sooner, the better. This and your morning routine are your new best friends.

You can also download a couple of printables here to help. They're all in one downloadable file: one is a daily minimum routine check list you fill in yourself, and there's also a partially filled-in version; the other is a daily minimum check list that's already filled in, you just have to check it off as you go.

I've made them weekly so you don't need a separate sheet of paper for each day. Also, if you see you missed an item on Monday, say, you can be sure you get it completed on Tuesday.

Click here to download Printable Daily Minimum Check Lists.

Image credit: moonsheep on flickr.

Part 2 of the series: The Get-Your-Life-Together Plan

Benefits of a Morning Routine

What you do with your morning effects your entire day. Energy begets energy. Order begets order. I don't always enjoy getting out of bed, but I enjoy what the rest of my day is like when I get out of bed on time and make myself go through my routine.
One morning not long ago, after a week of great consistency on my early rising and morning routine, I decided to try just going with the flow... ignoring routine, just doing what I felt like doing, taking it easy, rolling from one thing to the next 'as the spirit moved me.'
I decided that wasn't the right spirit for me. It's fine sometimes, for holidays and weekends, but the normal day of work requires order, energy, and a good dose of knowing who's in charge. When I just wander around, it's clear that I'm not Read the rest of this entry »

Part 3 of the series: The Get-Your-Life-Together Plan

Having 3 kids under 3 forces you into being a simplicity guru. It's not a matter of preference but survival. As I burp my one-month-old and browse for writing jobs with my free hand, I realize something that is, for me, profound: having too many goals is just as deadly as having no goals at all.

Goals should bring freedom.

In order to make progress, you must define and limit your goals. Your goals should free you to pursue what matters and to happily ignore what doesn't. That will only happen as you consciously decide what matters right now and what can (or must) be ignored.  If you want to be successful in modern homemaking, mothering, working, entrepreneur-ing (how's that for coining a word?), then you have to Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of the series: "The Get Your Life Together Plan"

Image courtesy of alicepopkorn.

Find out why it matters.

When I need help being consistent, say, with exercise or cutting out soda or eating more salads, I do research. I hope from site to site, reading up on fitness routines, muscle tone, great-looking salad ideas.

And nothing changes.

Then, as I walk the mall, dodging weed-thin teenagers and power-walking Mommies in velour sweats, I catch my own reflection. Sharp gasp (my own). Look of horror (my own). That's not me: that's some 30-ish woman who has a mummy tummy and flabby arms and doesn't make that cute shirt look so cute.

I dump my soda in the nearest trash can, go home, and have a big salad for dinner. The next day Read the rest of this entry »

It's a funny thing about life, especially when you have kids involved: just when you start to figure things out, everything changes. If you're in the midst of babies, diapers, and frequent feedings, if you're juggling toddlers and finger foods, if you're trying to teach phonics and make dinner, if you spend more time in the car than at home...it doesn't matter where you are in the process of life, work, and mothering. Change comes.

We might welcome change, but it always causes a setback in terms of knowing how to deal with the new day-to-day. Sometimes the setback is small and you adjust without really thinking about it. Sometimes it takes a few weeks before you realize that what did work isn't working any longer. And sometimes it isn't easy to figure out what will work now - new routine? New schedule? Drop something? Add something? More restriction? More freedom?

Whatever the change you're dealing with, there's a way to start getting back in control instead of scurrying through your day confused and overwhelmed. This series will walk you through the 8 essential steps of dealing with your life, figuring out what works, and making it happen. Go through the steps one at a time; you may have the initial enthusiasm to take them all on, but that will quickly become overwhelm and fatigue. I'll give you recommended starting spots, and you can adjust to match your own priorities.

The articles will be appearing over the next week in the order listed below; once they're all live, however, feel free to choose the one that makes most sense for you. What area frustrates you the most right now? Pick the step that deals with that area and make that change first, give yourself a few days, and then tackle the next. You'll find as you go that you gain momentum, so though you may need a few days or even a week between steps 1 and 2, by steps 5 and 6 you will have gained more enthusiasm and energy, and you'll progress through each step faster.

The first article is a primer on how to apply these changes so they make a real difference; the last article is the final step - an overview of how to successfully establish a habit - as well as tips, ideas, and reminders to help you succeed in these changes you've just made.

• Getting Started: How to Make Changes that Stick
• Regaining Control with a Morning Routine
• Making Progress with Specific Work Goals
• Keeping House with a Daily Minimum
• Simplifying Food, Chores, and More with Repetition
• Getting Things Done with Designated Days
• Making Life Fun by Incorporating the Extras
• Ensuring Success with a Nightly Routine
• Following the Plan: Turning Steps Into Habits

Image courtesy of Crystian Cruz.