Thursday, September 6, 2012

The Game Plan

Okay, so in the last post, you can find it here, I talked about the importance of my schedule in direct proportion to my ability to function in daily life and still find time to spend with Jesus.

Today I am going to give you a glimpse of what my schedule looks like.  On the front end I will tell you how I came about this schedule and be as honest as I can about how I work this thing.

First off, I did not even have a schedule before I had children. I didn't see the need for it, I was so overly confident that I could run the world without any sort of organization in my approach. For as often as my no-plan approach to running a house failed me, I always excused the failure with the idea that the lack affected no one but myself. If my husband was inconvenienced by the failure, I silently argued that he was an adult and could take care of his end of things when I didn't get around to it. I was really selfish during that stage of my life. Just being honest.

It was when children entered the picture that I realized my foolishness at not having a game plan. Now my failure did affect others much smaller and much more dramatic than myself. Kids thrive on routine, and I had none. All that to say, my life was a mess. My house was a mess. My emotions were a mess.

My husband told me to make a schedule. I laughed, I cried, and told him all the reason why a schedule was not the answer for me. Then I tried it.

First schedule, with one baby, was only a partial success, but it was still more of a success than having no schedule. So I revamped it, made it rather flexible. Tried again, a small increase in the success margin.

Revamped it again, and again, and again, enter baby two. More revamping. Shifting things to make a way for me to work part time while still running my house successfully. More success, but with success came the lesson of saying no, even to good things. How did I know which things to give up and which to keep?

With my 'Mommy Manifesto'.......another topic for another day, but it is pretty much a list of life goals, life vision if you will. Wanna read about my beliefs in having a life vision....check it out here. Been there, wrote that post a while back. Enjoy.

So these goals in my Mommy Manifesto help me know what is important to me personally. Some are general, others are more specific, but they help me pick which things to put in my schedule. For example, if intercession is important to me, then putting time in my schedule for that is one of the first priorities.  I put in the things that are the most important to me first, then I fill in the gaps with other things in order of decreasing priority.

Something I started a few years ago was an attempt to start 'tithing' my time to the Lord. That equals about 18 hrs of God time a week. Since that is pretty important to me, I put that time in my schedule first, giving it priority even above cleaning.

Now that I have confessed to something as radical sounding as 'tithing' my time to the Lord though, I should go ahead and mention that my schedule is not a cruel task master to me. It is more like a game plan, an overall goal for the week. More often than I care to mention, I do not get all 18 hrs in for the week. Heck, I don't even get all my scheduled cleaning in for most weeks. It is a goal people. I'm not perfect yet and neither is my schedule. If something doesn't happen though, I no longer beat myself up over it, I just shrug my shoulders and try again the next week.

I also leave a lot of flexibility in it. I have laundry on Wednesday and Friday mornings and I have a play date time slot on Thursday afternoons. If my friends can't hang out Thursday afternoon though, then I can switch one of my laundry mornings for that week to Thursday aftrnoon and have a morning play date instead. Or if I allot myself an hour for making dinner, but we have lots of left overs, then my girls and I can do something extra that afternoon because dinner will not take that long to prepare.

Making sense? I hope so.

So now that you know how I have developed this schedule, I am going to show you my current schedule. I have had this new schedule for about a month. My previous schedule I had for about three months. I would have to say that three months is about how long on average I have any given schedule before I need to make some changes to it. I usually re-evaluate my schedules every three months because with little toddlers, things just change that quickly. With a new baby, who knows how long this current schedule will last. Here is is anyways.


8/1/2012 Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
7:15 A wake girls wake girls wake girls wake girls wake girls wake girls wake girls
7:30 A breakfast breakfast breakfast breakfast breakfast breakfast breakfast
7:45 A clean up clean up clean up clean up clean up clean up clean up
8:00 A computer  computer computer  computer  computer  computer  computer 
8:15 Aprep prep prep prep prep prep prep
8:30 A prep





8:45 A prep





9:00 A MSF





9:15 AMSF





9:30 A MSF prep prep Laundry prep Laundry
9:45 A MSF prep prep Laundry prep Laundry
10:00 A MSF errands Coffee Laundry Coffee  Laundry
10:15 A MSF errands Coffee Laundry Coffee  Laundry
10:30 A MSF errands Coffee Laundry Coffee  Laundry
10:45 A
errands Coffee Laundry Coffee  Laundry
11:00 A
errands Coffee Laundry Interc. Laundry
11:15 A
errands Coffee Laundry Interc. Laundry
11:30 A prep errands Coffee prep Interc. prep
11:45 A prep errands Coffee prep Interc. prep
12:00 P clean up clean up clean up clean up Interc. clean up clean up
12:15 P Lunch Lunch Lunch Lunch Interc. Lunch Lunch
12:30 P make up prayer clean up prayer Interc. prayer swing cl
12:45 P make up prayer clean up prayer clean up prayer swing cl
1:00 P make up prayer clean up prayer clean up prayer swing cl
1:15 P make up prayer clean up prayer clean up prayer swing cl
1:30 P reading reading reading reading reading reading reading
1:45 P reading reading reading reading reading reading reading
2:00 P Prayer  school Prayer school Prayer school Prayer 
2:15 P Prayer school Prayerschool Prayer  school Prayer 
2:30 P Prayer  school Prayer  school Prayer  school Prayer 
2:45 P Prayer school Prayer  school Prayer  school Prayer 
3:00 P

school outing school
school
3:15 P

school outing school
school
3:30 P

school outing school
school
3:45 P


outing clean up

4:00 P


outing clean up

4:15 P


outing clean up

4:30 P


outing clean up

4:45 P


outing clean up

5:00 P dishes dishes dishes dishes dishes dishes dishes
5:15 P cooking cooking cooking cooking cooking cooking cooking
5:30 P cooking cooking cooking cooking cooking cooking cooking
5:45 P cooking cooking cooking cooking cooking cooking cooking
6:00 P Dinner Dinner Dinner Dinner Dinner Dinner Dinner
6:15 P Dinner Dinner Dinner Dinner Dinner Dinner Dinner
6:30 P clean up clean up clean up clean up Sm. Group clean up clean up
6:45 P



Sm, Group

7:00 P MESH/MOMS


Sm. Group

7:15 P MESH/MOMS


Sm. Group

7:30 P MESH/MOMS clean up clean up clean up Sm. Group clean up clean up
7:45 P MESH/MOMS reading reading reading Sm. Group reading reading
8:00 P MESH/MOMS Bedtime Bedtime Bedtime Sm. Group Bedtime Bedtime
8:15 P MESH/MOMS Prayer 
Prayer  Sm. Group EGS prep sch. 
8:30 P MESH/MOMS Prayer 
Prayer  Sm. Group EGS prep sch. 
8:45 P MESH/MOMS Prayer 
Prayer  Sm. Group EGS prep sch. 
9:00 P MESH/MOMS Prayer 
Prayer  Sm. Group EGS prep sch. 
God-hrs 5 2.5 1.5 2.5 4.5 2.5 1.5







20


Please take note of all the blank space. I no longer feel it necessary to fill in all the gaps with something. The blanks are free time, places to stick extra things that pop up from week to week. Some of my other scheduled entries are rather general, like 'reading'. I would like that to be my Bible most of the time, but sometimes it is a really good Christian book instead.  You will see my totals for tithed time at the bottom, which totals 20 hrs. instead of the 18 that I told you. That is so if I miss a few hours a week, it still comes out to 18 or so. If I get all these hours in, then I give the Lord a bit extra. No harm in that, right?

A few of the entries you will not know what I mean, like 'make up' day and 'swing clean', which both deal with my specific cleaning chores for the week. Hey, it's my schedule, it makes sense to me. Yours will make sense to you when you make it!

Now, if you have questions, let me know. Seriously, if you have questions, I want to try to answer them. Post them on here, and thanks for taking the time to read about me and my schedule.

The Lord is a God of order, He can help you be more so. Be encouraged.


*Note, after posting this I realized that part of my schedule is cut off.....but is mostly just more of the same format as the portion you can see. The only thing to note is most of my Saturday is wide open on my schedule because that is my Sabbath. You should always try to protect your sabbath and really try to rest and keep it low stress. :-) It's healthy.

3 comments:

lovefam6 said...

I love how you say that your schedule is a goal rather than a harsh task master. I am leaning towards a schedule b/c I know that I need one, but really do not like them for whatever reason. I seriously had curse words in my head as I looked as yours even though I'm nodding my head in agreement with everything written before hand, lol. Sheesh, Lord I need more grace. And more. And more. Amen.

Momma2MyGirls said...

Ha! lovefam6 - I use to have curse words running thru my head as my husband would tell me how much a schedule would help me. Finally, after I ran out of excuses on why not to do it, I eventually tried it, in a sneaky sort of way at first so that Ken wouldn't know I was taking his advice. I'm pathetic, I know, but honest too.

lovefam6 said...

Hahaha! Love it, yep that's me too. I really am sneakily trying to use a schedule. I still suck at though, I have to remember to look at it, lol.