Friday, January 29, 2010

Make Your Home a Haven: Time to Plan


Well, how did your morning routine go this week? I did pretty well - I did not exercise every day, but I think that is ok with me. Other than that - I noticed that the morning routine just naturally flowed around here.

This week, our challenge involves taking time to plan. Overall, this is something I've historically been pretty good at - however, as with lots of things - we go in seasons of being good at it and struggling at it! I find myself struggling more and more with planning ahead and then being in a rush to catch up on something or get ready for what needs to be done that day.

Time to Plan: (note: this is just what works for me - if you don't like lists, do whatever works for you!!)

* Each night, I grab my daily planner and sit down for just a few minutes to plan out the day ahead. I write down all the things that I hope to get done or that need to be done. Then as I go through the day, it is a guide for me on the needs for that day.

* Meal planning: This is an area I've been struggling in the past few months! However, I'm going to make another effort at getting this back under control. I'll be setting aside a few minutes every Thursday to go through the grocery ad (released on Thursday), pull out my coupons, make a list and plan my meals for the coming week.

* School planning: I will often sit down with my manual on Sunday afternoon and look through the plans for the week to be reminded of any preparations that need to be made. I often do small prep each morning during school time for the next day while the girls are doing a worksheet or coloring.

* Chore planning is another area I have struggled greatly with this past year. I think it is a bit too much to add it in to this week, so we will focus on the above this week and look at this aspect in a future week! We'll do the same with errands by looking at this in a future week.

This week: take a look at how you are planning your days, meals and schooling (if applicable). If something is not working - take some time to come up with a new system and implement it this week to see how it works.

Our systems need to be fluid, our needs change, our schedules change and what works even changes. The systems are not there to make us their servants, but to serve us and make things more streamlined around our homes.

Do you plan or prefer to just go with the flow of the day?

Add your link from this past week!

6 comments:

Wendi said...

I really need this one. I am a list maker but haven't been making time to do this. I then find that I have nothing planned for Megan to do during school time and by the end of day nothing is accomplished. I am excited to work through this!

angie said...

I am a planner and list maker. But I think it would work more effectively if I wrote out my lists the night before. Great idea! Yesterday I wrote a list of meals for a month, trying to balance the amount of beef, poultry, pork, seafood, pasta, soups, and meatless meals. I plan to just pull 5-7 meals from that list each week in February and shop for the needed ingredients.

Kimberly Kovach said...

Like your idea of doing a daily planner each evening. Something I do to keep my house fairly clean, is every Th. or Fri. we have housecleaning day. Everyone has their chores and even if they aren't done exactly how I might do them, the house looks great. I like the zone cleaning idea, but we haven't gotten that to work here yet. Still want to try though.

Becky said...

This one will be a challenge for me, but I'm looking forward to it! I'm so not a planner kind of person. I've tried but I can never follow through so we'll see how well I do this week!

-Becky

Jen said...

I like planning my days. Even if it was as simple as jogging down a few "important" things on my daily to-do book. My goal of planning is actually to get the stuff on the book of that day done even if they were done un-perfectly. I do have my FLY control journal I created as a main base for my routines, though.

Keri said...

Hi Monica! I've been enjoying your blog for about a month now, but this is the first comment I've made. (Sorry about that!)

I just wanted to offer a suggestion for meal planning. I've had MUCH success in planning a two-week dinner menu at the beginning of each month, then repeating the same menu for the last two weeks of the month. I found monthly planning too daunting, but weekly planning seemed to come around too often for my taste. Using the method I devised, I only have to create one two-week menu a month, but the whole month (+/- a couple of days) is covered. (On those "spare" days, we do leftovers or simple stuff.)
The workload for the second half of the month is easier, too, since I'm able to prepare and freeze certain dishes the first time around, then just pull them out and thaw them the second time.

Anyway, thank you for the words of encouragement, inspiration, and instruction that you offer on your blog. I plan to continue visiting here often! :-)

-Keri Brown