How to schedule your life successfully!

Why You Need A Schedule

Creating and maintaining a schedule can be done, even for those of us no longer working in the classic 9-5 office environment.

While it can seem like a dream to make your own hours, work from the comfort of your own home and be autonomous, reality can be very far from that dream. Similarly, being a SAHM who isn’t working outside of her house responsibilities would fall under this same category. People trying to succeed in an unstructured world.

Without a schedule, everyday can look like a failure. Maybe you have a to do list, or you planned out your schedule at the beginning of the day. So why does each day seem to end the same way? With you utterly and totally exhausted, nothing crossed off your to do list, and a sense of overwhelm and anxiety.

You don’t just need a schedule. You need the right kind of schedule.

Time Is Not Elastic

20 years ago, when my sister and I both began the cycle of working, having babies, maternity leave (her – I ran a business and couldn’t take off), and running a home – I saw a stark difference in our personalities. If she would ask me for a favor my automatic response would be “Sure!” followed by me thinking through how I could fit it in. If I ever asked her for a favor, there would be a long pause, followed by a let me figure it out, and many times a yes to the favor. It used to annoy me. Why did she always have to make me feel uncomfortable asking? She ended up helping me out anyway!

My dad once gave a speech about me. In it he spoke about how for me, time seemed to be elastic. I always think I have endless amounts of it, and I can get it to stretch to accommodate my needs.

My sister was right, my dad was right, and I was very wrong.

My computer programmer, organized sister understood what I didn’t. Time is not elastic. There are a set amount of hours in the day, and some of them are needed for sleep and other basic necessities. Making a schedule that leaves no room for error, not enough time for whatever is scheduled, and contains unrealistic goals is bound for failure.

Where To Start

Even us unstructured workers who make our own schedules have some things that are immoveable. A child with a set weekly appointment/activity. Commitments we have that need doing at a specific time. We also have recurring items that may benefit from being given a specific time, like ordering groceries online, or updating our weekly budget. Then we have our daily routines that need to be worked in, that can include things like work, housecleaning, preparation for the next day, and the list goes on.

I use three items on a daily basis:

• My Daily Planner
• A sheet of paper listing my three routines (for me that’s a morning routine, an evening routine and what I call my “Main Floor Routine”
• A sheet of paper where I have mapped out my regular weekly schedule.

The Weekly Schedule

This was the key to success from the start.

I made a simple excel sheet where I mapped out each day of the week. What time do I need to get up to do my morning routine and work out and pray and pack up the lunches? What time do I leave the house? Did I leave time for traffic when I do carpool? Leave grace time between scheduled items. If I end up with an extra ten minutes somewhere, I can always check my to do list to see what I can squeeze in. What time am I working today? What is on my cleaning schedule for that day? Where am I prepping dinner?

Once its all laid out in front of you in black and white, a wonderful and horrible thing happens at the same time. You realize that there is so little time to do everything you want to get done! But the wonderful thing is, because you have no choice, you have had to make some tough decisions on what is staying in the schedule and what is out.

Why It Works

This weekly schedule does not change. I always play basketball on Tuesday and Saturday night. Dinner, bath and bedtime need to be scheduled in. It won’t magically happen on its own. And because I know my boys get back later on Sunday and Tuesdays from hockey (I see it on my schedule), I have scheduled an earlier dinner on those days so they can eat before they go. Before hand it was never ready in time because OOPS!

If I order groceries online, I know Monday is always the best day where I live, but if I don’t put an hour into the schedule to do it (checking inventory in the house, seeing what I’m making for the coming week, going through and ordering what we need), I keep pushing it off until never.

The horrible is definitely this feeling of “There is so little time in the day, how will I ever do everything I want to get done?” But the wonderful is realizing that while I had to cut some things out, I am getting more done than ever before. I have time to do the things I set out to do, I plow through it, and in the evening, when I the schedule says it is time to stop, I don’t feel guilty.

Where The Daily Planner Comes In

A weekly schedule is nice, but alone it would fail. In my life, things like doctors appointments, someone calling for a favor, and needing to buy new pants for one of my boys, are occurrences that are irregular and need to be worked into the schedule too.

Part of my nighttime routine is preparing for the next day. After I get ready for bed, I take a few minutes and pull out both my weekly schedule and my planner. First I do what some like to call a brain dump. A list of to do items, things that have come up, any priority I would like to make for the next day. Then I look at my weekly schedule with my planner open.

I fill out what I plan to do the next day and when, but this is where flexibility comes in. Say I need to take one of my kids to the doctor. I look at the weekly schedule. The appointment is in a work slot. Conflict. I don’t want to miss that, so I check what else I have going on that day. Maybe I will defrost a frozen dinner and use paper plates that night to buy myself some extra time. Maybe I need to give up on my walk, but I will keep my morning workout. Maybe I have a declutter slot that day that I will forego this week. Lots of maybes, but the bottom line is that the night before I have decided what my priorities are and how I am choosing to make it work.

Troubleshooting to Guarantee Success

Sitting down to create my weekly schedule took me a couple of hours. When I did it, I realized there were certain spots in my schedule that were bound for failure. The weekly schedule needs to work. If you need to keep something in there, but something is conflicting, you need to figure out a solution. That might be asking someone for help, hiring a mother’s helper for an hour on a regular basis, or leaving the house ten minutes earlier to avoid traffic.

There is one day a week that I like to focus on doing a bigger clean. I try to keep things maintained during the week, but I find I need one day to spend a bit more time on the house. The day I do the deep clean had an hour where my youngest would probably be getting in my way. My solution was to split the hour and give 2 of my kids 30 minutes each for entertaining her. That is their job on that day, and it is their longest job of the week.

Why We Need Routines

Without regular routines, our schedules can become overwhelming.

My morning routine consists of making my bed, washing up and getting dressed, swishing and swiping the MBR bathroom, throwing a load into the wash and packing up the school bags at the door. I have something I call my Main Floor Routine. It’s basically clean up after dinner, the 2 minute hot spot (fly lady – if you know you know), sinks, counters, floor check, powder room swish and swipe… to name a few. My morning routine is about 15-30 minutes. The main floor routine is closer to an hour, and my night time routine is 15-30 minutes.

That’s 2 hours of my schedule, prearranged under “routines” that take place throughout the day. These are things that MUST happen every day if I can even begin to follow a schedule. I make sure I leave myself enough time for the routines in the schedule. If I finish 10 or 15 minutes earlier, that is only a bonus.

Circumstances are different for all of us, but here is an example of my daily routines:

WAKE UP ROUTINE:

Make Bed

Wash Up

Master Bathroom Swish & Swipe

Dress to Shoes

Floor Check

Put in One Load of Laundry

Prepare School Bags

MAIN FLOOR ROUTINE:

Clean Kitchen

Load Both Dishwashers

Clean Counters

Clean Sinks

Pick Up Living Room

Clear Dining Room Table

Floor Check

Guest Bathroom Swish & Swipe

NIGHT ROUTINE:

Wash Up and PJS

Brain Dump

Check Schedule for Tomorrow

Trust The Schedule

-You mapped out your weekly schedule

-You have a chart with your daily routines

-You are checking your planner every night to troubleshoot and tailor your weekly schedule for the upcoming day

Now you need to sit back and trust the schedule.

If you are sitting and working, you might have a niggling feeling that you are supposed to be preparing dinner or changing a load of laundry.

Ignore it and trust the schedule.

We have become so used to trying to cram everything in, that we find it hard to focus on one task for fear we should be doing something else. For once though, we are actually doing what we are supposed to. It’s right there in black and white! Trust the schedule and before you know it, things will actually be getting done. You will know when you can say yes, and see that sometimes you need to say no.

Creating a successful schedule can bring you peace, happiness and a chance to finally succeed at everything you want to do. Tackle your schedule, tailor it to your life, and message us here with any questions!