Time Management: How to Juggle it all with P.R.I.M.E.

"The less routine the more life"~ Amos Bronson Alcott

Well Mr. Alcott I have to respectively disagree!

Until I firmly, militantly established routines based on my priorities, I was just flapping in the wind.

Some may argue that having strict routines makes a person miss the opportunities in living spontaneously.

I feel not having routines makes a person less productive, more apt to be lazy, and distracted.

Wow! That sounded harsh but that was me for like….years!

Not with work of course, because at work I created a routine and stuck with it. But at home, I was a lazy schmuck.  
 Maybe I was tired or more concerned with playing with my kids. Nope I was just being lazy, not taking 10 minutes to toss the laundry over or 5 to load the dishwasher or 30 seconds to make the bed!

Habits are hard to break so when I started staying home, excluding the first weeks after the birth of my son, I fell back into work routine. Letting everything just go.

 I would get these spurts when things would just get bad and I couldn’t stand it anymore (okay this is making me sound like I have dirty house it wasn’t awful just not how I wanted it or how my husband expected it since it really was my area now).

That cycle continued until I started thinking about my past jobs, honestly I was longing for the structure! Get up have breakfast, dress, the kids, drop them off, work for 8 hours, pick up, errands, dinner, you get the picture. Over a half of my day was routine when I was working. Then I get thrown into this void of EVERY MINUTE BEING MY OWN FREE WILL TO CHOOSE AS I PLEASE.

This is dangerous folks!

I had to figure out how to get my mind around not having to work for anyone but me. Then I realized this is my dream! I am WORKING for me.

 So what do I expect of Jen INC.?

I created my priorities, and then from there I broke them up into smaller, more obtainable goals with daily, weekly, or monthly routines that would help me reach them.  

I set up a morning and night routine, a routine and chore list for my kids, a cleaning and laundry routine, I carved out time in my day to only work on the blog, school, pta/voulenterring, I set goals on being more social and have tried to create a monthly routine of church groups and Girls nights out.  We have routine family nights, (working) on date nights, and my youngest son has 15 minutes of “Preschool” every day.

Jen Inc. mission statement you ask: we aim to be a productive member of society but not be a couch potato ;-)

Now on to full disclosure because I believe in brutal honestly I do not succeed at this every day. Nope I say it is 75/25 and I still have things that I want to add like workout (that should be a bad word!) But I do not get discouraged when I don’t finish it all. I look back at where I was how far I have come, and know positively one day I will master this!

Back to that opening quote, I feel at this moment at 10:29 in the evening, that I have more life more life than when there was no routine in this house.

I am not going to share my routines with you because this is a very personalized thing.

I will share the types of routines EVERYONE should have in some form

1.       Morning and night routine: This should consist of a wake up time, morning must do’s ie. Shower, pack lunch, coffee!!, check emails, set bed time. I have a check list of my routine’s so on the mornings when my brain is still comfy in bed at least I can go through the motions.
2.       Children’s Routine’s:  This so important when raising children, they CRAVE structure and I honestly believe most children would have less time to act out if they has a set routine.  Our routine’s include wake up time, chores, snacks  times (they are welcome to food anytime if they ask but we have a set time for afterschool), homework, bath, reading, and bed.
3.       Cleaning Routine: I know no one really wants to do this. But creating a schedule and making it routine very motivational to get your work done! I have a laundry routine, weekly light cleaning routine, weekend deep cleaning, and then monthly maintenance routine. I spread everything out so I am only doing a 5, 10, and 15 minute task a day.
4.       Clearing Clutter: Do this daily and try your best to put it away, throw it out, or file it. My office is my last place to concur and I am hoping that is soon! There is something called a landing zone, a place you can come in the door and put your mail, keys, shoes, ect. Make sure this is cleaned each night; clear your kitchen counters, and sink! These simple steps make it so much easier the next morning.
5.       Check-ins- Carve out a time to plan for the upcoming week and be sure to stop and review the week. Making this a routine will help all the other routines go smoother and you may find that one needs to be reevaluated.
6.       Always make checklists and add to them. My PlumPlanner has been amazing at helping me with this. There are many phone apps that help with this as well or a good ol’ spiral works too!

My last routine tip is to use a timer.
While I may be elementary there are two benefits:

1. ·         You realize folding clothes in not the most horrifying 2 hours it seems but a mere 10 minutes       
2.  Working on a routine for 20 minutes set on a timer will help you limit distractions and FOCUS

I hope everyone is getting something valuable from this series. I know it is lengthy but writing it seems to be therapeutic for me and I have had some really insightful emails!

Next we talk about innovation….Nope not too much tech stuff there.

XX,