Creating Bedtime Routines

One of the concerns that parents often ask me about is the trouble they have getting their kids to go to bed and stay in bed at night.

Nothing gets a parent more exhausted and worn out than night after night of no sleep. The truth is that when we think of the idea of going to sleep, it sounds like a tempting proposition: moms rarely feel that they get enough of it. They long for a good night of deep rest as a traveler in the desert longs for fresh water! But for our young kids, the idea of getting to sleep is not nearly as appealing. It means the fun has to stop and most kids will let you know of the disappointment via tantrums and crying.

Most children are ready to start a bedtime routine as early as 6 months. It’s important to know how much sleep is necessary and age appropriate so your expectations for your children can be realistic. Also, have you noticed if your child is a natural “night owl” or an “early riser”? Some children show a preference early on.

Peace mind only comes when we have a plan of action, realizing there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Here are some simple tips to consider:

1. Make the hour before bedtime quiet, peaceful and an opportunity to slow down. Make it fun! Include things that your child loves to do: read his favorite book or tell him his favorite story or play his favorite music. Make the idea of going to bed appealing!
2. Have a clear routine that your child understands: get a warm bath, put pajamas on, brush teeth, read story. Whatever is important to you and your child should be part of a consistent routine you follow most nights.
3. Take the opportunity of closeness that bedtime affords. Our children grow so fast and need less and less of our intervention at bedtime. Until very recently, our 8-year-old would ask us to lie down in bed with her after the lights went out. She has now asked us to let her go to sleep on her own. I can’t tell you how much I miss that little “snuggling” time but I knew it wasn’t going to last forever. I am glad I enjoyed while it lasted!

The bottom line is: rest when you can even if that means chores wait. Stick to the routine you’ve created and be consistent. It may take a little time, but in the end, it will pay off.

Sandra is the “soul” and “coach” behind the Soulful Parent. She has worked in Early Intervention, Special Education and has supported many families in the road to successful parenting. She became a PCI Certified Parent Coach® because she’s deeply passionate about changing the world, one family at a time. Sandra believes that life becomes a more enjoyable journey when you lead from your strengths! She can be contacted Sandra {at} thesoulfuparent(.)com and www.thesoulfulparent.com for more information about seminars, presentations and individual coaching services.

Different Ways of Keeping Track of Your Daily Routines

Half the battle of sticking with your daily routines is keeping track of them so that they are easily visible and referenced.  If they are buried in a drawer where you have to dig through a pile of paper to find them, chances are you will quickly abandon them.  Here are some quick and easy ways of keeping your daily routines visible and easily tracked.

Write or type them down on a separate schedule and simply post them either on your refrigerator with a magnetic clip or on a bulletin board.  Just be sure to post them where you will naturally see them every day such as in the family kitchen or in your office.  You can create your own schedule or use one of our free daily routine schedules.

Dry erase boards are a great way of writing out your personal routines as well as the kids’ routines.  Hanging in a central location or on the back of your kids’ bedroom doors, dry erase boards have the benefit of being easily updated or changed.

If you use a daily planner, use the notes section to write your daily routines.  Every night before going to bed, lay out your planner on the kitchen counter open to your daily routine page so that you can easily reference the routines in the morning.  Use the same practice at lunch time for your afternoon routines and in the evening for your evening routines.  You may want to write them in pencil in case you need to make changes.

Write your daily routines on index cards and either paperclip them to your family calendar or hang them on your refrigerator.

If you use a family organizer, simply add them as one of the pages and open your organizer to that page every morning, afternoon, and evening for quick reference.

If you use an electronic calendar such as Microsoft Outlook or Google Calendar, create recurring tasks with the details of your routines.  To keep your lists from becoming overcrowded and overwhelming, create one task that incorporates all of your morning, afternoon, and evening tasks by writing out the individual tasks in the subject line or in the notes section.  Similar to this example here:

Good luck!

Simple Questions Every Family Should Ask Themselves the Night Before

At first I was reluctant to write this post because on the surface it seems so simple and not very helpful.  But after forgetting to communicate with my oldest daughter for the past two weeks about a commitment I had and being forced to communicate via taped notes to the door,  I decided that maybe there was merit in writing about some simple but often overlooked questions every family should ask themselves prior to the start of a new day.  So here is my list of questions that I have now included in my daily routines.

Where am I going tomorrow and what does my family need to know about this?

Sometimes we get caught up in what our calendar says that we don’t take the time to think through the implications and the messages our family needs to hear.  Do I have a meeting that will require my daughter to let herself in the house or my husband to pick up the kids?  Taking the time to think through and ask the implications of the items on our planner will help tremendously in keeping the family in sync. 

What will me and my family need while I am gone?

Along with where we are going, there are often things we and our family will need while gone.  For example, if I am going to be late for a meeting I need to make sure my daughter has her key and that I have my planner.  Will I be sitting in a doctor’s office?  Then I should probably bring a long a good book to keep me busy. 

Where are my kids going tomorrow and what doe s the family need to know about this?

Is your child staying after school for a Brownie meeting?  Then making sure her sister knows she won’t be walking home with her would be a good idea.  Does one of my kids have an after school doctor appointment that will require me to pick the other kids up early from school?  Then this is something my kids need to know. 

What will my kids need for the next day?

Asking yourself and the kids this question will help you remember to write the permission slip, pack the Brownie vest, and include the lunch money.

What am I doing tomorrow, what do I need to do it, and what will my family need to know about this?

Okay, this is really three questions, but thought it made sense to combine it into one.  Is laundry on your do list the next day?  Then letting your husband know he needs to clean out his gym bag would be a helpful thing.  Are you picking up your son a new pair of sneakers?  Then checking to make sure you know what size he wears would be a helpful thing.

Good luck!

Conquering the Chaos Part III – Creating a Family Schedule that Works

Conquering the Chaos Part III - Creating a Family Schedule that Works

Congratulations on making it this far in our Conquering the Chaos series.  This is the final installment of our three part series and before getting into the details of making a family schedule let’s recap what we have done so far.

If you have followed along in Part I and Part II in our Conquering the Chaos series you should have the following things completed:

• An inventory of how and where your family spends their time
• A good understanding of the bottlenecks, habits, and patterns that are causing problems
• A list or understanding of things you want to change
• A list or understanding of the things working well
• What areas or activities are causing the most stress in your life as well as which areas are consuming the most time
• What areas of your life need more time
• What areas or buckets of your family life that are the most enjoyable
• A Family Life Vision - A well thought out articulated statement of how you want your family life to look and feel

We will use all of these things to create a solid family schedule, so if you haven’t already go back to Part I and Part II and work through them before continuing on with this segment.

Setting Anchor Points

To finalize your family schedule you need to begin by setting anchor points to your day.  These are the ideal start and end points to your day in which everything fits in between.  Using the family life vision you wrote in Part II as a guide, set an ideal start time of your day and an ideal ending time of your day.  For example, let’s say you would love to start your day no earlier than 6:00am and be in bed everything night with lights out by 10:00pm.  6:00am would be your start time and 10:00pm would be your end time and all the family life bucket activities need to fit within these two times.  These times are the anchors to your day and need to be realistic.  If you are unrealistic in setting these anchors then your family schedule will soon start to fail after implementation, so put some thought into them and be sure to keep in mind whether you are a morning person or a night owl. 

Establishing Priorities

Okay now that you have the anchor points to your day set, it is time to start establishing priorities.  This part may be difficult for a lot of people, but without it you will find yourself and family scattered and overwhelmed. 

Using the family life vision statement you created in Part II as well as questions you answered in the Family Life Bucket exercise, you need to go through all the family life buckets and sort them into three categories - High Priority, Medium Priority, and Low Priority.

High priority buckets are buckets in your life that mean the most to us or are “requirements of living”.  These are the things we do throughout our day that are either necessities for living like eating, showering, homework, or that are intrinsically important to our family.  These are the “must do’s” and “want to do’s” of your day.

The medium priority buckets in your life are the “should do’s” of your day.  These are the things that we may or may not enjoy doing, but have to be done to avoid negative consequences and to function normally in life.  For example, house cleaning for many people may fall into this category.  It isn’t something we must do to survive and isn’t necessarily something we enjoy doing, but if it isn’t done can result in unhealthy living conditions and distractions to the family life.  Other things that may fall into this category are things like laundry, bill paying, lawn work, or visits to the dentist. 

The low priority buckets of your life are things that are not critical to everyday living and you do if you have time or energy.   For some people this may be things like making beds, washing windows, or fixing a squeaky door hinge.   These are the buckets and activities that we will assign the least amount of time in our schedule. 

Creating a Family Schedule that Works

Now that you have all of your family activities and buckets prioritized it is time to put everything into a family schedule.

To do this you will need some type of blank weekly schedule and a pencil.  You can use our family schedule printable or create your own.  Just be sure to have one with all seven days and one in which you have room to write. 

To begin, start with your highest priority items and your anchor times and go through each day assigning a block of time for each high priority item.  Much of how you allocate time for each high priority activity will depend on the hard points in your schedule such as when school starts or when you need to be at work.  To avoid making this step too tedious, start by just blocking off chunks of time (see the weekend example in our printable) for each high priority item rather than trying to assign specific time slots.  Over time you can refine the schedule and make it more detailed by assigning specific time slots if you need them to help you stay on track.  Once you schedule in the high priority items, go through and fill in your schedule for the medium priority items and the low priority items.  When you are done you should have a schedule with time each week or day for each family life bucket on your list. 

Sticking to the Schedule

Now that you have your family schedule created here are some tips to help you stay on track.

• Post the schedule in a central location so that you MUST look at it every day.
• Add reviewing the family schedule to your daily routines.
• Work on anticipating disruptions and managing disruptions so that you can stay on track
• Don’t be afraid to change the schedule if you find something isn’t working. Most if not all families will have to make some changes to the schedule and this is okay!
• Use the family schedule as a guide and learn to be flexible when it comes to making changes and deviating from the schedule from time to time. Letting the kids stay up an hour later occasionally isn’t going to ruin the schedule just as long as you don’t let it become a habit.
• Practice delegating, deleting, and simplifying certain activities so that you can fit everything in at a comfortable pace.

Remember, there will be days where no amount of scheduling and planning will help.  On days like these, just accept the disruptions for the day while being careful not to use the bad days as an excuse to abandon the schedule.  

Good luck!

Conquering the Chaos Part II – Organizing Your Life into Buckets

Now that you have gone through Part I of our Conquering the Chaos segment and have a time inventory of a typical week, it’s time to begin to understand what all that means by sorting the activities and tasks that occupy your days into buckets, so you can more easily understand where you spend your time, where you want to spend more time, and things in your life that are just right.

Begin this exercise by printing off the life bucket printable and begin sorting all the tasks and activities from your family life inventory into one of the appropriate buckets:  School, Extra-Curricular, Household Cleaning, Laundry, Household Maintenance & Repairs, Lawn Work, Volunteer Commitments, Faith Commitments, Administrative, Meal Planning, Household Finances, Fun Stuff, Personal, Auto/Transportation, Family Commitments, and Other.

For example, let’s say you look at your family life inventory for Sunday and found you did the following things (click picture to enlarge):

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You would then go through this list and sort each of these items into the appropriate bucket making sure to include the time as well so that your bucket list looks something like this (click picture to enlarge):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go through your family life inventory day by day and add each activity to the bucket list.  For tasks you do every day, for example making dinner, enter it once in the Meal Planning and Prep bucket with an average time from the week it took you to plan and make dinner. 

Once you have gone through your family life inventory and added everything to your bucket list, then go through and add anything you didn’t do the week you took your family life inventory but know you need to do.  For example, you may have done a family life inventory during a week in which you didn’t need to mow the lawn, but you know it is something that is typically done, so go ahead and add it to your bucket list along with a time estimate.  You want to have as complete a list as possible.

Understanding What It All Means

Now that you have your life divided into buckets, it is time to understand and analyze what it all means.  To do this, go through your bucket list and ask yourself these questions:

What buckets or activities are taking the most time?

On what buckets or activities should we be spending more of our time?

What buckets or activities are causing the most stress?

What buckets or activities are the most enjoyable?

What buckets or activities are the least enjoyable?

 

Starting With the End in Mind

Now that you have a good picture of what your current family life looks like, it is time to spend some time on what you WANT your family life to look.  This is a mental image or written expression of what you want your family life to look like most of the time.  The point of this exercise is to articulate how you want your family life to be by asking yourself these questions:

What things do I want to spend less time doing?

What things do I want to spend more time doing?

I want our family life to be less………?

I want our family life to be more…….?

I personally want to be more…..?

Here is an example to help better understand:

I want to stop rushing and having to yell at my kids to hurry up.  I want to have time to exercise a few days a week and to sit down in the evening and spend time reading to my kids, playing games with my kids, and enjoying my family rather than running around getting things done.

I want a clean house, but minimize the amount of time I spend cleaning.  I want to have all the clutter, toys, and stuff picked up every night before bed so that I don’t have to look at it in the morning.

I want to know in advance what I am making for dinner and I want the dinner to be healthy.  I want to spend a maximum of 90 minutes each day making and cleaning up after dinner.

I want to find more time on the weekends just spending time with my family rather than running to soccer games and sports events.  I want to find time to do the things we say we want to do, but never seem to find the time.

I want to stop paying bills late and want to spend a maximum of 60 minutes each week doing bills and financial work.

I want the kids to be in bed by 9 PM every night.

I want to be in bed by 10 PM every night and get up an hour before the kids every morning

I want to find more time for date nights with my husband and nights out with friends

I personally want to be less stressed, less worried, and more fulfilled.

Remember no family or family life is perfect.  We all have good days, bad days, and points in our lives where no amount of planning analyzing, or preparation can make better.  The point of this exercise is to articulate a vision and goal not make yourself perfect.  Sometimes things are out of our control but that shouldn’t be a reason to not try at all.

Once you get through this exercise save all your notes along with the notes from Conquering the Chaos - Part I for next month’s segment - Conquering the Chaos Part III - Creating a Family Schedule that Works. 

Good luck!

Conquering the Chaos Part I – Taking an Inventory of Your Life

With the start of a new school year we thought it fitting to take some time to talk about how to create a family schedule and routine.  Most families start out with good intentions to create a more harmonious family life by vowing to cut back on the running, stress, and general chaos of everyday life, and for a variety of reasons abandon the commitment and plan shortly into the new school year partly out of exhaustion and partly out of an inability to overcome the hiccups along the way. 

With this in mind we are beginning a three part series on Conquering the Chaos.  Over the next three monthly newsletters we will tackle three aspects of creating a sound family schedule - Taking an Inventory of Your Current Family Life, Organizing Your Family Life into Buckets, and Creating a Family Schedule that Works.  By dividing the topic up into three segments we hope families will have a chance to take some time working on each aspect and be ready to move on to the next topic the following month.  So let’s get started!

Taking an Inventory of Your Current Family Life

The secret to any good family schedule is to understand in detail the current situation and being honest about what your family needs and wants to change.  This is the hardest part for many families because it takes the most time and often forces parents and kids to face some of the reasons behind the current craziness of their lives.  Without this step though, you run the risk of not addressing the root causes of your chaotic lives and eventually “fixing” the wrong things. 

Understanding Where You Spend Your Time

Have you ever gotten to the end of a long day and asked yourself, “What did I do all day?”  This happens to many families who have become overwhelmed with the general craziness of life.  Parents know they did something, but their accomplishments and efforts have become overshadowed by the chaos of the day and for the life of them, they can’t remember anything they did throughout the day.  To get a true handle on your schedule and the current state of your family life, you first need to take an inventory of where you spend your time and how long everything takes.  In essence you are doing a mini time study of your family’s habits, schedules, and time so you can better understand where your time goes, the bottlenecks, poor habits, and patterns of your family life. 

To get this step started you will need a copy of the Family Life Time Inventory for both parents, one week of your time, and a little dedication and persistence.  Begin by printing off the family life time inventory for yourself and spouse.  You also may want to print off additional copies to post on your refrigerator or keep in your briefcase or desk at work. 

The time inventory has sections for each day of the week and is further divided by morning, afternoon, and evening sections.   Begin by choosing a week that is fairly typical of your everyday life and then begin making notes each day about the things you do during the morning, afternoon, and evening.  Be sure to keep enough detail so you can actually pinpoint the specific tasks you did as well as how long they took, but not so much detail that it becomes burdensome to keep up.  Also be sure to keep any notes regarding bottlenecks, habits, or patterns you have noticed.  Feel free to expand any notes or thoughts you have on the back of the paper. 

If you work outside the home, it will be your choice as to whether or not to include details on your work activities.  If you just want to keep notes on your family life activities during the day while at work, be sure to have one handy at work.  Some examples of things you may do while at the office are, making doctor’s appointments, picking up birthday presents on your lunch hour, or updating your work calendar with the kids’ activity schedule. 

Understanding the Bottlenecks, Habits, and Patterns

After a week of doing the time inventory you should begin to notice bottlenecks, habits, and patterns to your family life.  For example, are the mornings crazy because too many people are using the bathroom at once?  Is the TV distracting you and the kids in the evening?  Is your toddler having meltdowns every time you try and leave the house?  It is important to understand these because these things are often the culprit of a disruptive family routine and sometimes can easily be changed or fixed with minor tweaks.  So take some time to make notes on these things and experimenting with making some changes.  We will discuss them further in Step III - Creating a Schedule that Works.

Evaluating What You Want to Change and What Works Well

Your last assignment is to sit down as a family and discuss the things you want to change and the things that are working well.  For example, some parents may want to make it possible to get more sleep for themselves and their children.  Another example may be to sit down more often as a family for dinner.  Just as important as noting the things you want to change is making note of the things that are working well.  For example, Friday night family nights may be something that are currently working well and shouldn’t be changed.  Another example may be parents taking time every evening to read to their children.  If it is something you enjoy and something that isn’t causing any current stress to the family then it is probably something you are doing well and shouldn’t be changed.  Use our printable, a notepad, or better yet a table top flip chart (kids LOVE these) to make your notes and document your conversation.  Save everything for use in Parts II and III.

If your kids are old enough it is important to do this step as a family.  Put one of your kids in charge of making the notes and be sure to give everyone a chance to voice their opinions and concerns. 

Good luck!

Anticipating Disruptions to the Daily Routine

There are some days and weeks when I feel like I have gotten nothing done which I know isn’t the case because with four kids, a husband, and a job, I know I had to have done something.  But when I look back at my day and can’t scratch anything off my list or haven’t gotten one thing from my daily routine done, I have to wonder what I am doing wrong.  After all what’s the point of creating routines and do lists when you can never seem to scratch anything off?  So when I think back and analyze what went wrong I realize that for a majority of the time, I did a really poor job of anticipating disruptions.  Somehow when I was sitting down to write out my plan for the week, I had a momentary fantasy that I was Superwoman and could accomplish anything and everything.  Of course leaving me completely frustrated at the end of the week when I didn’t accomplish anything on my list. 

So over the years, I have gotten better about anticipating disruptions to the routine and being more realistic about what I can humanly accomplish with my sanity intact while also being more proactive at minimizing them.  Here is a list of the things I have found to be the biggest disruptions to my routine and how I try to work around them:

Having Too Many Appointments

There are weeks when I spend a lot of time sitting in doctors’ offices.  My youngest was born with congenital glaucoma and this requires at times a lot of different visits to both a cornea specialist and pediatric ophthalmologist.  This is of course on top of the regular visits I have for myself and other three kids to the dentist, pediatrician, optometrist, as well as school and work related appointments. 

So to minimize how much appointments disrupt my routine here is what I do:

• Schedule doctor’s appointments a lot in advance so that I have more choice over the time and day.
• Minimize how many appointments I have each week pushing the non-critical ones to another week if there are too many
• Not being afraid to reschedule appointments
• Making the most of the time I spend waiting for doctors by making sure that I have things to do such as kids’ homework or work projects such as writing blog posts.

Having Too Many Errands

In addition to all the appointments there are errands that all seem to happen at once.  Errands like dropping off books at the library, going to the bank, picking up a birthday gift, or stopping to fill up your car with gas as you coast into the station on fumes.  To minimize the disruptions caused by errands I use these strategies:

• Try to do all errands on one day to save time and gas
• Keep an errand list , so that I don’t forget anything or spend time trying to remember everything I have to get done.
• Buy things like gifts online whenever possible.
• Keep a small gift stash on hand for those last minute birthday party invites
• Use a meal planner and shopping list to minimize how many stops I need to make at the stores.

Underestimating How Much Time Things Will Take

This is definitely where I am weakest.  I always think I can get things done quicker than I can by failing to account for disruptions from kids, computer glitches, and traffic jams.  So to minimize the disruptions caused by this I use these techniques:

• For big projects, I do a quick time estimate to help me gauge how long something will take. I then look at my calendar and try and determine if I can honestly get the task done given how much time is required and all the other commitments I have for the week or day.
• Use the internet to check on traffic before heading out to see if there are any traffic jams or detours I need to account for in my travels.
• Adding a cushion into all my time estimates especially when it involves getting kids ready and out the door.

Disruptions are a reality of any busy family’s life and there are times when no amount of planning and strategizing will prevent them from happening.  It is times like these you just need to cope and make sure you focus on the critical things because if your routine is strong picking back up when the disruptions are over should be an easy thing to do.

Managing Disruptions to the Routine

Last month in our Conquering the Chaos segment, we talked about the power of a good routine and how having one for your family can really help you and your kids feel less stressed and frustrated.  But because sometimes life doesn’t always go according to plan, it is important to understand how disruptions can impact your routine and how families can adjust when they do happened.  Here are four strategies to help you deal with and manage the disruptions.

Anticipate Disruptions

Sometimes the impact of disruptions can be minimized by simply anticipating them and making changes to accommodate them.  For example, if your daughter has a doctor’s appointment one morning that will take you away from your morning routine and make it virtually impossible to get everything done,  take some time to decide before the appointment  which items can either be moved, deleted, or delegated.   By taking time every day to review your family calendar or planner and looking ahead the next few days, you will quickly notice the conflicts and can take steps to make changes.  For example, maybe a co-worker can handle a work assignment or a friend would be willing to swap classroom volunteer times with you.  The key to making this work is to look ahead and make plans to handle the disruptions BEFORE they happen.

Set Boundaries

Block off times on your calendar or schedule for certain items.  For example, only schedule regular doctor’s appointments for a certain day of the week or during a certain time period each day.  Or, let your son’s teacher know that you would love to volunteer in the class but you can only make it on certain days or a specific number of times each month.  By taking the time to set boundaries around your schedule, you can better manage unanticipated disruptions and maintain more control.

Communicate

Sometimes disruptions happen simply because we didn’t communicate well with our spouse or children.  For example, if it is a beautiful day and you think it would be great to take a family bike ride in the evening, take some time to call your spouse and talk it over.  After all, homework still needs done, baths taken, and dinner made.  By talking things like this over beforehand, kids can get homework done before dinner rather than after or you can pick up take out on your way home to save time.   Use the family calendar, email, family meetings, text messaging, and the good old fashioned phone to help you stay in touch and better communicate with your family.

Go with the Flow

Unfortunately there are still a lot of things in our life we can’t control and no amount of anticipating, boundary setting, and communicating will minimize the disruptions.  At times like these we just need to go with the flow and focus on the most urgent demands and make the most of delegating and deferring.  While keeping in mind that most unanticipated disruptions will be temporary and that the strength of your routine will help you easily get back into the groove of things once the disruption has passed. 

Creating a House Cleaning Schedule

The key to keeping house cleaning from overrunning your family life is to create a plan consistent with your housecleaning philosophy and stick to it.  As with any new plan or change there will be bumps along the way, so don’t be afraid to fine tune it as you go along or change it as your schedule changes. 

How to Start

Begin by making a master list of all your house cleaning chores.  After you have made your master list, go through the list and indicate whether they should be done on a weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or annually time basis.

After you have your master list complete, go through and clean it up by writing it on a house cleaning schedule.  You can use one of ours, create your own to suit your own tastes and style, or try using an online chore organizer like MyChores to help get you organized.

                House Cleaning Schedule - PDF Format

                House Cleaning Schedule - Word Format

After you have a clean copy of your house cleaning schedule, print off a copy to keep in your Kitchen Folio or attached to your refrigerator and bulletin board.

Also, be sure to add the chores to your family calendar or planner as well as to your daily routines.

Tips to Make House Cleaning Easier

Get the entire family involved in the house cleaning by assigning age appropriate chores to kids and consider paying them a weekly allowance. 

Avoid adding a lot of cleaning to the days when you have a lot of appointments or errands.

Keep it flexible - be willing to move things around a bit to fit in last minute requests from the kids or work or the school

Don’t save everything for one day of the week.  Do a little bit every day so that you don’t become overwhelmed.  It is much easier to find a free 30 minutes here or there rather than a 2 or 3 hour block of time to clean the house.

The Power of a Good Routine

A family with purpose is a family who strives to manage and balance their lives and who work diligently to prevent their lives from being controlled by outside factors. A family with purpose sets priorities and lives their lives accordingly.

For the most part, all of us have some sense of a daily routine already.  Usually dictated by school, work, and extra-curricular activities, our daily routines at a minimum usually involve consistent schedules for getting ourselves off to school or work in the morning, dinner on the table in the evening, and into bed at night.  But what many families struggle with is fitting in and remembering all the extra’s that go along with having kids, full time jobs, and outside commitments and obligations.   The extra’s like making lunches, throwing in a load of laundry, running errands, returning phone calls, arranging play dates, and helping kids with homework.   It’s all the extra’s that go along with our major commitments that can become overwhelming and add to a family’s stress, chaos, and frustration.  And this is where the power of a good daily routine can be a life saver for busy families by helping families gain focus and get more consistent with their lives.  Well thought out and crafted daily routines offer families a little slice of peace in their often hectic lives by minimizing the thought that goes into the routine tasks of everyday life and the nervousness of feeling like there is too much to do. 

When creating your family’s routines it is important to remember not all families are created equal and what works for one family may not work for another.  For daily routines to be effective, families need to pay attention to their own unique needs and family rhythm and develop routines that compliment their needs.  Simply copying your neighbor’s system won’t work and will eventually lead parents and kids down a path of frustration and abandonment. 

So how do families go about creating their routines?  Here are some suggestions to get you started:

• Do a Brain Dump - Sit down and do a brain dump of all the routine tasks that need to get done every day for every family member.  Keep things like housework and yard work off the list for right now.  Life will not come to an end if the floor doesn’t get vacuumed, but your son showing up at school without his lunch or having no clean underwear to wear can be a problem.  Stick to daily critical tasks of getting yourselves off to school or work and living from day to day.  We will cover housework and yard work at a different time. 
• Write It Down - Parents are way too busy to rely on their aging memories to keep track of their daily routines, so be sure to write them down.  Where you write them will be unique to each family.   Some families will choose to write them on their family calendar or in their planners.  Others will choose to keep them posted on the kitchen refrigerator, family bulletin board, or paperwork organizer.  Still others will choose to program them into their electronic calendars.  The choice is yours, but be sure to use a system that compliments your current system for keeping track of family obligations.  Adding an entire new system will only lead to confusion.   To make this easier for your family, use one of these daily routine templates as inspiration.  We have provided them in the standard PDF format for easy duplication as well as in a Microsoft Word format to make it easier for families to customize them for their individual needs. 
  • Daily Routine Templates - PDF Format
  • Daily Routine Templates - Word Format
• Accommodate Your Family’s Natural Rhythm - When crafting your daily routines be cognizant of your family’s natural rhythm.  For example, most parents and children have a particular time of day when they are their freshest and most effective.  Structure your routines to make the most of your best time.  If you become brain dead by 7′oclock every night then front load your routines for earlier times in the day and make them less intensive in the evening. 
• Be Flexible - Your family’s routines will evolve over time and won’t be perfect the first time you use them, so be flexible and willing to make changes.   Also, the routine will most likely need adjusting as families make the transition from structured school days to the more relaxed days of the summer.   Just remember to keep copies of your school year and summer routines so that you don’t have to rethink them when kids go back to school. 

Good daily routines will help families gain better control of their lives by making the recurring tasks of daily family life more manageable and a little less overwhelming.  Eventually after your family has been using them for a while you will find little need to even look at your routines.  They will just become habit and ingrained in your lives.  Good luck!