Thinking about Mother Teresa's schedule with only 4 items, I quickly noticed that I had four priorities as well.. God, family, food, and rest. From here, I delved into the practical, monotonous, day by day of these priorities.
The first thing I did was set my wake up and bedtimes, this gave the day structure; not definition, but structure. Then we split the times into half hours from rising to bedtime.
Second I made a list of the prayers that I would like to say everyday, including scripture reading, and Bible reading, then I wrote those prayers at the times I would like to say them. Such as the Divine Mercy Chaplet at 3:00pm. Then I marked a one hour period for breakfast, another for lunch, and a two hour slot for dinner. To include prepare, eat, and clean up.
Then I made a list of what it means to care for my husband and kids on a daily basis. This I am labeling as my work towards my vocation. Taking the hint from Mother Teresa who has two separate times of day for her work, I split mine into household chores, and nurturing. Now to show my real perfectionist personality! I made a list of all the cleaning chores, from doing the dishes to planting the vegetable garden, and you will be surprised to know it fit on one page! Then I split these into daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly. I then generously estimated the time I thought it would take to do each of these items, though some were labeled 1 day, others, like cleaning the litter box, were labeled 1 minute. I found to my surprise that the Daily ones add up to one hour, and the weekly ones were 5 hours, thereby allowing for 2 hours of cleaning 5 days a week, I can keep my home organized and sanitary! I put 2 1/2 just to give myself the leeway of interruptions and unforeseen circumstances. I decided to add this to my mornings, to get them out of the way!
Then I made a list of the nurturing to be done. Reading with the kids, helping with homework, making after school snacks, playing outside, taking them to their events. This makes the rest of my day, which I saw to my amazement was an hour before lunch, and all afternoon.
So I decided to schedule in some Mom computer time!
The first thing I did was set my wake up and bedtimes, this gave the day structure; not definition, but structure. Then we split the times into half hours from rising to bedtime.
Second I made a list of the prayers that I would like to say everyday, including scripture reading, and Bible reading, then I wrote those prayers at the times I would like to say them. Such as the Divine Mercy Chaplet at 3:00pm. Then I marked a one hour period for breakfast, another for lunch, and a two hour slot for dinner. To include prepare, eat, and clean up.
Then I made a list of what it means to care for my husband and kids on a daily basis. This I am labeling as my work towards my vocation. Taking the hint from Mother Teresa who has two separate times of day for her work, I split mine into household chores, and nurturing. Now to show my real perfectionist personality! I made a list of all the cleaning chores, from doing the dishes to planting the vegetable garden, and you will be surprised to know it fit on one page! Then I split these into daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly. I then generously estimated the time I thought it would take to do each of these items, though some were labeled 1 day, others, like cleaning the litter box, were labeled 1 minute. I found to my surprise that the Daily ones add up to one hour, and the weekly ones were 5 hours, thereby allowing for 2 hours of cleaning 5 days a week, I can keep my home organized and sanitary! I put 2 1/2 just to give myself the leeway of interruptions and unforeseen circumstances. I decided to add this to my mornings, to get them out of the way!
Then I made a list of the nurturing to be done. Reading with the kids, helping with homework, making after school snacks, playing outside, taking them to their events. This makes the rest of my day, which I saw to my amazement was an hour before lunch, and all afternoon.
So I decided to schedule in some Mom computer time!
Hi Lori,
ReplyDeleteWhat an inspiring post!! Thank you for sharing your thoughts!!
I also wanted to thank you for the link to Familia Catolica!! Have a blessed Easter!!
Thank you! And a blessed Easter to your family also!
ReplyDelete