Friday 11 May 2012

Life challenge - week 19 - routines



Week 19 is about routines. This is one are I'm not lacking in- if anything I may be too routined, at the expense of flexibility, go with the moment etc. I love routines. I used to have crumpet days, Mon, Wed, Friday - they were the days I would have crumpets for breakfast! And letterbox days - hubby and I would have set days to collect the mail. I've moved on a bit and can now have crumpets on whatever day I feel like it!


Using my 3 top to-do's I've scheduled fitness into my routine. Tuesdays I walk with Tomi and Wednesday night is treadmill night. I'm going to try and schedule at least one more treadmill session in per week.


Cleaning  - I have a nightly routine for cleaning the kitchen, dishwasher and so on, after dinner.  This is one of my top 3 to dos for every day. I've tried with having set days for chores - but that doesn't tend to work for me. Our cleaner comes once a fortnight on a Monday so our routine includes a big tidy up each Sunday afternoon so it's nice for Tania to clean.

Meal planning – I mean plan weekly- usually Sunday night. Then if hubby has Monday off from work (which he has a bit lately) he will shop on Monday - otherwise I put through an on line order to be delivered/picked up Tuesday night. My meal plan goes from Tuesday - Monday. I put it up on my meal plan chart so everyone knows what will be for dinner each night.  We had wraps on Thursday night and Hunter asked if we can have wraps every Thursday - we may schedule that in!

Laundry routines – Hunter has 2 blue school uniform tops and 1 yellow. Therefore my routine is for him to wear the blue ones on Monday and Tuesday and I wash them Tuesday night and he wears the yellow on Wednesday.  Tuesday night is therefore "darks" night. Friday I have off of work so I usually do a load or 2 on Fridays - lights perhaps, towels/sheets and then Friday night darks again (once Hunter has taken off his school uniform). I will then do some over the weekend if needed.

Family life –  we have the standard morning and bedtime routines. We have an pick up Hunter from school routine- Monday/Tuesday in OSHC, Wednesday Nigel picks him up, Thursday is Grandpa's turn and I do Fridays. The kids have their sport - footy for Hunter Friday nights and Ready Steady go for Savannah on Saturdays. We tend to go to the library after school on a Friday once a fortnight (toys and DVDs can be borrowed for a fortnight). We have temporarily put Friday family movie night on hold whilst Hunter as footy as that doesn't finish until 6pm and then we need to go home for dinner.


One area I do feel like I could do with some help is tidying! Besides our fortnightly tidy up - I feel like the house is always untidy. I need to try and schedule daily tidy ups - I have tried, but unsuccessfully. We really need to get the kids to put away their toys each night (and it is on my nightly chores chart) - but this is one we let them get away without doing. By the time we get home and have dinner and are ready for bed etc, it's late and we don't want to delay bedtime further by putting toys away.  I'm really going to make a conscious effort to work on this over the next few weeks.

1 comment:

  1. I love that you dialed back your routines a little to allow for crumpet flexibility - you can have too much routine right? You seem to have so many great systems and routines in place bec - fab stuff to learn from. The daily tidy up is my downfall too - we do it some nights and not others, but i tend to catch up while the kids are at school if i think it is getting crazy (they always have some art project or game in progress)...

    Deb @ home life simplified

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