(This article was previously published by me in Queenly Quest Magazine.)
Finding Time
My husband and I realized one day that we were not doing
activities that we wanted to be doing . This led me to take a different look at
our week and see if we could find some time for these activities. I found this template. I printed off seven copies, one for each day
of the week. This template has four spots one for each member of my family. There
are different templates at this link ,pick the one that will work best for you
or make your own.
The nice part about having a different column for each
member of your family is that you will not always be doing the same things at
the same time. With this template you will be able to see what each member of
your family should be doing.
To start, I filled in
the activities that I know will always take place. Such as, we know the times
every Sunday and Wednesday that we will be at church.
I then wrote down the days and times when I
would like for other activities to take place.
Then I wrote down the times when
I want school to be held, chores to be
done, meal times, etc. Anything that usually takes place a certain day and time
I filled those into the chart.
After doing that I set down with my husband and children, we
made a list of things that we really want to be doing, but have not had the
time for. Things such as exercise, letting my children ride their bicycles,
having more time to read, visiting family, etc., anything that you really want
to do.
We found the blank times on the chart when we could schedule those in.
Sometimes it is not feasible to do something every week so I would write more than
one thing on a line and we can pick the one we want to do that week and leave
the other one for the next week.
Another great thing
to add to your template is a morning and nightly routine. My morning routine
consist of, praying, reading my Bible, exercising and showering. I try to do
this all before the kids wake up. My nightly routine, consist of me stretching,
washing my face and praying, reading something fun and checking my to do list
for the next day. You can add anything you like to your morning and nightly
routine. Make sure that you add what you really would like to do so you can
have a great start and end to your day. It would also be a good idea to add a
daily and nightly routine to your children’s schedule. This will give them a
regular start and end to their day as well.
As an added bonus, all those blanks spots are free time. This is the times you have nothing at all
scheduled. It is nice to see those blank spots. And since you have everything
already scheduled in your day that you need and want to be doing, you don’t
have to feel guilty for not doing anything at these times.
When I finished scheduling
all my days, I put the templates in page protectors and keep them together with
a clip. I keep the schedule out where I can see it at all times. Realize that
this schedule is not perfect. Everything will not happen exactly as planned
every day. This is just to be used as a guide and it will work most days. This
not only helps us get to do things that we had previously not been doing but it
helps keep us on schedule and makes our day run smoothly.
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