Ah, schedules! Marching orders for when I’m too tired to think, reassuring plans for getting everything done, barometers for how I’m doing today, rhythm for my children to soften little agonies like laundry time or bed making (because we “always” do that “now”). I’m addicted. I’ve been making schedules for myself since I was a teenager on vacation. (“I’m going to read one more chapter of Ivanhoe, then go for a walk outside…”) I got pretty good at scheduling school work in college. (Let’s face it, I was a bit of a nerd.) But all that was like a lazy, summer canoe trip compared to the trans Atlantic crossing of running a household. Vacation schedules were trivial. Schoolwork schedules were guided by the constant deadlines like a canoe is guided by the bends in a river. Homemaking schedules are vital, essential, and yet the possibilities are endless, just as a ship in the middle of the ocean can sail in almost any direction its captain chooses. And you’re taking your family along. If you don’t get them safely to harbor, there might be chaos, disorder; there might be no clean socks! (And seriously, that can be demoralizing to a husband who’s trying to get out the door for work…)

Over the years, I’ve had dozens of homemaking schedules. Some worked. Some didn’t. Some lasted for months. Some didn’t survive a week. And while I love having a schedule, I’m keenly aware that I’m still learning how to make effective schedules. Figuring out how much time to allot to a given activity and how often to repeat that activity (if I even want to include that activity!) can be a bit of a trick at times.

Recently, in response to If My Grandma Could Do It, Cristina wrote: “Great post, maybe you could post your schedule? Or others could? Would love to see how others get it done.” I’m happy to share. You’ll find my most recent schedule at the end of this post, but do bear in mind that I am very much still in process. I don’t get it “all” done. There are still mornings when Mr. Parunak has to ask me if he has any clean socks, and evenings when the first cars start pulling in the driveway for prayer meeting while I’m frantically trying to finish vacuuming.

I am learning, though. And by now, I’ve gotten a regular route charted for how I go about making my schedules.

The first step for me in making a new schedule is always to write out my skeleton schedule. This is the list of the things that must happen to keep my family healthy–stuff like eating and sleeping–and the times they need to happen throughout the day. At our house, the sooner we eat after getting up, the fewer trials and tears the children face (in fact, we’re all a lot happier if our blood sugar isn’t low). So if I decide to get the children up at 7:00, then breakfast had better be happening by around 7:15. If we eat at 7:15, then our tummies are rumbling again by around 10:00, so we need to have a snack then, but it can’t be a big snack because everyone is so tired by noon that lunch needs to be at 11:30, so we’re all set for 12:00 rest time. You get the idea.

Once I have my skeleton schedule, the next step for me is to make a list of all the most important things that I MUST get done on a given day. For me, this includes: Bible reading, exercise, homeschool, laundry, baths, bed making, daily chores, and a little gardening on summer days. For some, making this list may actually be the hardest part of scheduling. It’s a bit like packing for a trip. How do you know how many pairs of shoes you really need? How do you know how often to vacuum, clean the bathroom, or dust? The answer is similar to both questions: it depends on what you’re going to be doing, what lifestyle your plan needs to support. I have a friend who needs to sweep under her kitchen table after nearly every meal, but who only vacuums her house every other week. This is because she has small children and no dog. My family also has small children, but we have a dog, so I only sweep under my table every three or four days because our dog eats almost everything the children drop, but I have to vacuum the fur out of my house at least once a week. Basically, you have to watch your house. You want the schedule to say it’s time to clean each part of your home just before it starts to look dirty. If that area has been atrocious for days, you didn’t schedule frequent enough cleanings, if the thing you’re about to clean still looks impeccable, then you scheduled the cleaning too soon. What I like to do is to simply have a “chore” time each day and use it to attend to whatever is bothering me, whatever I’ve noticed around the house that needs to be cleaned. Then, every Wednesday afternoon before everyone arrives for prayer meeting, I do my big weekly vacuuming, bathroom wipe-down, etc.

You’re also going to have to decide whether you want to have the same schedule every day, or whether you want to have one day to do all your laundry, another day to do all your cleaning, etc., or some mixture of both. This will depend a lot on whether you have your own washer and drier, whether you’re homeschooling (and therefore may not have huge blocks of time to devote to various major chores), and so on. This just takes trial and error. What works right now for my family is to do one load of laundry a day (I can hear the mothers of many out there laughing!), and a little gardening and housework, plus my big Wednesday pre-prayer meeting clean up.

Once I have my “important things” list, I use it to fill in the “holes” in my skeleton schedule, keeping in mind several things as I go along. First, there are some things that are much easier to do when the baby is sleeping (like doing my aerobics DVD), so I snatch up prime sleep times first. I also try to alternate sitting and moving activities to help keep my children from getting too restless (read aloud time, then chores, then seat work), and once the summer gets hot, it’s nice if I schedule outdoor activities early before the heat of the day. The opposite is true when it’s cooler.

Next, I take inventory of what’s left, and make a list of nonessentials that I would really like to be able to do (like sewing, blogging, and baking yummy treats with my children), and I fit the niceties into the space that’s left. Voila! A plan.

Now comes the crucial part: fine tuning. I have to live with my schedule and see where the kinks are. Sometimes the initial plan is great, but chances are, it needs a little help, usually because I didn’t give myself enough time for the assigned tasks. (“Oh, I guess I can’t actually weed the whole garden in a half an hour…hmm.”) Then, there may have to be a little reshuffling until everything truly fits.

And then, I’m done. I have my goal, my daily vision. Once again I am safely in the harbor, family in tow, having banished a fair amount of chaos and disorder, and (I hope) having ensured the future of clean socks! It doesn’t always work like I want it to, like today, for instance, when all my children are sick. And that’s when I need to remember that the Lord is the Ultimate Scheduler. I can make all the plans in the world, but in the end, I need to be open to what He has for me each day.

Proverbs 16:9 A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.

***

And, for those of you who are curious, here’s my most recent, workable schedule. I am currently in the process of making a new summer schedule with room for morning gardening. Anyone else who’d like to post one of their schedules is more than welcome to in the comment section. I’d love to be able to compare!

5:30 –Mr. Parunak and I get up and dress (unless it’s been a bad night with wet beds, bad dreams, etc.) I eat my morning snack.

6:00 (or so) –Baby usually wants to nurse around this time and usually goes back to sleep.

6:30 –I have some time to sew, blog, or bake something special for breakfast.

7:00 –I wake my older children up (provided I stopped sewing, blogging, or baking in time…I need to work on this!)

7:15 –Breakfast

7:30 –I do aerobics. The children finish breakfast, clear their places, and play.

8:30 –Baby usually wakes up or else I wake her up. We nurse, and I read to the older children.

9:00 –Whoever’s bath day it is gets a bath, and whoever’s bath day it isn’t helps with chores. Everyone makes his own bed. (2 1/2 year old gets help.)

9:30 –We all throw a load of laundry in and fold and put away the previous day’s load.

9:45 –Nurse the baby and read history book to older children. Baby usually falls asleep for a nap.

10:00 –I supervise seat work for homeschool preschool and kindergarten while cleaning up breakfast dishes, and getting started on lunch. The kids have “hors d’oeuvres” while they work.

11:00 (or whenever school is done) –The kids play outside while I finish lunch prep.

11:30 — Lunch and get ready for rest.

12:00 –Memory verses, Bible reading, prayer, and quiet rest time. Baby nurses. Baby and 2 1/2 year old usually nap. 4 1/2 year old looks at books. I keep everyone company and work on the computer.

2:00 –Snack

2:30 –Afternoon projects (cleaning, baking, organizing, etc.)

4:30 –Kids do German language learning on the computer. I nurse sometime around now, start dinner, and talk to my mother on the phone. (She lives very far away. )

5:30 –Eat dinner. Do whatever Mr. Parunak wants to do for the evening

6:30 –Baby usually wants to nurse again around this time.

7:30 –Get children ready for bed.

8:00 –Older children in bed. (I really need to work on this one!) Baby often nurses.

9:30 or 10:00 –Bed for me and Mr. Parunak

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 1:43 pm and is filed under Homekeeping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.