Thursday, June 9, 2011

Planning

Do you plan your days/lives at all? Even just a little?

I try to. We menu plan and I've also tried out a few purchased things to help me keep things in order and running smoothly. I have finally decided though, that good old Microsoft Outlook works well for making sure that appointments and deadlines are noted and easily seen. I just put everything into the calender, print out the month and put it up on the magnetic board. Anything that comes up can be written in and we (hopefully!) don't miss or forget anything.

That is as long as I remember to check it. But it is up there and it means that I don't necessarily have to have all the information in my head. Anyone else in the family can look at it and see what's going on too. At least that is my theory.

Recently though, things have gone a bit pear-shaped. I've lost my focus and I'm starting to do things on the fly again, rather than plan it out and stay on top of things. One of the big problems I'm finding is fitting in homework with everything else. We now have two children at school and we also changed to a new school at the beginning of the year. Not only do we now have two lots of homework to supervise each night, but the level and commitment expected at this new school is much higher than we've previously been exposed to. Add to that a 3-yo who is the Queen of Tantrums (especially in the afternoon when I'm not paying as much attention to her!) and things get kind of crazy around here. Just tonight we've been doing a last minute project due tomorrow which I completely forgot about and of course the 8-yo has not been proactive about. Of course most of this falls to me to supervise because I'm at home with the children most afternoons. It's draining to say the least!

So I've been reading Planning With Kids. I now feel even more disorganised than I already did! I don't know that I want or need to be as structured as their family is, but there are certainly some tools available which might help me get things back on track here. This page has lots of things that I'm interested in giving a go. I certainly need help with making sure our afternoons run smoothly and it's definitely time to get the kids doing some regular household chores.

My biggest problems really are that I don't seem to be able to sustain any long-term organisation. I find myself giving myself a break (and knitting when I really shouldn't be, or procrastinating on the computer) when I think I'm on top of things, and then within a few days we're back to chaos, and forgotten homework, and the big one - what on earth will I make for dinner?!? I love getting organised, it's just staying organised that I have a problem with!

So this weekend I'm planning to plan! As long as someone remembers to get new printer cartridges so I can print all my plans out. I should put that on the calender.

3 comments:

Bec said...

I'm definitely NOT a planner. It's a real fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants household here. I've reflected alot on this and have tried to implement I can't remember how many different schemes/planners/routines and I just can't stick to any of them!! So now I have just accepted that I'm not a planner and it feels so much less stressful. We just do as we do and enjoy it as we go.

Lou's Mum said...

I wish I could be like that! I've tried it and the ensuing chaos just gets to me. I find I'm much snappier and grumpy because things get out of control. I really need to get on top of things to feel like I'm on top of things lol

PlanningQueen said...

Thanks for the link! Every family is different but I think if you can have some level of base organisation to work from it does lead to happier times and more time for mum. You might find this post useful a reader asked me how I stayed motivated to do the things I do:
Personal Motivation In Motherhood