Schedule Helps Saturday: Review of 168 Hours

                                    

The book 168 Hours, by Laura Vanderkam, is being mentioned everywhere. When I saw a copy in my local library, I knew people had been talking about it - although I didn't remember which people nor what they had said about it - so I picked it up and brought it home.

Here are the things I find positive about the book:

1. It is motivating, and it reminds people that each hour we choose what to do. Pretty much everyone who says, "I don't have the time for that," is being untruthful or inexact. They should be saying, "I don't choose to use my time to do that." This is Laura Vanderkam's most important point.
2. I am sure it works well for some people. In fact, I think I used a version of this process in college when I achieved two of my loftiest life goals.
3. I love the cover. Truly. For some reason, the spare design and vivid yellow are motivating in themselves.
4. Several of the details she mentions are helpful.
5. The book is well-written, and the research she includes is fascinating. A good read.
6. Core competencies (defined below).
7. Fitting the most important things into one's schedule first, and fitting everything else in later.
8. Her statement that no one will be able to do everything. Some things one wants to do will have to be dropped.

Here are the things I disagree with:

1. Optimizing time using a planning process like this one can backfire.
   
   I will have to use personal example here: When I tried mapping out my life by choosing what I would do in my 168 hours per week, it was exhilarating to see what I could fit in. One of Vanderkam's points is that you have to let go of some things. You just have to. Some things will not be possible. Absolutely. This is the strongest point of the book. But even so, I felt rushed during each half hour to get my planned item done so that I could move on to the next thing I had chosen to do. This was even after making a conscious sacrifice of things like a thorough cleaning regimen, reading fiction, most correspondence, knitting (a hobby I love), and some of the time I usually spend with my husband. To be fair, I admit that this could be a personal preference or tendency that I have to feel rushed and unsettled when trying to live life in half-hour or even one-hour increments. People who go out to work usually have a large chunk of time in which to do their work, so that segment of their lives does not have to feel rushed. As a stay-at-home mom who chooses to care for her young children herself, I can't do just one thing, to the exclusion of all others, for more than two hours at a time.
   
2. Outsourcing domestic chores. The author is all about outsourcing tasks that do not fall under one's core competencies - defined as the things one can do that no one else can do better and/or the things that one is good at and would be doing anyway even if it weren't a paid activity. Often, nurturing one's own family is a core competency. Writing is another potential core competency. The implication in this book is that domestic tasks are not core competencies.
   
   Vanderkam is zealous about the idea of outsourcing domestic chores. Each time a domestic chore is mentioned, it appears as a negative and unnecessary distraction, a horror of a waste of time that, sadly, could have been avoided if one would only hire someone else to do it.
   
   I disagree. After a few weeks living my life as planned through the 168 Hours planning process, I found that I was not satisfied with my life nor feeling fulfilled. I had to go back to a previous schedule I was using that was more relaxed and included lots of time for domestic chores. I feel that I am nurturing my family by doing the daily and weekly home routines, where Vanderkam would disagree with me. She makes the point that one can spend quality time with children doing things like museuming, walking, exploring, and reading in early mornings and evenings, with work in between and after. True. Those things can be done at those times. But I think that the home routine also nurtures children. She admits in the book that she and her husband were more comfortable living in a somewhat disorganized, cluttered home until they learned that their young child valued order and cleanliness. They learned this through his behavior at child care, where he picked up after other children.
   
   Healthy children grow into healthy adults in a variety of settings and ways of life. For me, and I believe for my family, the home setting needs to be an orderly, routinized place where someone can almost always be found at home tending to domestic needs. I have also found that, as a parent, I need to "waste" time just hanging around my children in order to get to the conversations that really matter. One can't schedule the deep questions and concerns that children bring up as they are digging in the dirt or helping bring groceries in from the car.

This book could be helpful for many people, so if time management and optimization books are your thing, 168 Hours is a well-written and interesting example of the genre. You can go to the 168 Hours website to download a free time management spreadsheet to see if the book is something you want to spend your time on.

In case anyone is wondering, I am not being compensated in any way for this review, unless you end up ordering the book through my Amazon link at the top of the post.

Daily Focus for a Five-Year-Old

A week ago, I posted about a process I go through each morning to help organize my tasks and my brain. I mentioned that I would be trying it with my older son for a week and reporting back.

Here is the report.

I went through the process the same way with my son that I do with myself, with one exception. I only asked him for one to two tasks in each of his categories to keep it age-appropriate.

To quickly recap, the process includes three steps: 1) writing Daily Focus on a piece of paper and listing one to three things to focus on accomplishing that day, 2) writing Daily Order underneath that and listing prioritized tasks according to prioritized life roles (like student, son, brother, worker, etc.), and 3) writing Extraordinary Thing underneath that and listing one extraordinary, amazing, over-the-top, or brave thing you will do today.

These are some examples of things my son listed under Daily Focus: playing, play-fighting, eating dinner. It turned out that he prioritized his life roles this way: Number 1 was player, number 2 was worker, number 3 was brother, and number 4 was son. I usually had to prompt him about his required chores under the worker category. His other tasks were things like giving hugs, play-fighting with his brother, and being nice. When he starts school in the fall, he will have a few more important tasks to think about in terms of getting ready for the next day and possibly homework.

When I asked what he thought about this process, he said, "Nothing!" There are parts of this exercise that are not very useful for a five-year-old or younger, but I still think getting into an organizing and planning habit is worthwhile even at this age.

One of the most useful parts of the process with him was the Extraordinary Thing. He is at an age when it is important to him to be admired for his skills. One day his Extraordinary Thing was a spin-jump, and he wanted me to watch while he did about eight spin-jumps, trying to perfect them into one perfectly amazing spin-jump. It was good for him to have that outlet.

I think it is good for people of all ages to have that outlet. Even if doing an Extraordinary Thing does not earn you anyone else's admiration, it may earn you your own approval, which always feels good.

An Idea for ADHD Symptoms

I will start by saying I have not been diagnosed with ADD, but it runs in my immediate family. Whether or not you believe in the existence of ADD as a true disorder, you may notice that certain types of food, organization, and activities help some of your more active or unfocused children.

Organization is key for me. If I don't organize my activities, my brain feels fuzzy and it's a struggle to accomplish anything.

                                                                               Image courtesy of clker.com

I have found it helpful to list certain things at the start of the day. This is the third thing I do each morning, after getting dressed and ready and doing devotions. It is extremely helpful for me as an adult; I can see how it would be very helpful for a teenager or college student; and I think it would be an excellent practice to start with younger children so that they get into the habit. In fact, I will start tomorrow by helping my five-year-old do this for six days, and then I will report back on the experience.

Materials:

There is blank notebook paper near the beginning of my homemaking binder. There is also a pencil in a pencil holder in the binder. This is very important! The first time you get up from the task of writing down the daily list might be the time that you get distracted and don't come back to it.

Procedure:

I write "Daily Focus" at the top of the page. For each day of the week, I have selected one to three areas to focus on that day. For example, today was 1) planning guest posts for another blog and 2) errands (which I listed).

Next, I write "Daily Order." Underneath that heading, I number the tasks I want to get done that day.

I have previously made categories of my roles and prioritized them (for example, 1) wife; 2) mother; 3) homemaker; 4) moneysaver; 5) volunteer). So my Daily Order starts with a subheading of Wife, then #1: (whatever task I most want to get done that day that pertains to being a wife). Continue to number tasks as long as you can think of tasks you want to get done that day in that category. Then write the next subheading and continue to number tasks below that category. Continue with other categories, in order of priority.

I have a rule for myself: If I've almost reached the end of the page, I have to stop. It's unlikely I will get through a whole page of tasks in one day, so I have to accept that and stop somewhere.

Last, I write the heading "Extraordinary Thing for Today."This is the place to write down one special, above-and-beyond, excellent, or brave thing you will do today.

Usage:

I refer back to this page during the day, especially each time that I start to get distracted and wonder what I was going to do or should do next. This often happens to me!

The list does not help me accomplish each and every task I can think up, but it does help me have a clear conscience or sense of purpose as I go through my day, and that's worth a lot.

Bedtime Routines

PowerLaunch recently posted about The Power of Routines, including a poignant passage about the power of a bedtime routine.

Our youngest is a great sleeper. People always comment on how he goes straight to sleep when we put him down. This usually happens even when we are in a new environment like visiting in someone else's home. What he has is a bedtime routine that has been the same from about two months old until the present time, twenty-three months old. That is twenty-one months of the same routine for each nap and each bedtime. If I did my math correctly, that is over 1,600 occurrences of the same ritual.

We do a bath every other day, followed by diaper and pajamas, followed by tooth brushing and flossing, followed by zero to three bedtime books (depending on the day). Then he has the same lullaby sung to him and he is laid down on his bed with the same litany describing his bedtime objects. His music box is then turned on and I say the very same good night message to him.

Any bedtime routine that includes healthy wind-down activities and an expression of love is a fantastic bedtime routine.

What is your child's or children's bedtime routine?

Fitting Learning Time Into Your Day Part 3

Part Three of this series is for...
Parents Who Work Full-Time while their kids are at school or daycare

For Part One of the Fitting Learning Time Into Your Day series, click here. For Part Two of this series, click here. 


So when do full-time working parents with children who are at school or daycare find time to do learning activities? All of the ideas below are great opportunities for learning. They require a lot of parental patience, but then again, so do most daily activities.

Mealtime! 

Though it may be aggravating, let your child help prepare meals. On busy weeknights, even a young child can help tear lettuce, stir, pour, or arrange toppings. On weekends, maybe he can assist with pancakes, omelets, or even grilling out. Cooking activities provide practice with math (measuring, fractions), manual dexterity, safety precautions, creative expression, language arts (reading recipes), life skills, and generally learning to be a helpful person. You just have to be willing to let your little chef get into the process. 

During dinner, you could use conversation papers in a jar. One family member gets to draw a slip of paper on which you have all written ideas for family dinner conversation. As parents, you can make sure that the educational topics you want to cover are in the jar.

If you want to do some geography or history during dinner, post maps or time lines on the walls around the dinner table and talk about those. If you have younger children, you could post ABCs, numbers, colors, or shapes, and sing the ABC song before or after the start of dinner.

Field Trips

Weekends are precious time for full-time working parents. They can also be completely taken over by sporting events, grocery shopping, cleaning, and maintenance around the house. Make any of your planned events into a learning field trip by:


1. Researching what you are going to do
2. Making lists to prepare for the event
3. Using The Notebooking Fairy's field trip learning worksheet to record what your child wants to learn, already knows, and ends up learning
4. Mapping the route
5. Taking pictures 

and/or

6. Putting together a quick scrapbook of the event.


These steps can work for everything from a grocery shopping trip to a miniature golf outing to a traditional road trip. In fact, a backyard camp-out could be planned the same way for an economical, time-saving, and easy family event.

Bedtime

I bet many parents feel like I do at the children's bedtime: I could go to sleep myself, and appreciate the opportunity more than they do! However, this is a key time of day to connect with your child about the events of the day, feelings, planning the next day, and reading or storytelling. There are fabulous resources available to help parents plan read-alouds, teach children about chores and organizing themselves for the next day, and learn effective ways of talking about emotions. I will be posting more about my favorite resources for these learning activities in future posts.

TV Time

There are families (including mine) who sometimes find themselves sharing family time in front of the TV. Turn the "idiot box" into something slightly more like a "learning box" by choosing quality programming such as Nature specials, Nova science specials, your family's treasured videos, and PBS children's shows. 

In fact, for some "physical education," families with a Nintendo Wii could get in some rainy-day exercise together by playing the sports games. I don't have experience with this because my children are a bit too young and we don't have a Wii, but any kind of mental or physical exercise can balance out some of TV's negative aspects just a bit. 

As soon as your children are old enough, begin to teach about the purpose of commercials and how commercials are made. You could go in depth and have each family member create a commercial. Help them think critically about what commercials are trying to get them to do.


Bottom line: If you know your family is going to be watching TV anyway, make that time count for something positive.


Bottom bottom line: I am sure working parents are already doing these types of activities with their children. The trick is to be as mindful as possible about the time you are spending.

Fitting Learning Time Into Your Day Part 2

Part 2 of this series is for...

At-Home Parents With School-Age Children

(for Part 1 of the Fitting Learning Time Into Your Day series, click here)

The following are suggestions for times to do learning activities with your school-age children.

Extracurricular Time
One way to set aside time to learn with your kids is to schedule it as an extracurricular. Maybe your child is a basketball player and the winter schedule gets really hectic for the whole family. Could you have him “sign up” for Spring Institute, in which Mom or Dad gives him lots of facetime making learning fun? Or you could set up a Summer Apprenticeship for Junior to shadow someone at work, learn the daily tasks of his parents, go on customized field trips, and make a video portfolio of the whole shebang.

Vacation Time
Kids get plenty of days off school during the year. Learning activities could fit nicely into vacation day mornings and summer vacation. If you keep up with doing them at a set time on days off from school, the kids will take it for granted and you won’t have to battle their ideas of what they want to do on their vacation...until after learning time, at least.

Down Time
Do your kids get a snack as soon as they get home from school? You could lay out the activity at the table in front of them while they eat. Combining snack time with learning time can be an effective wind-down and break after the school day.

TV Time
If your kids get a certain amount of time to watch TV or play computer and video games each day, learning time could be the activity they have to complete in order to start their TV time. If homework already serves this purpose, you could save learning activities for the days when there is little or no homework.

Fitting Learning Time Into Your Day Part 1

Part One of this series is for...
At-Home Parents With Younger Children

This topic needs at least three parts: one for parents who are usually home with their younger children, one for parents who are usually home and have school-age kids, and one for parents who work full-time while their kids are at school or daycare. I can think of a few other categories, too, like parents who work the third shift and parents who homeschool, but I will save those for another time.

You Have All Day, Right?

Ha. Can I leave it at that ? Ha?
Just kidding. I will continue. I am sure those of you who fit this category know that there are many other things you can do with your time, especially with babies or toddlers in the house. So when can you fit in learning time with your children?

Busy Times
You will need to start by considering the things the children have to do every day at certain times. If you are like me in this regard, it will be immensely helpful to write this down or type this up.

Think about: breakfast, lunch, dinner, essential errands, school pick-up/drop-off times for older siblings, playdates, scheduled babysitting, library storytimes, naptimes or rest times, bedtimes, and whatever else is scheduled into your day.
By the way, if you have playdates or library storytimes already plugged into your schedule, those can be prime learning times for young children. Even errands can be turned into learning time, using naming, math, colors, shapes, directions, maps, or writing lists.

Available Times

What times are left? Out of these time slots, which would be best for you to be able to focus on your children? Which would be best for them to focus on you? How much time will you need? (I find that ten minutes is best up to at least twelve months old, and 30 minutes works for older ages up to at least five years old.) Then consider which time slot would be best for getting together the materials and planning what you will do during learning time.

Sample Times

When my younger son was a baby, I did learning time with my older son after his rest time and during his little brother’s afternoon nap. Learning time with the baby took place whenever possible while he was awake, and mainly consisted of listening to different types of music, reading books, smiling at each other, tummy time, and some fun baby props and toys.

When my younger son was a pre-toddler, I tried doing learning time with my older son in the morning while the younger one played with a bag of special “school toys” that were not available at any other time. Learning time with my pre-toddler went along the same lines as when he was a baby.

When my younger son became a toddler and my older son started morning pre-kindergarten, learning activities with the younger one took place during our “alone time” in the morning. Learning time with the older one took place at some point during the younger one’s afternoon nap or snack. I also included more activities that he could do by himself so that I was free to tend to the toddler if necessary.

For Part Two of this series, click here.

Family Scheduling

Setting Your Family’s Priorities

This is not a post to list organizational systems, tactics, or products. It is a post to help you schedule according to your family’s priorities.

What Would You Regret the Most?

I hate to start this on a negative, but for me it is helpful to think about a scenario in which I died. What would I regret NOT doing? What is so important to me that it would cause me grief on my deathbed (other than the grief of leaving this world)?

When you have the answers to that question (and there will probably be many answers to it), you can think about what it is you would regret doing INSTEAD of those things.

Now you have the top and bottom of your list of priorities. The things you would most regret NOT doing are your top priorities. The things you would most regret DOING are saved for the bottom of the list. Or excluded.

Be sure that this step includes all relevant family members. Spouses, for sure. Many of you have children who would be able to participate in this step. I think it would be great for them to do so. This kind of activity will help them with goal setting throughout life.

Okay, What Do You Have To Do?

There are some things we all have to do whether they are inspiring to us or not. These things may have to go at or near the top of your list. You can merge them in with your top priorities as appropriate. (For example, regular meals and brushing teeth are going to have to be near the top whether you like it or not.)

What Do You Wish To Avoid?

Often there are things that are fun that we don’t mind putting into our day...but we want to make sure to limit the time spent on them. There are other things that we want to avoid altogether. For every family these things will be a little bit different. Some families avoid sugar, some TV, and some books that don’t fit in with their values.

For the first type of thing, the things that we enjoy but want to limit, I recommend scheduling it into the week so that you and your family only do it during that time.

For the second type of thing, things to avoid altogether, think about the times when you usually end up doing them. Schedule something more worthwhile in those time slots. I know I am likely to let my kids watch TV at certain points during the day, so instead I (first) pick a time to schedule for TV and (second) schedule outside or independent playtime in the other times that are tempting TV times.

Learning Time!

I don’t know exactly where on your list learning time will fall. For me, it is pretty high up there. I believe it’s important, my husband feels the same way, and I have a background in education. The other reason it will end up high on my list is because it is one of those things I will do by default. We all have things we love to do with our children that we will fit in just because it’s enjoyable. For some it might be playing video games together. For others, bathtime. For others, family camping trips. For still others, reading aloud. I enjoy reading classic children’s books to my children and doing learning activities with them. We almost always fit those things in.

Next Step

Pick a calendar, Excel spreadsheet, or whatever you want to use to plot your schedule. Take your prioritized list and start plugging in activities from top to bottom. Remember to schedule something worthwhile in place of those things you want to avoid. If you can’t get to the end of the list, then there are some things that don’t fit into your schedule. If that is a heartbreaker, think about some weekends, family vacation time, rainy days, snow days, or sick days when you could do some of those optional activities.

Oops

You might be like me and make your list of “absolutely necessary” things to do longer than the time you have available. If that happens, you have to go back to the first step and carefully study your prioritized list. This may take a few days or longer. A schedule does nothing for you if you can’t or won’t follow it.

Sources

I have gained tremendous amounts of scheduling and prioritizing information and insight from these sources:
 
Chronicles of a Babywise Mom
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey
The FlyLady
the wonderful women I've met online from the Chronicles of a Babywise Mom group, The Homemaking Cottage, and other blogs, some of which you can find in my blogs list