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