People often ask me how I do everything I do. Usually, I answer with something silly, like, “I don’t sleep much,” “I never watch TV,” or “My house doesn’t stay very clean.” But really, I get plenty of sleep, and while I don’t watch much TV at all, my house is relatively clean and neat most of the time. While I was talking with a friend this week, I realized how indeed I do fit everything in.
Planning
Planning. A week in advance. I have my clipboard I made with bright red and creamy white patterned Stampin’ Up papers stuck to my refrigerator door. On the clipboard is a stack of papers that I created with lined sections for each day of the week. On Sunday evening, I make a list of everything I want to accomplish in a week. Everything from housecleaning chores to errands to web work to Southern Living at Home calls to music class planning to waxing my eyebrows–everything makes it on the list.
Thinking
Then I logically think through each day of the week and decide where each task will fit in the best. For each day, I write each task in the order I will attempt to accomplish it. I consider such things as how long the task will take, whether or not I can do it with kids around, and whether there is a specific place in the schedule it can slide without affecting the rest of the schedule. I waste very little time.
Multi-tasking
Most days I have a task or two, like menu- and grocery-list-making, that I keep handy for when I’m waiting in the pick-up line at school or in a drive-through line. Some days you might even find me studying my Spanish verbs at a time like that. All of my little chores I squeeze into tight little time spaces so that no time goes unused. For instance, I usually clean my bathroom counter, mirror and toilet once or twice a week while the kids play in the tub after I bathe them.
Monthly Planning
When it comes to work tasks, like SLAH parties and web or writing clients, I actually plan the work out a month in advance. I grab my little party calendar and evaluate each week, setting reasonable goals for each job and jotting down one or two specific tasks to work on each day to accomplish the big goal(s) for that job during that month. Right now, I already have my work planned through the end of November, and while I haven’t planned out December yet, I already know which project I plan to work on.
Flexibility
Of course, life seldom goes how I actually plan it, and a billion extra tasks get added in each day on the spur of the moment. But if I don’t have a plan for how to attack life head-on, I could never run two businesses and a household, teach a music class, and still enjoy my time with my husband and children. The plan works, most of the time, and I LOVE crossing things off that list as I do them. By the end of the week, though, I have to transfer my to-do list to my little spiral notebook that goes everywhere, because the list gets too messy for me to think straight anymore.
Digital Tools
While I love my paper system and couldn’t live without it, I also use some digital tools alongside it to help me manage all the details. I’ll write about those later this week. In the meanwhile, I’ve got some planning to do!
