Kelly Crawford

Balancing Your Life: Keeping a Notebook

Keeping a household notebook may be one of the keys to a busy mother’s sanity. There are as many ways to organize it as there are women, so consider what works best for you.

I have found that though there are some really pretty/fancy homemaking journals out there, a three-ring-binder actually works the best because it’s the easiest to tailor to my (ever-changing) needs.  Tabbed dividers make it simple to organize and you can always print a pretty, personalized cover to slide in the front.

Here are a few things I like to keep in my notebook:

• To-do lists for each day (sometimes this is too tedious, but it’s a good thought 😉 )

• Phone numbers (emergency, neighbors, doctors, etc.)  This is especially good for the children when they are staying alone.

• Chore lists–a list that can be revisited and revised as needed.

• Meal ideas/menus and favorite recipes.  You can slip recipes into page protectors.

• Goals for the school year, personal goals, etc.

• Spiritual reminders.  Bible verses or reminders about our need to love our husbands and children can be a huge help if we look at them each day.

• Christmas list–gifts and cards.

• Calendar

• Budget forms/spending forms

In my opinion, the secret to making a household notebook work is keeping it highly visible.

If you are ready to get started or update your household planner, Organized Home is a great place to print forms for your notebook. Have fun!

View part one of this series: Define “Everything”

View part two of this series: Simplify

View part three of this series: Delegation and Family Team Work

Balancing Your Life:  Delegation & Family Team Work

Delegation is one of your most important jobs as manager of the home. Delegation is NOT abdication, but rather just a distribution of family jobs among the members.

Delegation is an important key to balancing your life.

Please don’t be guilty of buying the lie that “housework is my job”, robbing your children of the crucial lessons of responsibility, of feeling valued as an important member of the family, and creating unnecessary burdens for yourself.

We all live in the house.  We all make messes and we all benefit from the daily uses of home.  We should likewise all be maintaining it.  I think of The Little Red Hen as I write that 😉

Begin early.

The earlier you begin requiring your children to “play a part” with household responsibilities, the better.  Even a two-year-old can take things to the trash, place toys back in a basket, take objects to another room, etc.

Training them to pick up their own messes is so important and yet time-consuming enough to keep many moms from doing it.  It’s much easier to bend over and pick up Susie’s banana peeling off the floor if she has gone outside to play. But, one of those little things that turn out to be big is taking the time to call a child back from play, asking her to pick up her mess, and briefly explaining why. “We are all a team here and it’s important not to leave extra work for other people to clean up.”

In addition to picking up their own messes, I try to train their little eyes to see other things that need to be picked up or put away.  “If you walk by a piece of trash, throw it away….if you see something out of place and your headed in that direction, take it with you.” These little training moments can make a big difference in a large family with lots of clutter.

Fostering the right attitudes–the key to family teamwork

It should be natural for your children to understand the “team concept”.  They won’t always be necessarily excited about doing chores, but it should be a normal part of their day and taught properly, (emphasizing the opportunity to serve) will make them feel valued as a family member.

This is often the greatest challenge moms face in the area of delegation.  If attitudes are rotten, she is prone to avoid delegation to keep them at bay.  But ultimately, are there many life lessons more important than learning to work and serve with contentment?

The underpinning of contentment is gratitude in all things.  So to foster the right attitude you must always be fostering gratitude.  This doesn’t mean your children should be jumping up and down to do chores; just that they are willing to do them without a grumbling spirit.

Practical ways to foster gratitude:

• Read/tell stories—We love the old stories that uphold family unity and a spirit of contentment and gratitude between children and parents.  The Lamplighter series is a great set of books for character development and we also love short stories from Moral Lessons of Yesteryear.

• Replace wrong responses.  Often, especially with littles, the habits of the will are formed simply by pointing out wrong responses and replacing them with right ones.  A child who snarls at the request to sweep the floor is merely acting on impulse.  But helping him form the habit of contentment and keep the right perspective is an important part of our job.

“Johnny, I know you may not like sweeping the floor, but the Bible says that we are to do all things with thanksgiving.  Sweeping the floor is an opportunity to serve if you do it with the right attitude.”

• Give more jobs for the wrong attitude.  If a bad attitude is a recurring problem, it may be that they need to be given extra work to help them be grateful for a lesser amount.  I try not to make too big a fuss about this approach:  “OK…since you aren’t content with the job I gave you, you can do ____ too.”

• Praise.  Pointing out a right response–sometimes even to the whole family, can really bolster a child’s desire to respond correctly.  I especially try to “catch” a good attitude in a child who has been struggling and make a big deal about it.  I tell him, “That’s it…that’s the right attitude for serving–now you’re getting it!”

Nuts & Bolts of Chore Time

There are as many ways to delegate chores as there are families.  And, the system will always be changing as abilities, numbers and needs change.

A good rule of thumb: don’t give a job to an older child that a younger child could do. And, don’t underestimate jobs your children can tackle.  The end result should be less work for everyone.

I’ll list a few different ideas I’ve learned from others over the years, and I’m sure many of you have great ones you could share:

• Zones

Dividing the house into parts, each child is responsible for keeping his area clean.

• Rotating Chores

A list of chores is posted and each week/month the children are rotated to a different set of chores.  This prevents monotony and also makes sure they are being equipped in every area.  Of course age-appropriateness must be carefully considered.

• Buddy system

This works better in some families than others, depending on numbers and ages. A small child is assigned to work alongside an older child to better learn how to do a certain chore.

Other ideas:

• Kitchen helper

We have a different kitchen helper each night.  They help empty the dishwasher, set the table, help cook and clean up.  However, everyone is responsible for taking his plate and cup to the sink and maybe clearing the table.

Also, we try to get our older children in the habit of cooking on a regular basis, whether it’s one time a week or less often for the younger ones.  My oldest does a meal or two a week by herself; my next two do simpler meals like pancakes or omelets, and they help with making bread or desserts, etc.  Learning at least basic cooking skills is something all children should learn, and I think our girls should be well-equipped to prepare complete meals before they leave home.

• Cleaning Day

It works well for us to de-clutter during the week and do our main cleaning on one day.  Part of this arrangement requires me to just “let go” of unrealistic cleaning expectations.  We clean on Fridays and one of the reasons I think it works so well (sneaky mom trick ahead), is that Friday night is “movie night” and the kids are naturally in a better mood than usual which makes them more eager to clean cheerfully.  Told you it was tricky.  We still do school on Friday, but we do more reading and less seat work which also lends toward a happier day 😉

Assigning chores, training everyone to pick up after himself, fostering a spirit of contentment and keeping realistic expectations–it’s a full time job, but these things will lend to a more balanced life!

Part one of this series:  Balancing Your Life:  Define “Everything”

Part two of this series: Balancing Your Life: Simplify

Balancing Your Life: Define “Everything”

I get a lot of questions about how I “balance everything”.  This is the first of a series about that question.  But before I talk about the practical stuff, it is paramount to understand that all else is contingent on one important fact:

You can only balance “everything” if your “everything” is balanced.

OK that’s catchy, but what I mean is, you can’t actually balance everything. Most of the problem we have with time is that we are trying to juggle too many things.  There are only 24 hours in the day. Unless we pare down our priorities, making our everything doable, no amount of scheduling or time tricks will matter.

Homeschooling moms face a particularly steep challenge in this area. For one, because of the freedom we feel being at home, it seems like we should just be packing in all we can to take advantage of that freedom.  But we end up being enslaved to busyness instead!

Additionally, we feel pressure to raise “super kids” in order to prove wrong the many who think we’ve made the wrong choice by homeschooling.  This can drive a family to overload their schedules with too many extracurricular activities and lose focus of more important things.

Thirdly, some moms feel that others will think them “lazy”; perhaps the need to prove everyone wrong results in an overextension of ourselves and our families.

The first step to finding balance in your life:

1.  Define “everything”.

Again, this is paramount. If you aren’t willing to take this step seriously, there is no point in taking the others.

• Write down priorities–tangible and abstract. Begin with a piece of paper and make two columns with those categories. Ask your husband to tell you what the most important things in your family are to him.

For us, it starts with relationships.  Anything else we do in our lives MUST facilitate and nurture the relationships in our family.  If a certain thing hinders that, it’s not worth doing.  Of course I’m referring to regular activities, not the occasional tending to special needs that will arise.

Most families are over-committed.  There are too many lessons, too many projects, too many ministries, etc.  We have to recognize our seasons of life and not try to fit all into one season, or feel guilty about it.  There will be time later for volunteering as community coordinator.  Try to understand the biblical analogy of the body of Christ and realize you won’t function well as an arm if you are also trying to perform the tasks of a leg.

As you define your everything, make sure any activities, commitments or projects in your “tangible” list do not prevent your priorities in your “abstract” list.

For me, if I’m feeling pressured by too many deadlines or places to go, the first place it interferes is in my attitude toward my children and husband. Stress builds and I find myself speaking harshly, being impatient and rushing what should be an enjoyable rhythm in our day. It interferes in our relationships–our priority. So we guard our time from outside activities VERY carefully.

Once your list is on paper, don’t be afraid to cross some things out and follow through by canceling or rearranging those things in your life.

Can you stagger lessons so you don’t have three in one week?  We alternate piano lessons and do every other week.  It’s cheaper and saves time.

Really question your church/community commitments.  Are you volunteering to fill roles that aren’t yours to fill?  Remember that if you have children at home, they are your full-time ministry.  That doesn’t mean you can’t do outside projects or volunteer work, but just that you need to give an honest look at their time restraints.

Define your everything. Force yourself to look at it on paper and decide that you are going to create margins in your life that will allow you to serve your family to the fullest of your ability.

Check out Large Family Logistics for a wealth of practical information about running a busy household.