Friday, February 05, 2010

Making Your Home A Haven: Planning

This week's theme for Making Your Home A Haven was planning. I am a list maker and a planner so I really loved this theme!

I've been having  a lot of trouble staying on a schedule/routine. It's not like I don't do anything. I just kind of flit around doing this and that and before I know it, the day is over.

It goes like this... Yesterday morning, I was getting ready to take a shower. While brushing my teeth, I started thinking about the length of my hair. I'm growing it out so it's long enough to donate at least 10 inches. Well, I just had to measure it! So I went and got my measuring tape to measure it. Only 8 1/2 inches and that would be a really short cut for me. While standing by my sewing machine measuring my hair, I  hear and see Cherished Dog by the back door wanting to come back in from his morning business. I go to get him. While getting him, I realize the washer has finished so I transfer the load to the dryer. I see that the clothes on the drying rack are dry so I fold them. I put the clothes away. While in the bedroom, I make the bed. I leave the bedroom and walk down the hallway to the bathroom. My husband sees me and asks, "Haven't you taken your shower yet?" I respond with, " Have you ever read If You Give A Mouse A Cookie?" He says, "What's your point"? :-)

Anyways, back to planning. I get very easily sidetracked these days! I've been making a simple to-do list  almost every day and that helps me a lot. But it hasn't totally become a habit for me yet.

This week as part of the Making Your Home A Haven challenge, I sat down on Sunday night and wrote out a basic plan for each day of the week. The most complete list was for Monday since that was the next day and I knew more what we were going to be up to.  I also wrote in basic chores for each day similar to the basic cleaning schedule I try to keep!

This worked well except for the fact that I was sick for the better part of the week. It would have been more productive had I been well. ;-) It took me most of the week to get through Monday's list, but the extra time planning was worth it! A glance at my week told me that my monthly pilgrimage to Costco was planned for this Saturday, so I've taken a few minutes this week to jot down items that I need to buy when I'm there.

I'm going to work more on planning this next week. Now that I'm feeling better, I should be able to get back on track. Can't wait to get at it!

I already do pretty well with meal planning. The one area I'm working on here is to make a more detailed plan each week and also listing to-do's for my kitchen tasks for each day. Such as: soak beans, thaw chicken, bake bread. It's a little thing that helps a lot!  I had previously made a weekly dinner menu rotation which has not worked for me at all!  It seemed like a good idea at the time! It was just too complicated for some reason. So I'm focusing on simplifying that and finding what is right for me.

**Thanks to Monica for hosting Making Your Home A Haven!

2 comments:

Monica Wilkinson said...

Glad you are feeling better - you sound much more organized than me! :) Have a great weekend!

Anna said...

I can relate to the "If you give a mouse a cookie" story. That is me all of the time. I am easily distracted, and I can start one thing, and then another and another and never finish the first one. Having a schedule has helped somewhat, because if I get off track, it is easier to get back to what I should be doing.