6 Months to a New Mann
16 Jan 2011 1 Comment
in Weekly Update Tags: budget, children, christianity, clean, family, Goals, home, housekeeping, mommy, mother, motivation, New Year, organize, time management, wife
Ahhh!!! Its been almost a month and a half since my last post. Sorry guys. If all goes as planned, this won’t happen again. I’ve set some goals for the new year and one of them is to write at least one new blog post each week, starting now.
And that leads into the topic of this post… my new year’s goals. If you have been following my blog, you know that I made a list of goals that I wanted to accomplish before Kennedy was born. Kennedy was born, and the goals were not accomplished. I got off track, but now I’m back at it!
The Christmas season is over and life is back to normal, whatever that means. Instead of setting New Year’s Resolutions (which generally come without a plan and thus fail) I made New Year’s Goals. The first week of January was spent writing down my goals and mapping out how I was going to achieve them. When I started, I thought I was going to spend the whole year working on them, but as I mapped it out, I think it can be done in 6 months. Woo-hoo! It won’t be easy by any means, and I hope that I’m not being too ambitious.
Most of these goals are the same ones I had before, but now they are written differently, with more specifics and with the smaller tasks needed to achieve them. Click here (or on the “My Goals” tab up top) to see what I came up with. You can also click here to see how I’m going to reach my goals.
If you are taking this journey with me (as opposed to reading from the sidelines, which is okay too), then my challenge to you is to…
1. Sit down with pen and paper and write out your goals
2. Break your goals down into smaller achievable tasks
3. Make a week by week plan on how you are going to achieve your goals
4. Answer these questions: what will you do if you get behind? get ahead? who will keep you accountable? what’s your plan if you get discouraged?
I’m going to try to add a new post every Saturday, so stay tuned. Topics to be discussed in the coming weeks: my new Household Management Notebook and how you can have one too AND week #2 (this was week #1 by the way).
Progress Report
18 Nov 2010 3 Comments
in Uncategorized Tags: cleaning, family, goal, God, home, housekeeping, husband, mommy, mother, organize, routine, time management, wife
I have happy news! Everyday for an entire week now my dishes have been done, the kitchen sink has been cleaned, the counters wiped, and the cat has had food. I’ve also changed the dishcloth/ towel every other day (as written in the daily chore planner) and the kitchen floor has been swept most days (I missed this one a day or two).
Time Management
I am really seeing improvement, not just in the cleanliness of my home, but also in my time management. Crystal at Money Saving Mom (a blogger I follow and a great inspiration to me and my own blog) has been doing a series on time management. It couldn’t have come at a better time for me.
2 weeks ago she had a guest post from Amy Andrews (another blogger that I want to start following) about using a “time budget.” If you are familiar with Dave Ramsey then you probably know about the money envelope system. The time budget uses the same principle only with your time instead of money.
I thought “wow, what a neat idea!” But then as the week continued and I thought about how I could divvy up my time, I realized there was no way it was going to work for me. With a toddler and a newborn, I can’t predict how much time I can devote to any activity in a given day. This really hit me hard on Tuesday morning and I thought about sending Crystal a message to see if she had any suggestions for me. But then…
I checked her blog and you will never guess what the title of her newest post was. Okay, I’ll just tell you: Q&A Tuesday: How can I be organized when I have a nursing baby and toddler? Ha! I think God played a role in this one. It fit my situation perfectly. She suggested for the mom to create a routine instead of using the time budget strategy. She talked about routine in some of her other posts in the Time Management series as well.
I got pen and paper and created my routine.
1. Wake up, short prayer asking God to guide my day, breakfast, family time until Kaylynn takes her first nap
2. Nap #1, Quiet time with God, workout with Kennedy, shower, fix lunch
3. Lunch, work on cleaning tasks as the girls allow
4. Nap #2, work on any non-cleaning tasks, fix dinner
5. Keep working on dinner, cleaning, or spending time with the girls, Kaylynn eats dinner- this is usually a stressful time in the house and we just take care of whatever or whoever needs the most attention at the time. We’re so happy when Daddy walks through the door, even though we usually have things under control by then.
6. Matt comes home, Kaylynn finishes her dinner, Matt and I eat our dinner, family time
7. Kaylynn’s bedtime, computer time (usually listing items on Craigslist and studying my calculus- I’ll save this explanation for a later post on budgeting), bed
This is the routine I created and of course when the girls need my attention, I stop and take care of them. I don’t stress if I don’t get everything done as long as I haven’t wasted my time. I haven’t been able to fit a workout in yet but I keep it in the routine because one of these days it will happen.
Report on My Plan
In a previous post I discussed a new plan for accomplishing my goals. Here’s how it’s going:
1. Follow the daily chore planner. I started off trying to accomplish everything on the to-do list for each day but I wasn’t getting everything done. At the end of the day I would get all the tasks done in the bathroom but the dishes would be piled up in the kitchen sink. The next day I would do the dishes, but I would be so behind that I wouldn’t have time to get much else accomplished.
So I stopped trying to get it all done. I started with just making sure the dishes were done and the sink was clean (think flylady). Then I added the counters. It took a couple of days to get this under control because of all the clutter. There is still clutter, but it’s what I call “organized clutter.” Next I added sweeping the floor and feeding the cat (don’t worry, we’ve always fed the cat but usually that was Matt’s job and the cat is pretty good about making sure we know when he needs food). And today I managed to get the dinner table cleaned off (a hot spot for clutter) and we actually ate at the table tonight- a first in several months. My goal for next week is to catch up on laundry and get it added to the daily chore list.
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- Kaylynn helping me feed the cat
So, overall I would say I’m making progress. The process is slow, but I’ll get there eventually.
2. Put on my apron when cleaning and start the day by reciting my Housekeeping Mission Statement. I have not been doing either. I found that I was constantly taking the apron on and off when I was pausing to take care of the girls. It just seemed tedious and wasn’t helping so I nixed it from my daily routine. When the girls are older, I might add it back in, but for now its gone.
As for the mission statement, I don’t have a printed version and our laptop died, so I wasn’t able to read it for a few days. When it didn’t affect how I was cleaning or managing my time, I didn’t add it back in. I do believe however that saying a short prayer each day has made an enormous difference, not just in my daily routine but also my attitude. On a side note, I still like my mission statement, and I plan on referring to it as needed.
3. Continue blogging. Well, I haven’t posted as often as I would like, but… I think you can judge this one for yourself.
The Challenge
If you are new to my blog, or you’ve forgotten, this is all about our journey together. So I want to know about your time management. Do you have a strategy that works for you? If so, share it with us. If not, think about creating a daily routine like I did, using the time budget system found at Money Saving Mom, or coming up with your own plan. Be sure to share any ideas or thoughts so we can travel this journey together.
Women’s Retreat
09 Nov 2010 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: christianity, clean, comfort, control, family, goal, God, home, housekeeping, idol, idolatry, wife
Effectiveness of the New Plan
I have been working on my daily chore planner that I mentioned in my last post. While I haven’t managed to get all the tasks for a single day completed in that day, I do feel good about using this strategy. It has given me direction and helped me to break things down into something a little more manageable. As I continue working through the daily to-do’s, it should get easier and less time-consuming.
The Women’s Retreat
This past weekend I went on a women’s retreat with my church. It was a refreshing time of fellowship with God and Godly women. We talked about being intimate with God and the session that spoke to me the most was about idolatry. An idol isn’t necessarily a “golden calf” but anything that comes before your relationship with God.
We talked about 2 types of idols in our lives: surface idols and source idols. Surface idols are more obvious to us and those around us while source idols are the root from which surface idols come from. Here is a link that briefly describes each if you want to read a little more about this. And this link has the chart we used to describe source idols in more detail.
I learned that my source idol is comfort. Which means that I seek freedom and a lack of stress at the cost of productivity. This is why my house is constantly a mess and I tend to procrastinate on everything.
Now here is the part that was intriguing to me and kind of confusing. Because I want to improve certain areas of my life, I see myself allowing the idol of control to replace my idol of comfort. In order to let go of my need for freedom and a lack of stress, I start seeking self-discipline and standards. I fear that I will only have worth if I can get mastery over my life in the area of my home.
While my goals and dreams are worthy and even founded in scripture, I am an idolatrous if I allow them to become more important than the relationship with my heavenly Father. As I discussed this revelation with the speaker at the retreat she affirmed that you have to find balance in life (for instance, between desiring comfort and control) in order to remove the idols that will destroy your intimacy with God. She suggested that I start each day asking God what he wants me to get accomplished with my time. By doing this simple task, I am keeping my focus on God and not my own desires.
I have started adding this prayer into my plan and I already feel more at peace as I go about my day.
Lack of Motivation
20 May 2010 2 Comments
in Uncategorized Tags: clean, family, goal, home, housekeeping, husband, motivation, organize
I am sooo sorry that I haven’t posted anything in a while. We have been out of town for the last week and didn’t have good internet connections. I apologize.
In my last post I mentioned that we had to reschedule with an insurance agent because I was too embarrassed to let him see my house and the mess inside it. The new appointment was set for Thursday morning of last week. I had a very difficult time leaving my plan of action (deep cleaning and organizing one room at a time) to straighten up the entire house. While I probably had plenty of time to make the house at least presentable, I wasn’t able to motivate myself to get much done.
The stress of cleaning added with a busy schedule (organizing a group of teenagers to cook and prepare a baked potato bar for about 80 people on Wednesday, plus 3 appointments on Thursday and packing for a week-long vacation), led to a few heated discussions in the Mann household. The house was still a mess when the insurance agent arrived and I thought I might die. In the end though, he didn’t even come inside the house.
Now that we are back at home from our trip, I have seemed to have lost my momentum. I would like to start cleaning right where I left off, but I’m noticing the messes that have appeared in areas I’ve already worked on. I also know that if I don’t unpack our suitcases today, they might not get unpacked until I need them for the next trip. I’m also looking at the clock. It’s almost 4 in the afternoon already and I haven’t done much of anything today. Matt will be home soon and I tend to drop everything when he comes home so that we can have some family time before the baby goes to bed.
In order to get back on track, I’ve decided that my goal for the rest of today is to unpack and get the living room back to the state it was before all the interruptions. This doesn’t seem too daunting and I’m hoping it will help me get motivated so I can start working on my list again tomorrow. Wish me luck!
Here’s the Weekend Update
10 May 2010 4 Comments
in Uncategorized Tags: christianity, clean, confession, family, goal, God, home, housekeeping, mother, organize
Well, I haven’t been doing so great on goal #1 since my last post. I have not had a quiet time 3 out of the past 4 days. I had decided to spend at least 15 minutes every night before bed reading my Bible and praying, but lately I’ve been staying up so late that I’ve been too tired. I’m going to try and go to bed earlier this week, but if I don’t get better at having my quiet times, then I will have to find a new time slot to have them.
As for goal #2, I’ve done alright. Friday was a good day and I got a lot accomplished, but Saturday and Sunday ended up being family days so I didn’t work on the house at all.
Friday, I cleaned all of Kaylynn’s big toys like her Jumperoo and Laugh ‘n Learn Playhouse. I hadn’t let her play in the Jumperoo for probably a month because of the amount of dust that had collected on it. After I cleaned it, she was so happy to play in it again that she stayed in it for an hour. That gave me time to dust and clean our entertainment center.
Two things I learned about Murphy’s Concentrated Oil Soap…
1.) I really love how it smells, but maybe that’s just because I’m pregnant; and
2.) you should always keep the lid on it. It is a concentrated soap and the label says “pure vegetable oil.” These two factors, make it very difficult to clean a large spill off the carpet.
Confession of the week: our insurance company will not insure our home anymore because we do not have central heating and air. An agent from another insurance company was suppose to inspect our house this morning and then give us a quote to be insured by them.
Here is the confession: I had my husband call and say that “something came up” because I couldn’t stand the thought of someone walking through my messy home. Yikes! Please tell me I’m not the only one who has ever done this. This blog is a safe place; let’s hear your confessions.
