Evaluating My Schedule

On the weekends, my kids are home from school and my husband is off work, so naturally the house gets dirtier faster. Usually we decide to go to antique or thrift stores, on a drive or to the movies and this doesn't leave much time for keeping the house up. This was causing me a lot of stress which I desperately wanted to change for my and my family's sake. I've always thought of myself as flexible and I could handle looking at a dirty floor for a couple of days. Yes, I could handle this. So I thought about this problem and figured out what was really bothering me.

The problem was this: I can't stand being rushed, not having clean laundry, or going anywhere if the house isn't picked up. On the weekends I get up and go on the computer first thing in the morning and don't get off it until three or four hours later. This is necessary for me to run this newsletter, so it isn't an option to take that off my list. By the time I get off the computer it's 11:00 a.m. or 12:00 p.m. and the family is ready to go, the house looks like a tornado went through it and I haven't had my shower yet. This is when I get stressed, so obviously, this problem needed some evaluation.

The first thing that came to mind is to pick up the house before going to bed. This will be a major adjustment for me because I tend to get real lazy after dinner, but I'm sure it will be worth it. The next thought is that everyone will probably mess that up the next morning, so the come back to that is to announce that I'm not going anywhere if the house gets messed up, and if it does, it better be picked up by the time it's time to go. Now, on to my second problem -- no time to do laundry which equals no clean laundry. My normal routine is to do one load of laundry daily and that keeps up the laundry pretty well until the weekend hits and I don't have time for it. I made one minor change which has helped tremendously. Now, I still do my daily load, but on Fridays I do all of it. This frees me from having to do it all weekend.

With clean clothes in hand and a picked up house I am more relaxed and can enjoy my weekends. The point of this article is to help you to see that sometimes it takes only an evaluation of what needs changing. If you are having a problem, evaluate it and see if there's a better way. Most likely you'll find one.

Monica Resinger is editor/founder of Creative Home Newsletter: a free, weekly newsletter with articles and tips on organizing, cooking, cleaning, decorating and more. To get this free newsletter, visit HomemakersJournal.com

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