A Working Mom’s Scheduleworking mom

A working mom’s schedule can be exhausting. There is just so much to do. Your responsibilities are enormous. What are your thoughts when you are trying to wind down to get to bed – at a decent time? What are you thinking from the minute that you get up in the morning? Feeling stressed?

Finding Time to Get it all Done can seem like a futile task. There is so much to do, and we all know that we can’t invent more time. My family is working through a few time management issues in our home. Our little girl started Kindergarten a few weeks ago. It has been 20 years since I had one “in” school. She has always been in a day care setting…but, it didn’t require that we stick to a schedule as closely as we do now. We need to keep her in the daily routine of having breakfast at school and catching the bus to Kindergarten. No more flexibility.

I don’t consider myself to be OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) about schedules but I do consider consistency and routines to be one of my strengths. Before school even started, we decided where her homework would be done, when it would be done and that we would definitely have a bedtime routine of 8:00 pm. So far, so good…but it is soooo much!

We have homework to do every night now…ugh. It isn’t much but it is still something else to put on my calendar. She does it willingly (she really does love homework – and I am very grateful). I am the one trying to not think about what else I could be doing while she is concentrating on making the perfect “small f”. The truth of the matter is that it is only a few minutes of my time and I have to learn to forget about the other things that I feel I should be doing and give her 100% of my time. It will all be worth it in the end.

I’ve always been a planner and this is so helpful when it comes to our routines. Her lunch is made the night before…I timed it and it takes me all of 10 minutes! I can put it in the fridge and just pull it out in the morning and put it into her lunch box. We even lay out her clothes the night before – she helps sometimes. But the weirdest routine that we have is probably our wake-up routine. Trying to get kids up in the morning can be

Being a “planner” and having a routine is helpful in every aspect of my daily life. Planning my day includes my household, dinners, my business and appointments, and now school routines. On the surface, this may seem to be a bit “anal” to someone who is not organized. However, being an “older mom” the biggest value that I see in being organized and having routines, is that my husband also sees these routines.

I am comfortable leaving my husband in charge of the routine…because he knows it too! I can relax and feel comfortable going to an evening meeting. Routines eliminate stress and let me have some fun!

What are your routines? Even if you think that you don’t have them…trust me, you do.

Linda Clevenger

www.organizationdirect.com