Give Yourself the Gift of Productivity

Christmas is coming! You know what that means. No matter what phase of life you are in, there will be some extra length of time away from your normal schedule. Dare I suggest it, but this could be a time to create a new norm rather than let everything fall to pieces. Because, unless you are leaving your house in perfect order before going out of town, chances are you still have to function in your house over the holidays. There is also the possibility of extended house guests! In the best of holiday circumstances it can still be hard to retain your sanity, specifically as a homemaker (this is my realm and -probably- that of my audience).

I only recently stumbled upon Fun, Cheap, or Free by Jordan Page thanks to the video that popped in my YouTube feed this morning when I went looking for an aerobic workout. I was inspired and thought it was worth a share.

The video is of Jordan's "Block Schedule". I've already been trying to loosely base my day on hour-long segments. Jordan suggests breaking your day into 3 hour blocks. Watching the video, I realized that my day is already broken into very similar blocks to the ones she describes in her day. The "ah ha" for me was the consistency of putting corresponding activities in the same parts of the day throughout the week.

I took notes on her set up, which was good, because, although her site provides a printable, it is a fill-in-yourself page (located at the bottom of the page). So here is my reproduction of Jordan's schedule which I will follow with my slightly shifted version.

(Pardon the small font.)  Jordan has school-age kids, so their activities are a big part of her day. Mine are still under school-age, which lightens my load up... for now. I must say, nap time is my favorite time. It's Me time. I'm writing during nap time right now. 

Edits aside, I'm happy to keep those couple of cleaning sessions in my schedule. This has not been my strong suit. I'm a minimal house keeper. A couple of speed cleaning sessions, when planned on, will be a great way to up my cleaning game. It's amazing what you can get done in less than a half hour. I'm going to run an experiment. I'm pretty sure if I push myself, I think I could vacuum my whole house in under 30 minutes... Stay tuned for that. I have to wait for my boys to wake up on their own first.

....

Success! Three levels, seven rooms, and two poopy post-nap diapers changed, all in less than 25 minutes! Minus stairs and switching plugs, the actual vacuuming took only 15 minutes. This is the power of the focused use of timers and simple FOCUS. This is something we're trying to teach our boys: tasks take a lot less time if you just DO them without extra wandering and playing around.

Another thing I'm happy Mrs. Page emphasized is the importance of blocking in your sleep. Even she admits to being a "night owl", which is what I naturally lean towards as well. The fact is that being a night owl doesn't mean you actually need less sleep. For me, at least, it just means that the sleep is shifted so I get the same amount. If I get to bed late, I wake up late... especially when pregnant. Fortunately, during my last pregnancy my boys sweetly let me sleep. They played quietly until I got up to feed them. If screaming happened... well, that was an effective alarm clock. So, in the last year I've tried very hard to get to bed earlier on a consistent basis, weekends exempted (Charles does breakfast those days). I've even made (small) steps toward getting up earlier to get through my opening routines before the "hangry" screaming kicks in now.

These blocks are a great way to plan your day. It ticks all the boxes while allowing plenty of individuality. The idea of using focused chunks of time instead of micromanaged hours is very freeing. Adding in some alarms is very useful for keeping on-task without wasting time watching a clock. Jordan suggests setting additional alarms for 15 minutes before the end of a block. This is great for facilitating transitions. An additional thought I had with those last 15 minutes is that if you get everything done before that timer, then those in-between minutes could be "phone check" times. Jordan makes a point of being "unplugged" for the bulk of the day. I'm fine with that, but I think using those optional couple of minutes kind of as a reward for getting things done. Delayed gratification can be a wonderful thing.

Now for the Holiday Bonus Round. Jordan showed an alternate example schedule of a working mom in her video. I feel that the following tip should be very handy for holiday prep in general. For office work, Jordan suggested using the morning working hours for the more brain-engaged tasks and the afternoon for moving/physical tasks. I'll let you decide which holiday tasks are brain vs. body oriented. The point is to use the fresh morning energy for your alert brain and then be moving in the afternoon to get through any post-lunch slump you experience.

I'd encourage you to watch the full video to gain your own insights and then use that printable to your advantage. Happy Holiday Blocking!

Habit 2 in Action: My Personal Mission Statement

Last month I shared my review of Stephen Covey's 7 Habits. In the course of writing/thinking about the second Habit, I ended up "walking the walk" as well as "talking the talk" and wrote out my own Mission Statement. So here it is, in outline form, with some light editing. Enjoy and be inspired!

Core Foundation:

Principles: Charity, Harmony, Structure/Boundaries, Improvement

Roles: Wife, Mother, Homemaker, Disciple of Christ

Goals: Fulfill roles to the best of my ability using my unique set of gifts and talents

Applications/Interactions:

Charity-Wife: Love husband, show love to husband using his love language (Physical). Be understanding of husband’s needs (Energy Profiling) and help him to understand my needs in a loving way.

Charity-Mother: Love children with all love languages (time, words, touch, service). Make sure their needs are taken care of (physical, emotional, social, developmental).

Charity-Homemaker: Show love for my family by maintaining our living space to be a peaceful haven from the outside world. Be grateful for physical blessings by being a good steward of what we have.

Charity-Disciple of Christ: Put charity into action by using my gifts to serve others. Energy Profiling helps me be charitable to others because I can decode enough of their behaviors to understand their motivations and thinking processes and in turn be able to interact with them in a loving way.

Harmony-Wife: Be in harmony with husband through effective communication about goals, plans, and parenting concerns.

Harmony-Mother: Create a harmonious environment for my children to grow up in so they feel safe and secure in themselves and peaceful in their interactions with each other so that they can grow to be decent human beings.

Harmony-Homemaker: Use my design skills to make a harmonious home. I release the belief that my house needs to always be spotlessly clean to accomplish harmony in my home. I create functional spaces with an eye for efficiency as well as beauty whenever possible.

Harmony-Disciple of Christ: I strive to be a peacemaker and harmony-sharer in my interactions with all of my fellow men.

Structure/Boundaries-WIfe: This part is personal and I put a boundary here in not sharing it with others.

Structure/Boundaries-Mother: I discipline my children using boundaries. We are still in the phase of discovering rules as needed, but they do understand the importance of following the rules they already know. They know what “no” means and that Momma doesn’t really put up with sh*t. I balance that with love (D+C 121:43). I use structure through routines to create a consistent environment so they know what to expect, which is supportive for their growth and peace of mind.

Structure/Boundaries-Homemaker: I’m less good about keeping to a consistent housekeeping structure, but I do have boundaries concerning how bad I let things get. When I do clean, I’m consistent in the structure of how I go about accomplishing those tasks (i.e.: I always do the dishes in the same pattern, vacuuming has a certain order of rooms, etc.). I do like to keep things generally tidy, just not germophobically clean.

Structure/Boundaries-Disciple of Christ: I can use what I’ve learned of ethics to keep my interactions with others at a certain level of appropriateness while still being friendly.

Improvement-Wife: As a couple we are always learning about each other and growing closer together to improve the quality of our connection.

Improvement-Mother: I am willing to be vulnerable with my children when I make a parenting mistake. This gives us opportunities to learn together how to be better people.

Improvement-Homemaker: I know there are areas in which I need to improve my performance in this area. Mostly it boils down to better time management in order to make space to get maintenance tasks done throughout my routine to achieve consistency.

Improvement-Disciple of Christ: I am grateful for the gift of the Atonement which empowers me in my efforts to improve in all areas of life.