Thursday 30 July 2015

Urghhhhh Scheduling.... The Work at home, stay at Home parent dilemma

I have a wonderful family.  It consists of myself, Mark, four girls aged 17, 3, 2 and 10 mths, a puppy aged 4.5 mths, a rabbit, two mice and some fish.

So, this means our house is well pretty busy.  Mark works full time but also has practically what I would also call full time hobbies, meaning he is often away weekends, evenings and even when home often packing for said weekends.

My 17 yr old has just brought her first car and so is rightly off with friends discovering the world, herself and also more than likely learning why I have said for many years do not do x, y and z!

With all this in mind you would think I would have the schedule down, I would be super organised and everyday would be a breeze... except... I don't.  I HATE schedules, I mean really hate them, I avoid them like the plague.  I have moments when I slip and say oooh that is it I am going to do..... and then that lasts about 3 days and then bam I am back to well just a non scheduled environment.

Why? Oh my, this is one question I have been asking myself for years, I think I have finally got some semblance of an answer.  A schedule almost always feels as though it is a dictation, a dictation of my time and what I SHOULD do, a reminder of what I HAVE to do and wow that feeling just grates me to the bone.  It has a huge sense of a lack of freedom and yet....  Having a schedule actually gives you more freedom.

So basically this is one area I have to psychologically work on myself and work on it I am and will continue too (it is going to be a work in progress!).

There is another reason why I dislike scheduling and that is the initial process of the schedule.  I watched a really good video from my new favourite resource and person (in a very non storkerish type of way!) Niamh Arthur, I like her just because she explains things in a very appealing easy to understand, straight forward way and well she is just nice!



In this video Niamh suggests breaking down tasks into daily tasks and weekly tasks etc... which is a very good idea, I took this one step further to also think about monthly tasks but just to stay on track I will do daily and weekly.  Firstly I have to explain that I still have a need to colour co-ordinate even when writing out in rough... I know, I can't help it I like to be able to see things and make them look pretty - it's the crafter in me ;-)

Here was my rough list:-


Already I am looking at it and feeling overwhelmed!  If I have to think about all the things I do in a day, in a week it just seems exhausting and the list still does not include bath time, the girls bed time or even me getting showered and dressed which is also why I can still be in my pj's at sometimes 10 am waiting for a time when I can safely have 10 minutes to get in the shower and get dressed.  But this is the same reason I NEED a schedule because without it the girls do not have enough structure, ok I do not have enough structure.

We have some, of course we do, it is impossible not too but because my 3 and 2 yr old only have nursery one day a week there is no particular set routine.  The end result is everything gets done.... eventually usually when I have seriously had enough and then have a mass clear out and spring clean only to then turn around 10 minutes later to find that my beautifully clean, tidy house looks as though I had never cleaned or tidied at all!  Like the kitchen floor which I clean once, sometimes twice a day... I need to we have a dog.  It is clean and beautiful one second, Roo comes in from the garden and urghhh yep back to looking as though I had never cleaned it in the first place.

This is where I also think we have the constant heart sinking feeling as parents, we spend time cleaning and tidying but it is constant, not just constant in the of course the house needs to be cleaned and tidied on a regular basis but constant in that every 10 minutes kind of way!  I think I need to put the play pen up, put the children in, clean the house and then immediately leave to go out.  This would mean that just for once I can walk back into the house and ahhhhh it's all done.  I just need that feeling for a second or two.

This video sums up my house perfectly, except with three "little helpers!"



My Summary for this topic is I have to swallow my "urghhhh, I really do not want to do this" and create a schedule that can work for us that has enough flexibility in it that I am not feeling like a Drill Sergent!

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