Photo by giselaroyo
In our post on “How to Be a Sidetracked Mom,” we had fun describing some of what we think it means to be a sidetracked mom. Personally, I’ve never met a mom who didn’t qualify as one. 
In this post, we’d like to share with you some organizational tips we’ve found helpful in bringing certain areas of our lives under control. (Mind you, we’ve learned how to do certain things that help bring order to our lives, but we don’t always do them! But that’s okay–motherhood is a process.)
First and foremost, if you’re a mom, especially one who stays at home, you probably feel as though you never get a break. We know exactly how you feel. Here are a few of our thoughts on how to get one.
I for one, have always told Jim that he doesn’t quite understand what it’s like to always be at home, day after day, and never get to change locations. Of course, how could he? He works outside the home for a living. As a stay-at-home mom, I work, sleep, cook, and try to find moments to relax–all in the same place.
Don’t get me wrong–I wouldn’t trade being a stay-at-home mom for anything. Since I was in 3rd grade, this is what I’ve always wanted to do. The challenge has always been how to find time to relax. After all, even God rested.
Here are my suggestions:
- Teach your children to have a rest time, even after they’ve outgrown naps, especially if you homeschool them. Having them quietly spend time in their rooms or in a specified area of the house for an hour or so every day does wonders for everyone’s attitude. It also allows you time to rest or finish a project you’re working on.
- Give yourself permission to change gears once a week. Instead of cooking on this day, buy something already prepared, order out, or go out to eat. Don’t do any laundry on this day. Read a book instead of cleaning. The important thing is to rest from your normal routine. Changing the pace of your day of rest, like going outside as opposed to remaining inside, often makes your week work better.
One thing that I’ve found that really makes a difference is making sure your bedroom and bathroom stay picked up so that they can be a place of escape and peace for you. It’s hard to find a getaway in your own home but if you make a point to keep your personal spaces decluttered and looking pretty, you’ll enjoy it so much more.
How about grocery shopping? All moms get to do this one, that is, unless you have a husband who doesn’t mind shopping for you. And even then, he usually needs some idea of what to buy.
At our house, I have a big white marker board. It’s 4′ x 6′ big. We use it for school, but it’s also located right next to the kitchen. Whenever we open the last one of something, or we realize we need to buy something at the store, we write that item up on the marker board as part of the next trip to the store.
Another tip is to make a grocery list of your favorite grocery store in the order of how you shop in it. The way I do this is to go through the grocery store, make a heading of the main areas of the store, then list the items I usually buy within these categories.
I usually put a word document on my computer screen and then spend the next several days adding items to it that I would buy at some point for our household. That way I have a master grocery list for our family, organized by categories. While it takes some time to do this, it saves a lot of time when it’s time to shop.
One of the hardest things I struggle with as a stay-at-home-mom (other than keeping the laundry under control) is coming up with new menus. It can be so hard to sit down with an empty sheet of paper and try to plan a list of menus. In addition to the help that E-mealz provides with this chore, I have come across a couple other ideas for menu planning.
I once read of a family who had assigned days of the week to a particular menu and every week was the same. Every Monday was Italian, every Tuesday was a chicken dish, Wednesday was a soup, Thursday was a beef dish, and every Friday was pizza and family night. For some this may be too confining or monotonous but it seems to work well for this family because everyone gets their favorites and mom knows what she is making.
Something I remember you doing, Mom, was writing down every menu you served for about four to six weeks. After taking the time to record what you served during that month and a half, you then had six week’s worth of menus to pull from that could be rotated. Ta-da! The tough job of thinking and getting started was already done.
Finally, what about all the chores to do around the house?
In my post on laundry, I talked about teaching your children this life skill at an early age. The same is true for things like emptying the dishwasher, feeding the pets, dusting, setting the table, meal preparation, and even learning to clean the bathrooms. I’ve met too many young people who don’t know how to work and I often wonder how much difficulty we could spare them as future heads of households if we would simply teach them while they are children.
Whether you devise your own chore chart or buy one already made, teach your children how to accomplish tasks. It will make them feel good about themselves, and help them know they are contributing to the family.
After all, one of my goals in life is to work myself out of a job.
It really does helps to stay on top of the kids’ chores. Don’t take on all the duties by yourself. It helps you out and gives them something to feel accomplished about and it builds structure into their day. For homeschool families, this is an even bigger deal because your house can feel like it NEVER gets clean because the kids NEVER leave the house. So, don’t do it alone.
While this is certainly not an exhaustive list, Faith and I hope this helps you with some areas of homemaking and enables you to brainstorm your own ideas.
We’d love to hear back from you with any ideas you’ve found that work for you and your family.
Originally posted 2009-01-14 10:46:50. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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