Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Schedule-Obsessed

...that's me. I'm schedule-obsessed. I love a good schedule. And by "good", I mean "a manageable, realistic schedule I can actually stick to". Currently, on my fridge, I have 3 weeks of planned meals printed nicely (in pretty fonts, too), and a brand new cleaning calendar. In my work-in-progress Home Management Notebook, I have schedules for Allie's day, my day, our week, my Freckled Pink work, and more. Eventually, I'll hopefully have everything down to such a great rhythm, I won't have to be working on updating these schedules so often.

When Allie was born, I knew I had to get her on a good schedule and routine to help her sleep patterns, eating habits, and waking patterns. As you may have seen in my 'Naptime: My Nemesis' post, I became a little too obsessed with these routines, and was getting extremely discouraged when my poor baby wasn't following the schedule in place. God has taught me, though I've pushed back every step of the way, that I am not in control. Making a schedule, setting a routine - these things do not define the events that will actually take place in my days. That's up to God.

Anyway, I've asked for help from Facebook friends lately in making a new cleaning schedule. They sent lots of good advice, and I've taken it all into account in making my own, new schedule. (You can click the image to see a larger version.)


This is what I came up with. It is color-coded to tell me, each day, what tasks I need to do. These tasks are divided into 4 categories: Weekly Cleaning, Bi-Weekly Cleaning, Monthly Cleaning, and Quarterly Cleaning.

Using iCal, I was able to create a weekly cleaning list that will recur weekly, a bi-weekly list of tasks that will automatically recur every other week, and so on. I'm so excited about it! There are a few things that didn't make the list (like daily tasks of dishes, straightening Allie's toys, making beds, cleaning the kitchen table, etc.).  I didn't include those, because to me, they are implied. I love having just 2-3 things on my list for each day, so that I can spend time playing with Allie Joy and working on Freckled Pink orders and designs! This list lets me know that everything has been/will be done within a manageable time frame, so that there's (hopefully) never a time when I look up at the bathroom mirror and think, "When was the last time I cleaned all of these toothpaste splatters off this window? Looks like it's been months."

I have only been using this system for about a week. Truth be told, this week is pretty crazy since we are having a deep freeze in DFW, and we are stuck home. You'd think that would make it easier to stay on top of this, but with Adam here, the last thing I want to do is check things off of my list! Hopefully I can catch up once I'm feeling a little better, and these rolling blackouts are over.

Links I found helpful in creating a schedule that works for me:

4 comments:

Traci said...

Tori, wow! I'm so privileged to have been even a small part of this! You are truly an inspiration! Thanks for tagging me and for the update :-)

Traci

Hayley McCarthy said...

Awesome! I need to do this- I really like the idea of doing a few things a day.

Jessica said...

This is awesome!! Way to go girl! I absolutely LOVE schedules too and have made chart upon chart for all kinds of things :) This cleaning schedule looks great and thanks for sharing the links too. Hopefully I can implement some of this when I get to Albuquerque and am in my own house! :)

Kristina said...

Ah ha! So glad I found your blog too!! And LOVE your cleaning schedule post. I've been needing to set something like this up for sure as I get incredibly overwhelmed with trying to keep things orderly with a two year old running around. :)