This summer has been a wild one. To be frank, the past two years have been wild ones. Sometimes I feel as though motherhood is a breeze and my feet are firmly planted beneath me. More often, I am stumbling on uneven ground.

Now that we are thinking about adding more children to our family, I feel intrinsic pressure to get my home in order. How on earth can I manage a baby and a toddler? We are barely making it to dinner time! Well, we will manage, if the Lord blesses us with another little one. We always manage, right?

Right now my goal is to inch a bit closer to thriving. How am I trying to do that, you ask? Well, I am trying to restore order in my home through a couple of new things.

First, a cleaning routine.

I know, I know. Everyone and their mother has a cleaning routine they adore. I feel like I’m the only one who just doesn’t use one. Sorry, didn’t use one. Up until the past couple of months, I didn’t think I needed it. I cleaned what was dirty when it was dirty. Things were under control. Well, dear friend, they are no longer under control. Everything is dirty all of the time.

Thus enters a cleaning routine. Not just any cleaning routine either, the SHE cleaning routine. I recently learned it stands for “Sidetracked Home Executive” (how cool does it sound to call yourself the home executive!?!). This system was created by Pam Young and Peggy Jones, so check them and/or flylady.net out for more info! I’ve never dived too deeply into the system, I’ve just made my own basic version based on what I’ve seen from other bloggers and podcasters.

All you need is a stack of 3×5 notecards and a list of all the chores in your home. All of the chores. Daily, weekly, monthly, seasonally, etc. Divide these up with one task per notecard, along with a note of how often to do them and an estimated time for completion. Next, make tabs for Sunday-Saturday and January-December. After that, all you need to do is pop your chore cards into the category they belong.

I like to color-coordinate my cards (green for seasonal, yellow for daily, etc.) and at the start of every week, I just put cards from the month where I think they should go according to my Basic Weekly Plan.

Basic Weekly Plan

Second, on my list of getting my home in order is following a basic weekly plan! Nothing strict, but a basic flow of how I’d like my week to go.

• Sunday – Church and Family time
• Monday – Groceries and Errands
• Tuesday – Make-up/Procrastination
• Wednesday – Heavy/Deep Cleaning
• Thursday– Bathrooms
• Friday– Free Day
• Saturday– Light Cleaning

This schedule is such a help and I follow it very loosely. For example, this week we are planning on going to the zoo with a friend on Wednesday. Wednesday is my deep cleaning day, so we are going to switch Monday to our deep cleaning day instead. That way the tasks are still completed and we can stop at a grocery store on the way home from the zoo if needed!

Implementing this has relieved soo much stress. I no longer spend my precious brain power on debating which day I should scrub behind the toilets because I know Thursday is waiting for me each week! If something comes up Thursday I know I can just switch the task to Saturday or Tuesday instead.

Next, lose the meal plan.

Okay, okay. I get it. You love your meal plan! Hear me out. I also loved my meal plan when both my husband and I worked full-time. However, now that I am at home full-time with a little one, I have so much more creativity and freedom in the kitchen. Where a meal plan used to hold us together, I feel like it is holding me back.

Many days when the Mr. gets home from work we bop on to the lake or the park and dinner plans quickly change. Inspiration sometimes hits during naptime and instead of roasted chicken, I start making homemade pasta. The typical meal plan leaves me feeling like we are more likely to waste food and frankly, uninspired.

Not to say I don’t plan!

I just loosely plan.

5 dinners are planned, sure, but I don’t pick nights. Of course, some things have to be prepared in a certain order. For instance, chicken pot pie must come some night after I’ve prepared a whole roast chicken. But a strict, unchangeable schedule? No thanks! Not for me. Maybe you can sense a theme here.

Lastly, intentional pauses.

Sometimes it can feel really challenging to slow down and be intentional with my child. There are so many tasks and projects that we can start to feel disconnected. So, I came up with a solution. It isn’t perfect, and we’re still working on it. I have a couple of alarms set. One mid-morning and one mid-afternoon, 3:30 pm. The morning one can change or be turned off depending on the plan for the day.

Essentially, when the alarm goes off, I give myself five minutes to wrap up whatever I’m currently working on. After that, my attention is 100% on my kiddo. We might play with wooden animals or color or read library books while we eat some popcorn. Whatever it is, the point is to help recenter us after time spent “apart”.

Of course, in the morning, before nap time, and at bath/bedtime are always other connection points. I feel like we have both really been benefitting from this practice. We definitely still have big emotions sometimes, but they are feeling much more manageable!

I highly recommend this routine if you have little ones, or even to reconnect with a spouse or older child throughout the day. It is so easy to become distracted with what we feel has to be done that we neglect what really matters. Think of Martha, she certainly could relate!

Summary

What I’m writing to you all is this; I’m a hot mess. Really, not even hot. J ust an utter mess. But, I’m trying! We all are. I’m also pretty confident that we can get the hang of this whole motherhood – home management – managing our own schedules thing together!

Let me know if any of these suggestions help you and what your favorite tips are for keeping your home in order!

Cheers,

Jess