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The Editor's Desk - From Beneath the Clutter
Feature Article - Time Management for Stay at Home Parents
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People tend to think that being a stay at home parent means you have time to sit in front of the TV all day, but anyone who has tried it knows better. Staying at home means getting up early enough to get the kids to school, take care of any children not yet in school, clean the house, prepare meals, get the children to activities, etc. It’s not an easy or leisurely life.
The first thing to think about are your goals. What do you need to get done each day and what do you want to get done?
Many parents find it useful to have a calendar or day planner in a central place in their home. This allows everyone to see what is coming up the next day, week, etc. You may instead prefer to keep your schedule on your computer. Don’t feel obligated to use the system that works for your best friend, husband or anyone else. It needs to work for YOU. This only works if you are consistent about marking your schedule. If not, you will find this to be a very frustrating exercise. However, a good schedule can greatly simplify your planning for each day.
Be realistic about how much time it takes to get any school age children ready for school each day and get yourself and them out of bed appropriately. If you get up a bit earlier than the children, you’ll have time to make them breakfast and lunches for the school day. Alternatively, make the lunches the night before. A good breakfast can be very helpful to your child throughout the day.
To do lists can be very helpful. You might keep a detailed one with everything you need to get done during the day, from feeding the baby to pickup up the kids from school, or just a simple to do list with the activities you do not do regularly listed.
Know your internal schedule. By this, I mean, know when you are most likely to complete certain activities. If you are most in the mood for house cleaning first thing in the morning, make sure you schedule it immediately. If you’d rather wait until after lunch, do it then. Don’t forget to include plenty of time for family activities.
If you have work at home job or home business, make sure you have plenty of time to get your daily tasks done there. Once again, knowing when you will be most productive will help you tremendously. Not all opportunities will give you flexibility to change your schedule to meet your preferences, so you may have to find ways to deal with work schedules that are not ideal. Businesses, too, have a way of eating into other plans, so keep a certain degree of flexibility in your daily schedule.
Everyone has things they do that just waste time. Know what you tend to do that is unproductive. This doesn’t mean skimping on personal time. However, if you get too interested in tiny details, perfecting things, and so forth, you can waste a lot of time better spent elsewhere. Being disorganized also wastes tremendous amounts of time. Write down important phone numbers, addresses and so forth where you WILL find them easily later.
Don’t forget to include everything that uses time in your day. Your children get out of school at a certain time, but how long does it take you to walk or drive there?
Make sure you aren’t spending an excessive amount of time doing activities such as watching television, surfing the internet, checking email, gossiping with friends, and so forth. While these are certainly enjoyable activities, if they take up too much of your day you can feel frustrated while trying to get other, more important things done. Know how much time you can spend on these things. Can they be moved to less stressful times of the day? A VCR or Tivo can make it very easy to switch the time you watch your favorite television programs. The internet and email will be there when you have time. Friends will understand if you’re too busy for an involved conversation if you tell them so.
Much of time management is simply being aware of what you need and want to do and how much time you will need for it. It need not take much time at all out of your day to plan how best to use that day.
Stephanie Foster is the owner of Home with the Kids, a resource that knows that there's more to staying home with your family than just business. From money saving tips to parenting and marriage tips, to work at home jobs and businesses, you can get information and support here. You can visit the site at http://www.homewiththekids.com.
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There is a dark cloud hanging over our house. There's also a certain unmistakable sadness. If our home came with a soundtrack from a sad ending movie like "Pay It Forward" or "Lethal Weapon 6" the sorrowful melodies would drift through our house like the smell of cinnamon rolls on a Sunday morning.
Of course, only our children see the dark cloud and the gray skies. They are the only ones hearing that music. It's the music signaling THE END OF SUMMER!
On the other hand, my wife and I hear marching bands. There's the sound of a carnival calliope playing in our minds. We hear the faint sounds of a cheesy "laugh track" from a mindless situation comedy in the distance. All of this signals to us that summer vacation is almost over. More importantly, the school year is about to begin.
Hurry up.
All four of our children are on traditional school years. That means nearly three straight months of time off, nearly three straight months of boredom. You can only keep kids so busy during long summer breaks before monotony overtakes them like a bad vending machine burrito.
"What did you do yesterday?" I ask one of my teenage sons.
"Nothing," he answers while yawning. After all, it is nearly noon. He just got out of bed.
"What are you doing today?"
"I don't know. Nothing." He stands before the kitchen cupboard embroiled in deep internal conflict over whether to choose Peanut Butter Crunch or Trix.
"Maybe you could cut the grass?" I pose the question with such emphasis that it sounds more like a very strong suggestion.
"Well, I think I've got that thing to do with the other kid at that place about that thing." His voice trails off. He can't hear me any more. The crunching of the cereal blocks his hearing. I walk through ankle-deep grass to the car and then drive to work.
The kids took some occasional trips and did some things with friends to help break up the summer boredom. But boredom was a very powerful force in our house. It even inspired our teenage sons to invent new games:
Foil Ball: Take a stack of aluminum foil wrappers - from candy that they've been eating all day - and roll it into a ball. The ball is not round. One end is pointy. The object of the game: throw the ball at each other with great force causing the pointy end to inflict pain.
Our daughter - the youngest of four - stays away because she is worth mega-bonus points.
Little Brother Pancakes: When the youngest of the three brothers has bugged the others until they have lost all patience, the older ones pounce in an effort to flatten him. The object of the game: make the "pancake" scream until his voice is shrill, or until he promises to watch the 100th replay of the "World Championship Poker" on the upstairs television.
Our daughter hides during this game because she would make a fine pancake.
Skin Darts: They sit on opposite couches wearing shorts but no shirts. They take tiny suction-cup darts from Dollar Tree toys and throw them at each other to see how many they get to stick. Important rules: shots sticking to the upper body are worth one point. Shots sticking to the face are five points. Don't know how many points for impaling someone's eye.
Don't know how many points for sticking baby sister with darts.
You can see why my wife and I are glad that the school year is almost here. Our sons are covered with aluminum foil scratches and suction-cup marks. The youngest boy is now very thin. So is our patience.
But there is good news. School is about to start. Although, we wish that the marching band would keep it down a little and quit interfering with the laugh track.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Herrera is the author of “FROM WEDGIES TO FEEDING FRENZIES: A Semi-Survival Guide for Parents of Teens”. The book is available at the iUniverse.com bookstore. You can also e-mail Tim at thedadof4@yahoo.com and visit his website at www.timherrera.com.
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