Ok Momma, you’ve asked for the step by steps of how to get prepared and be prepared and stay prepared. So here is how to do things in bits.
Now before we start. you may just now be jumping in and are asking, ‘What things? What bits?’ Well this month, while my thoughts have been on getting my life on track, preparation FOR life has been looming overhead. Specifically the fact that I just was not prepared, almost at all, for what my day to day is right now. This season of life just was not explained to me. I talk more about that in the following posts:
I’m Not Prepared! Get Prepared.
Preparation comes in bits
This has lead me right up to the practical out play to how you and I can get in control of this ride.
First we have to change our mental habits before we can change our physical ones. And the first mental shift is doing things in bits. So to put some hands and feet to this idea I wanted to list some examples and ideas to get you on the same page with me. We cannot go forward without putting in place these mental habits.
Many of us are of the notion that we have to just get it all done. Quite frankly, this works in many areas but usually not for motherhood, especially EARLY motherhood. Just get it done is quite a lot when you are talking about completing tasks that recycle themselves daily back into your inbox of tasks to be done today, tomorrow and the next day.
I mean think about that. If you deleted something out of your feed, your playlist or your email inbox and the next day it was right back on there, then you delete it again thinking it was a glitch and two days later there it is again, you’d call for support, google what’s wrong or quit using that program. But we don’t have those kind of options (well maybe googling for help :). In real life, mom life that is, you keep seeing the same task and you just wanna scream.
Well, guess what? You aren’t getting it done because it’s never done.
So how do you prepare for what’s always reappearing, when you don’t have time to prepare for it?
The start is throwing out the notion that you can (and will!) get it done. Finished. Completed.
Never again to be seen, or at least long enough for you to accomplish something else. This is one of the mental habit changes you must conquer if you are ever gonna get ahead of that rolling boulder.
You cannot, as a mom, working or at home, think that you can fully accomplish a task, all at once and every time. You have to think in bits, or really it’s setting a routine.
Example Routine #1
You cannot necessarily expect to do 2, 3 or 4 loads of laundry and have it completely done from start to finish (definitely not consistently week after week). This doesn’t happen easily, if it happens at all. This DOES happen if you corner off a day to do just this task and you can focus on it. Your bits in this case means nothing else can be done except this BIT – this one bite out of the whole pie of tasks Momma needs to do. Nothing else major will happen until this bit is done. It is a sacrifice of lots of things for a few done really well.
Example Routine #2
Have a daily routine of laundry. So instead of getting ALL the laundry done (and therefore, almost nothing else), you do a BIT of laundry each day. So you may get (haha! noticed I said ‘may’ get) a load done from start to finish today. It’s not gonna leave you with the laundry DONE but you will be a step ahead. You doing the bit of laundry daily will keep you with sufficient amount of clothes for your family.
So how this looks IN REAL LIFE…
When it was my husband, myself and 1 kid I was able to tackle the laundry once a week. We didn’t have a working laundry shoot, so we had baskets in rooms and generally the baskets didn’t get too full until it was laundry day.
I had a specific day (I think it was Monday or Thursday, middle of the week because I was an at home mom) and I would just focus on that, mostly. I started after breakfast and I was done by lunch. Of course, with little ones there were spills or other messes (wink) that had to be taken care of immediately, but in general it was once a week. I continued this routine somewhat successfully even once we added a baby.
Once my kids got over 3 years old
laundry grew and it became harder to do one day. I tried two days (then three!) and it was getting out of control. Older kids and trying to focus on laundry all morning – 2 mornings – did not work. Many times half the laundry would get done and sit folded or unfolded but clean.
Then we had another baby and I knew a laundry focus day just didn’t work for us anymore. Eventually we switched to laundry everyday which works so much better. A little everyday keeps a nice cycle for us and now that my kids are even older they help keep that cycle running.
All the bits add up but we’ve got to be okay with living in bits. Some people wonder how I even have time to read with 3 kids at home, homeschooling, and my writing business, well this is how!
Once we accept that our lives have to be handled in bits, and we commit to a routine of handling the bits, we are that much closer to being prepared for the next day. But making commitments and routines can also be overwhelming so next time I’ll be discussing the how to of consistency.