New Routines

For the start of the new year you might want thing think about establishing a new routine- consider what worked for you last year and what areas you really struggled in. If the mornings are hard for you make a morning routine checklist and include a list of the things you would be able to get done the night before to help alleviate that extra stress. I made up one of these last year you might remember this post. I put this sheet together 6 months ago and since then our circumstances and routines have changed a lot and so with the start of the new year I have made up a new list for the mornings.

With the help of our previous list we have have become a lot more efficient in the morning and there is a lot less stress involved in getting out the door now but there is still room for improvement. I still want to get more done the night before when I have more energy. Once you have decided what area you struggled most in last year write up a routine of how you would like this to work in your ideal scenario. Consider buying a clipboard and either magnetizing it for the fridge or sticking it up elsewhere in the kitchen where it can serve as a daily reminder for you. Review the Routines throughout the year and re-write them if you feel like they are not working for your family.

Here is a snapshot of our new Family routine we will use this for the next 5 or so months until the new baby is born. When I took down the old one I just slipped it into out 2009 family scrapbook as it is part of our year and will be great to look back on in the later years.

This years has a list of things we need to do the night before to make the morning rush easier. These include-

Lay out clothes for the morning

Pack any necessary bags for work/school

Check menu plan and write shopping list if needed

Pack dishwasher and tidy kitchen

Hang out any washing and put another load in the machine for the morning

Pick up /tidy family room.

We do MOST of these things already but having this list up in our kitchen serves as a daily reminder to us. Down the bottom of the page I have typed out Flynn's weekly schedule so everyone knows what he is doing each day : ) This system works for us at the moment with only one child once we have multiple children doing activities I will looking for a system more like this Family Planner for the fridge by Mom agenda (I LOVE their stuff, so cute!).