I never realized how important a schedule was until I was a mom. When I became a single mother I found that schedules were even more important than I thought, and not just for Hailey, for me too.
I soon discovered in the first months of craziness that is single parenting that I could not get a thing done. Laundry would be washed but not folded, dinner cooked but not cleaned up, grocery lists made but forgotten. Everything quickly got out of hand.
I had to get my home life under control so I could make sure that Hailey and I had a life as well.
I couldn’t find the calendar I wanted to I created my own system. I used a large wall calendar and a dry erase calendar as well. The wall calendar allowed me to schedule things that were not happening in the current month instead of just relying on my memory.
One the dry erase board I listed everything Hailey and I had to do at a specific time on a specific day, work, school, doctor’s appointments, church, after school activities and the like.
Then I made a list of things that had to get done each week at some point. On this list was each task, broken down. Grocery shopping was broken down into looking as sales circulars and making a list, with the actual shopping listed separately. I did this for everything, laundry, cleaning, movie night, baking cookies, reading, ironing, working on hobbies. Everything had to be listed.
When I had the list I started with the things that I needed to do so Hailey and I would have some fun down time together, maybe a trip to the zoo or to get ice cream, watching a new movie or baking together, sometimes, if money was especially tight maybe a bike ride or pushing her on the swings at the park. I tried to have at least one fun thing every other day.
Then came the real chores. After everything else was on the calendar I scheduled laundry, wash, fold, put away, grocery shopping, and cleaning. I learned to not just schedule activities or chores but also to schedule the prep work for those things.
I won’t say our house always ran smoothly but it did run better. Sometimes, after a particularly trying day at work it was nice to come home and see that although there was laundry to put away, I was also going to take a walk with my favorite girl.