Check out the other installments in this series: the intro, how we planned for it, prayer, health, family life, and work-leisure balance.

Once we had mapped out what we wanted our days and our lives to look like, we were able to formulate new daily routines and schedules to keep us on track.

This took a pretty good amount of time for us to really nail down what worked the best for us. My biggest piece of advice for this portion is to be patient with yourself while figuring out what works best for you and your family. What works for us will not necessarily work for you, and that’s ok! The important thing is to find what helps keep you sane, what helps you thrive, and what best enables you to fulfill your mission. That’s it.

And as always, have mercy on yourself. Even after multiple schedule revisions and finding one that really works well for us, our schedule has never gone perfectly for an entire day. At first, that bothered me. But I had to realize that this is life. Life is unpredictable and things come up; once you add little people to the mix, your life is not your own, in the most beautiful and chaotic way. So schedules have to become a bit more flexible in order to serve my greatest mission – my husband and my son. But I have found that having this schedule in place has been beyond beneficial. If something goes off track, as it always does, then I can just refer to my schedule to get back on track again instead of wasting time wondering what the heck needs to be done next. I cannot recommend having a daily routine/schedule enough. It’s been a sanity-saver for me!

The Schedule

To begin crafting our schedule, Dave and I sat down and did a brain dump including all our daily commitments and all our daily to-do’s (much like I talk about in this book). Then, we organized those items as follows (and since Dave’s day looks a lot different than ours, this was mostly for my organization):

1. I broke down my day into 15 minute segments. I know, 15 minutes seems like such a short amount of time. But the more books I read by people who have achieved success in their lives and businesses, the more I became aware that it might actually work. And it has! Segmenting the day like that allows me to plan for the smaller tasks without being entirely overwhelmed by the bigger ones.
2. Next, I filled in those daily items that have a specific time associated with them (ex. what time I wake up in the morning, the Angelus at noon, dinner prep, George’s bedtime, etc.).
3. Then, I began to fill in my daily tasks for work (I always include these items in the morning because no matter how much my day is de-reailed, these must get done), the household, the blog, and so forth.
4. Once my “must-do’s” were included, I scheduled time for leisure and other weekly commitments like our holy hour, RCIA, and visits to friends and family.

Like I said, this schedule has probably gone through about five revisions as we’ve really honed what works best. And we will probably revise it once again when summer rolls around and Dave is home more. It’s important to keep our schedules fluid, but still structured.

The Checklists

Having a schedule in place felt awesome, but I still felt a bit overwhelmed by everything that I needed to remember to do each day. So I made a system of checklists. I am a checklist freak. I’m one of those annoying people who writes down a task that I’ve already completed just so I can check it off. I’ve always loved checklists, but after becoming a mom and experiencing the ever-real effects of “mommy brain”, I need checklists if I want to remember to put one foot in front of the other. Here is my system …

Daily Tasks

Once George was born, I let a lot of self-care go in the midst of newborn survival mode and colic. There were nights when I was so exhausted that I’d fall into bed without brushed teeth or a washed face. There were countless mornings when I neglected to take my vitamins because it was survival mode from the moment I opened my eyes. So I formulated a daily checklist of the very basics to help get me back in the habit. You can view my checklist here. See? Very basic stuff, but stuff I needed help remembering nonetheless.

Daily Work Tasks

My next checklist was a checklist for my daily work tasks. This has been abundantly helpful to me, and it helps me keep track of what needs be done next. I also have a shorter, quicker daily checklist for the upkeep of this blog 🙂

Cleaning Tasks

Finally, I developed a cleaning schedule (cue angels singing). Here’s the thing. Before the total life overhaul, my cleaning routine went something like this: Live through the crazy week thinking I had no time to clean, allow apartment to become filled with junk, laundry, dirty dishes, etc., have an extreme freak out about how messy the place was, and have to spend an entire Saturday getting things back in order. Repeat.

Once this miserable system wore me down, I knew something had to give. I don’t expect (nor do I want) our place to looks perfect and spotless all the time. However, I am well aware that both David and myself function better and practice more virtue when we are in a tidy environment. What I had to drill through my thick skull, then, was the fact that by doing very small cleaning tasks each day, I would stay on top of cleaning and it would not become something that overwhelms me. So I broke down various “chores” that need to be completed into daily chores, weekly chores, and monthly chores. Of course, I made a checklist of these that you can see and print off for your own use here. Like everything else, I almost never perfectly execute it (you should see our apartment right now for evidence …), but I’ve found that even if I miss a day or two, I’m still not entirely overwhelmed by the mess.

Does your family run on a schedule? How did you go about formulating routines? What about when routines have to change with seasons of life?

*Adorable pictured calendar and to do list from the wonderful Meyer Market Designs!