Do you wish you had more time? What if I told you there was a way of stream-lining some of your responsibilities and creating more time in your week? Your work as a Household Manager can, especially the parts that feel like a secretarial position, can feel all-consuming. You sift through mail, file things, make phone calls, pay bills, and fill out paperwork … on an almost never-ending cycle.
I need my head clear while I'm trying to spend quality time with my kids or trying to get work done … if I'm thinking about every.little.thing, I can't focus on the one thing I'm trying to do.
Did I call the doctor's office/ insurance company?
Did I schedule someone to fix the ___?
What is coming up at school? At church? Did I put it in my calendar?
Where did I put that coupon/advertisement I wanted to use?
Where do the kids go and when?
Has that bill been paid?
Did we send Grandma a birthday card?
When is the last time we changed the filters?
Did the doctor's referral go through?
How can I find anything in my wallet/purse when it is so messy?
Did we save any money this week?
What should we do for Izzy's birthday party?
Did we RSVP for that other kid's party?
What preparations do I need to make to get ready for family pictures?
Are the kids up to date on everything?
Have we returned the library books?
Did I pay that bill?
Did I send a baby gift/ graduation gift/ wedding gift?
I really cannot do all that I do while trying to keep these thoughts circulating in my head. Why don't I have to stress about it or worry about it constantly? Five Little Words: My Weekly Home Management Session (aka: H.M. Session).
I started referring to My Weekly Home Management Session as The H.M. Session simply because writing it in my planner that way was so much easier. Then, I started just saying "H.M. Session" too, so now that's just what it is to me. If you buy a planner with the H.M. prompts added in, this is already written in the to do section weekly.
My life is very full on a daily basis. The main things are my family, my home, and work, but of course there are a million little other things too. I think we all feel that way … that sometimes those little things derail our day. Once a week, I make an appointment with myself (Wednesdays for me), and I work through a checklist that helps me take care of things that need to happen.
I suggest actually putting something in your calendar to reserve the time, and hold it sacred like you would any other appointment.
During my weekly H.M. Session, I go through my checklist of things to do. I control my schedule instead of just reacting to things as they come up. If I can't do something right then or a task needs more time, I assign it a time to get done and schedule it into my planner. There are so many things I can't control in my life, but this is not one of them!
Since I keep this appointment with myself on a weekly basis, the amount to do is not overwhelming. I imagine it would get overwhelming if I skipped a whole bunch of weeks and tried to cram it all into an hour. It does always take a little extra time the session after a vacation or when a school year is starting/ending.
If I tried to do a little bit here and a little bit there, it makes me feel scattered, but also, it takes a lot more time that way. When we stop what we're doing to focus on a new task, it always takes time to get back in the groove of what we're working on. Shifting tasks always comes with a price of the time it takes to shift our focus, because we are not robots and that shift doesn't happen immediately!
When we do the H.M. Session, we group tasks like phone calls to make appointments, follow-up phone calls, sending cards, and adding events to our calendars. These things happen so much faster when we're just getting them done in rapid succession like this.
Go through Inbox: This step is so important, I created a different post all about it. You MUST read more about this in my post Taming the Paper Trail of Clutter (or How to Effectively Use an Inbox)!!!!! This is the crux of the H.M. Session system working. Your brain cannot fully relax with piles of paper all over the place.
Add events to my calendar – All of the miscellaneous church, school, activity calendars that pop into my inbox, I take the important dates from them and enter it into the calendar I use. Then, I can get rid of that sheet of paper and not miss any important event!
Clean Out Wallet & Purse: Pretty self-explanatory. This is pretty easy when done often. My mom has always done this every single night, so sometimes I feel rebellious only doing it once a week.
Other Stuff: While I'm going through my inbox, and the mail inside it, miscellaneous things always pop up that need handling. I don't procrastinate them, I get them done right away during my H.M. Session.
That's it – not so bad. I think it takes longer to write about some of these things than it actually takes to do them. But Whoa!! What a difference an hour (or less) a week can make on the whole rest of the week!
This is what organizing is about: streamlining and efficiency with the boring parts of life so that we can focus the rest of our time on things we like to do.
Part of the H.M. Session, is really owning up to the idea that these things need to happen and making a plan around to handle them.
When I was discussing the H.M. Session with another professional organizer, she liked what she heard. She replied "I'm always telling people they need to make time to adult and do all the boring stuff that's part of life." The "time to adult" bit really cracked me up, which is probably why I enjoy the irony of wearing this shirt on my busiest days. (I guess it's my small act of rebellion while I do the "boring stuff".) It's not always fun being a grownup, but I do like some of the perks, like being a mom is pretty awesome.
Have you tried an H.M. Session yet? Has it made a difference?
It's been a while-but it is going good. I continue to change up things to meet our needs. Now have a basket with files in them to organize all incoming papers and not a binder. Also still have the binders for each child, and love them and less papers go in them the older they get 🙂 How have you been?
I've always felt like that hour was greedy of me and unnecessary. I love that I now have permission to sit and work this HMS.
My tip: I have a magnetic list on my fridge and a magnetic pen right next to it. House rule is, if you used the last of it, write it on the list. Even my youngest loves to help with this. I always know what we're running low on without having to explore the entire kitchen and both bathrooms.
Wow! Thank you, that makes my day! And your lists sound divine. I re-make those lists during any season of stress. Biggest relief ever!
This is fabulous. I am loving reading your posts. Thank you for sharing, and being so candid & practical. It frees and calms at the same time!
I keep thinking I am going to do this. I am going to set aside time each week to do Home Maintenance. But the babies don't cooperate. Life doesn't seem to allow it. Perhaps after the 91 day de-clutter challenge, I can try this again. I used to have the kids in a mom's day out program and that was the time I could do this. But even then there were a million time stealers. An old friend would happen to be in town. Someone wants a brain storming session, I need to meet with someone about homeschooling, I was up all night for some reason and need to just sleep more and shower. So sigh. It was really hard to guard that time even then. Now if I sneak away into my office, the kids are on red alert and will not allow me to focus. Ever.
– I bring my inbox to the table and do my stuff while they do their homework/ coloring, etc. It takes longer because of interruptions, but I'm spending time with the kids and getting it done.
– I bring my inbox to the couch and do it while my littlest (he just turned 3 last week) watches Mickey Mouse. Sometimes I will do the phone calls separately, or walk to the kitchen out of earshot, but since the phone calls are just quick ones, it works out. Sometimes I just let the person on the other side hear Mickey Mouse in the background and I just say "sorry, my little guy is watching tv". And if he starts to talk to me while I'm on the phone, I just say "sorry, my toddler is trying to get my attention". People understand when moms call that we may have kids around, it is okay!! It is totally different than making a professional phone call and needing to sound professional. If we are making a dental/vision appointment, we can just be a mom, not a professional.
– When I was getting started with my H.M. sessions, I did them in 2 parts. After bedtime, I would sit with my inbox and do everything besides the phone calls, but then I would make a clear list of the phone calls needed to make. Then the next morning before I could forget, I would take care of the phone calls.
And my last piece of advice is, it sounds like you have boundary issues and a problem saying no. I can be direct in telling you that because it is my job. 🙂 You need to prioritize taking care of yourself and your family. You will still have time to serve and help others too, and you'll be surprised that you'll actually have more time and feel better and less anxious while you do.
For years I did this when I worked from home (Thursdays for me) because my time was so limited. Then I retired, had lots of free time, and got out of the habit, always saying "tomorrow". Now I am working part-time & am back in the habit again. What a difference! The expression "if you want something done, ask a busy person" is true.
Could I get a paper copy in the mail? My printer is not working right now?
Ladies, do yourselves a HUGE favor, and Daily empty your purse of receipts-enter into your check register. The last thing anyone needs is to be overdrawn, or spend bill money because they Only relied on online banking to do the job.
Five to ten minutes a day keeps you and your finances friends. No surprises.
Funny. I've done this same thing for years, but you've given me some ideas. Wednesday is usually my day and I had to divide meal planning out onto Monday as well. I've also had to keep specific health issues separate onto Fridays, otherwise I spend my whole session Wednesday on the phone with the insurance company (they don't put you on hold while they figure it out, they keep you on the line asking the same questions over and over while they put it in the computer).
I'm always trying to convince people that "it's a thing," meaning we ought to give it the credit and time it deserves and stop pretending we have more time in our weeks because we keep pretending these things take care of themselves and don't take time. Managing a home is a thing. Being a mom is a thing. Taking care of our health or someone else's is a thing. They belong on our schedule because they're important and they take time.
Do you have any advice for how to get started if you have a very full inbox?
On Fridays, I always sit down right after picking the kids up and make a menu and grocery list for the weekly shop the next morning. That part I'm very good at – I do it in basically in the kitchen so I can check inventories.
However, DH and I still haven't found a great way to deal with paper clutter, especially MY paper clutter. I usually put appointments and events (like baby or wedding showers, birthday parties, etc.) directly into our shared online calendar when I RSVP, which is as soon as possible. Medical bill paperwork, medical appointments, budgeting stuff, ideas for house-related projects… those tend to just hang out on our peninsula, cluttering it up. In part, this is because my office is such a wreck right now. When we moved into our townhouse a year ago, the goal was to make our walk-in closet into an office. We managed the clothing-storage part – installed 2 IKEA Pax wardrobes in our bedroom, but the office furniture we had didn't fit well into the space, so it's become a sort of dumping ground for paper I'm not sure what to do with, craft projects and supplies, etc., not beautiful and usable as I'd like.
I guess my main question is: how can I work towards taking control of the paper clutter during this interim period before we get to the office in the declutter challenge?
I think you'll be living in survival until you get to the root of the problem. You're going to need a clean slate to really keep up with paper permanently. If not having an office setup is stopping you from piling up paper clutter, then you need to set aside the time to get through that. You can wait until the office week of the declutter challenge by just living in survival as you have been, or get started anytime.
It could also be that the office not being setup is an excuse to not do better with the current setup. Piles of paper mean a broken system and procrastinated decisions. You'll need to give yourself some tough love, and force yourself to work through the paper and avoid piling it up in the future. You can do this – you just have to learn the new skills, but you are capable!