10. Overwhelmed? Reduce chaos one system at a time: Time-Saving Strategies for Busy Homes, Part Three

Episode 10: Time-Saving Strategies for Busy Homes, Part 3.
Quotes
"These systems increase simplicity and they also increase self-discipline in our kids."
 "Recognize that your kids' hearts and souls require tending to build their character and to help them to become the people that God really created them to be. Having systems in place allows you more time with your kids. Maybe one of them is going through a difficult thing and you want to slow down and pray with them, let them know that the God of the universe is also personal and loves them specifically and directly.That requires slowing down a little bit. That is why I've got these systems for you."
'Why am I talking about our kids' internet usage in a time-saving strategies podcast? It's because having a family internet agreement saves us so much time in multiple ways. Such as, I don't have to wrestle with myself about what my rules are going to be today with the kids regarding internet. Otherwise, if I didn't have a clear plan for internet usage in our home, then on days when I was tired or sick or overwhelmed, then I would be very tempted to be very lax on those rules. And that's when things end up happening is when we're distracted as parents."
Resources (some are affiliate links):
Internet Usage Agreement
Net Nanny Filtering service, Covenant Eyes accountability service
Simple Systems for Homeschool Success
Blog post about my sticky note system with three Brain Books.
Blog post about Save Your Sanity- one hour a week  meal prep.
Raising a Luke 2:52 Child

Transcript

Rich Harrison: 0:03

Welcome to the practically speaking mom podcast, the place for an intentional mom to build a strong family. This week's episode is the last of a three part series on time saving strategies for busy households. Today Val gives lots of practical examples of systems and how to implement them effectively. She also shares why good systems are so important in a family and episode one of this podcast I talked about that there's four main hats that a mama needs to wear and one of those is the master Gardner where you are recognizing that your kids' hearts and souls require tending to build their character and to help them to become the people that God really created them to be and helping to pour into them the things that matter most and we don't have time to do that if we have total chaos and out of control and overwhelmed all the time. Something else that we can't do when we feel overwhelmed and and full of chaos all the time is we don't recognize the God moments in our child's day. Those moments where you go, Oh, God is definitely a work here. Let's join her again for part three of time savings strategies for busy households.

Val Harrison: 1:23

Okay. This next section of Time Saving Strategies for the Busy Households we're going to be looking at saving time by creating systems, even systems over the smallest of things. For example, when we get home from co-op on Tuesdays, it's our longest co-op day, and I just have two girls still in school, 10th grader and fifth grader. I've graduated five. So when we get home, each of them have two bags. One is a computer with books for the computer related classes and then one is different school books and a lunch bag as well. They know that I have a little system they are to do when they come in the house with all of their stuff. And that system includes getting those bags ready for the next time. Now of course, we're going to use all of those books all week long until we go to that co-op again. Plus we have multiple co-ops, so I actually have them empty their bags when they get home. They empty their bags and each thing goes in their different places. Of course, their shoes also. Even just as a little thing as shoes getting.... When I had all littles, I had a cute basket by the front door and all of their shoes went in that basket. It ended up saving us so much time. Yes, it was a big pile of shoes, but all the shoes were in one place. And so that was so helpful. Of course, they g ot bigger a nd, and you couldn't manage having all t he shoes at one place. So now, w e have a container for shoes in our entryway closet, they're each allowed to have a pair of shoes in that container to be able to grab quickly to get out of the house. That works for all different kinds of scenarios. So as we get home from that co-op, everything gets unloaded. Their lunch bag, you don't want to end up opening your lunch bag days later and there's a banana peel in there. Everything gets emptied out right away. It's these little kinds of systems that really reduces the chaos in life in general. And those kids are capable of doing those things for themselves. But implementing the system is going to take working out some of the kinks and taking the time to really getting it a habit in them before you can reduce how much you follow up with it. There needs to be quite a bit of follow up until they're in good habits and then follow up still needs to happen. But it can be reduced after that. So lots of praising for what you want repeated and some consequences as necessary. But for the most part you can achieve these kinds of things without having to have consequences if you keep a high standard in your followup. Okay, so let's talk about some different systems that you could implement besides the examples that I just gave there. These systems increase simplicity and they also increase self-discipline in our kids. The first one that I want to mention is, I don't know if there's any more critical thing that I c an bring up with you guys. And that is an in ternet usage agreement. Th e internet has lots of wonderful things at our fingertips. It's great until it's terrible and there's way too many moms and dads who are living with the heartache of internet problems that arose in their kids' lives and maybe it completely took their child away from them for various reasons. Th ere's so many different examples and you guys know that I would encourage you to be a part of the Facebook group parenting in a tech world. That Facebook group will keep you aware of all the crowd that is out there and it just will help you be more vigilant. It is not a pleasant group to be a part of, because it is not pleasant to think about all that stuff. But guys, w e would never let our home get filled with a bunch of strangers with ill intent against our children and we certainly don't want to set them loose in their bedroom with countless of people like that. I know there's a lot of parents that feel like,"well, I can trust my child. They are a good kid." You're right. They probably a re. Y ou're probably 100% right that t hey're a good k id, but that doesn't mean the internet is safe for them. Y es, we want to equip them for in life without us. Yes, they're going to be an adult someday and they're going to have to be able to, to have restraint and self control and things like that. They're not an adult today and they are not ready to hold such a dangerous thing, unsupervised and uncontrolled in their hands, in all settings, in the bathroom and the bedroom, you know, just unlimited access to danger and crud. An internet usage agreement, I just feel like it's s o important coupled with a filtering system. So an i nternet usage agreement is available on my website and you can get it there. There'll be a link to it in the show notes and maybe you don't like mine and that's fine. You ca n j ust use it as a springboard for helping you come up with what you want your internet agreement to be at your house. I don't have 50 agreements that my kids sign. I have an internet usage agreement because I happen to feel like this is the most dangerous thing in my kids' lives because it comes against them spiritually. And what I mean by that, I mean that the enemy of our souls desires to devour your child's everything, your child's happiness and health and, and, and spiritual development., their relationship with God and who God is and who they believe themselves to be. The internet is just full of things that war against what makes your child healthy. Not to mention that screen time alone is unhelpful for your child's development. So is there wonderful stuff? Yes. Do I let my kids use the internet? Yes, I do. But I also treat this with the importance that it needs and yeah, it can be, sometimes it feels like a part time job, paying attention to the technology in our home. But if I'm not willing to do that part time job, I need to throw out all my technology, quite honestly, I would rather they live like it's 1950 than to be bombarded 24/7 with all of that junk that is out there to destroy their self respect through bullying, through... I mean I just don't even want to discuss all of the things. Join Parenting in a Tech World and let them tell you. But with my internet usage agreement, what we do at our house is they sign it and then we keep accountability about it. So my husband checks in with my son and I check in with my daughters on how each of these things are going. And then we also have filtering, but as their responsibility grows, their freedoms grow. So the internet usage agreement can change over time as it should based on their responsibility with it. So even as adults, my husband and I have agreements between the two of us. I don't mean a written one that we signed, but we both agree on what we will and will not look at. And we also hold each other accountable to that. And we also use filtering. So these are things that we're doing as adults to protect our own minds and hearts and our relationship. So it also can be used with our kids. Why am I talking about that in a time saving strategies podcast? It's because it saves us so much time in multiple ways. One way I don't have to wrestle with myself about what my rules are going to be today with the kids regarding internet. Otherwise, if I didn't have a clear plan for internet usage in our home, then on days when I was tired or sick or overwhelmed, then I would be very tempted to be very lax on those rules. And that's when things end up happening is when we're distracted as parents. So having an internet agreement, like I said, this is the only thing that I have my kids sign and agree to because I feel like it's that important. With one exception, our youngest who turned 10 a couple of days ago, but she was nine at the time, went to church camp and I did have an overnight camp agreement that I had her sign of things that I could count on her to stay away from or to do while she was at camp. I don't know about you growing up, but there were some things that I do believe I wouldn't have done if t he line had been very clearly drawn i n the sand from my parents. And if I knew there was going to be followup questions afterwards when I got home, my parents were loving and strict, but that doesn't mean that all boundaries were discussed. And so there were some boundaries that I pushed that I don't think I would have if it would have been clearly discussed with me. Then if I knew that we were going to have questions about it later. So I did make a church camp o ne, but I mean, it's not about that it was church, but just about being camp. So that's my two agreements that I've had with the kids. Clearly, I feel like internet usage is something that is very big deal that needs clear boundaries with accountability and filtering also. You can look at my internet agreement on my website. Some other things, though, that you can have systems for that save you time from just warring within your own self of what are my limits going to be today? What are my standards going to be today in consistency and standards around your home. It reduces your value of your words and it also makes kids fluctuate in how they handle things, right. So let me just be more clear. Dirty dishes System. Let's just take that. Do you have a clear system with your kids that they know what to do with silverware and what to do with the glass and what to do with the bowl and all of these things when they're done with a dish, what is your system at your house? Are all of the monkeys on your back as mom? Like do they leave it on the table and you take it over and deal with it? Or how much of the monkey is on you? Like maybe they carry it over by the sink and then it becomes your job. Or do they put the silverware in the silverware thing in the dishwasher and they put the bowl in the bowl spot in the dishwasher and make sure that there's nothing, n o big pieces on it. Have you done training for these different things? It takes extra time to train in on how to put a bowl in the dishwasher in a way that it's going to get clean and, a nd isn't crazy, you know, so that you can't fit very many things in there and all that kind of stuff. So it takes time to train on a task. B ut when you have trained and followed up with them, then it reduces both your responsibilities and therefore you're less overwhelmed and, and your kids are more responsible and think about what a better spouse they're going to be because they have been helping with these things. So those are a couple examples. Another example is a laundry system. I start my kids at a pretty young age, not all of the steps in laundry, but some steps of laundry little people can do, right, and so just gradually giving them more and more of the steps of laundry until by about age, you know, eight to nine, maybe as old as 10, just depends on the child's ability level doing their all of their laundry by that age. Now, does that take a lot of time and training for me in the beginning? Absolutely, yes, but I'm doing this partly for their future to give them a life where they are self-disciplined and where they are willing to tackle difficulties. The whole household runs more smoothly when you are gradually giving these different responsibilities of the kids to them. I t's very important as you do this to only implement one new system at a time. You're going to overwhelm yourself and them if you start feeling like you need to introduce all of these systems at once. Instead,. look at your family's life, what is causing the most trouble and tackle things there first. And maybe you can only implement one little aspect that affects that area but you know, pick out the first step to take that everybody can start doing. So l et's look at a couple more. Maybe, if you are homeschool family, school recordkeeping is another system. I introduce it pretty young that they are helping in the process of school record keeping but certainly by fifth grade they are keeping their records. Now remember I'm having a high standard and I'm following up with every aspect of that of course because record keeping is very important. If you would like to know my systems for that, there is something on my website called Simple Systems for Success and it's all about school record keeping and some other things to bring simplicity and systems specifically related to homeschooling. Preparing the night before for your busy days the next day, what are the systems that you have that in place? Maybe the kids like to watch one 20-minute show before they go to bed at night. Let's say, well, what things do you expect to be done? You're not going to let them watch something until they have gotten these certain things done ready for the next day. For example, I want to see their outfit that they're going to wear. And of course by the time they're in high school, I'm not asking them about their outfit unless, unless they're a kid who's pushing the boundaries on modesty or something. Younger kids, I want to see their outfit, especially in middle school, their standards can be a little bit not awesome when it comes to it's wrinkled or smelly or whatever. So I want to see their outfits and do they have their shoes with it and do they have their lunch made and backpack filled. And you know, all of these things, the night before. Sunday mornings are mornings that can be busy. And if we want to reduce the stress, chaos, and increase peace on a Sunday morning, then what can we, what kind of systems can we make to help them to play a role in the smooth running of the household? And then a chore chart can also help with that of course, which I, especially when the kids were, when I had many kids at home, the chore chart was essential and I usually would change it every semester just to refresh everybody's excitement about chores a little bit. You know, I needed to review things and move the chores down the line to younger kids and younger kids so that the older ones felt like they were graduating to new things. And I did frame it in that way."I think, son, you are done great at that. You've been very responsible with that. You are ready to pass the baton of that chore to this one and now you are earning this new more difficult chore." Just giving them a mindset of well done, good job."You have been faithful and responsible with this and you are ready for the next level and we're ready to pass that one on to some other kids." Now: M eals, Household and Education Brain Books. Those are three really big elements of your life as a mom and how to keep track of them all. Well, I have a system that is three different books, just little cute books that I use for that and I think I'm going to make a whole podcast about that. But in the meantime, I do have a blog post about my system with these three little books that helped me keep life in order. I call them my Brain Books because I don't know about you, but my brain gets way too full to rely on all these different things. Like someone will share a really good website for for this and I'll be like,"Ooh, that's awesome. I'm so glad to know about that. Now how am I going to remember it?" And so I it w ould go into my education notebook. I put each detail on little sticky notes so that I can create new categories and move th e s t icky n otes. You could look for my blog post on that. I will try to put that in the show notes, the address for that particular blog post. But that is, that has been a system that has really helped in our family as well. H elped me to reduce chaos, be able to find things and just feel like my brain is not out of control. Something else that helps with systems for success that I'm also just only mentioning to you today and not going into detail because I'm having a separate podcast about this, but it is raising a Luke 2:52 child and in this podcast when we do Raising a Luke 2:52 Child, so j ust look for that. You will see just a very, very simple system that I go through about twice a year with each of my kids to evaluate them in f o ur a reas of their life and how to set a goal. This is a parent goal, not a kid goal. Sometimes I would share my goals with them on this but most of the time I would not. It was something that I would pray about and keep in front of me but not necessarily keep in front of them about my child. So you can keep your eye out for the podcast called raising a L uke 2:52 kid because it's a big part of the systems that I use at my house, which is why I wanted to mention it to you. Also, homeschool moms, there's something in that same Simple Systems for Homeschool Success. There's another section in that that is a main part of my systems and that is a records binder or a flash drive for records. And so in that packet that you can get off my website, it will tell you how to keep a records binder or a records flash drive. A few more things that that packet goes over is simplifying subjects. How can I take different subjects that the kids are doing and combine kids at different ages and maybe even combined subjects like I like to combine history writing and literature together. It's a great combination for digging deeper in an exciting way. I can do this with multiple age kids and it only adds to the enjoyment for all of us, but there is a way to do it where the older kids have more and the younger kids have less, but they're all learning and bonding from doing it together. S o that's in my systems for success packet and I also go through on there lists to make before making a schedule. There's some decisions you should make before you make your semester schedule. So that is also in that packet and h ow to set your priorities because your priorities are going to impact how you want your schedule to look. Another thing in the packet is how to set up sample schedules, including for all different ages, even littles, how to set up their schedule. My book When Littles are Loud: Maximizing the Moments without Drowning in Chaos, the middle part of the book is about setting up a schedule for your child to help them to become more independent and to get some, some educational juices flowing in their minds,, developing their skills in various areas, but doing it all in a way that will increase their contentment and help you feel freed up to get some other things done. So if you have littles and you would like help specifically with getting a schedule under control with them, then you're going to want to look at my book when littles are loud, maximizing the moments without drowning and chaos. And I do have some blog posts on that as well to get you started. In the systems for success for homeschoolers packet, you will also find different sample schedules and r ecordkeeping and things like that. Moms, I w ant t o share one more thing with you for simple systems for busy household and that is look for a b log post that I have called save sanity, the one hour a week quick freezer plan. It has been a method that I used for many years. Now that mine are mostly grown, it definitely changes the way that I need to do that kind of thing. I know this at the end was just a lot of different resources that can help you at your house, but I want to really equip you with things and not just fi ll a p odcast. So yes, I'm referring you to some other resources, but it is because I just really want to equip you with a home that can have more peace, less chaos and where you can truly, you know, going back to what I said at the beginning of this podcast in episode one of this podcast I talked about that there's four main hats than a momma needs to wear. A n d one of those is the m a ster gardener where you are recognizing that your kids' hearts and souls require tending to build their character and to help them to become the people that God really created them to be. It takes some protecting of their time and helping to pour into them the things that matter most. And we don't have time to do that if we have total chaos, or being out of control and overwhelmed all the time. Something else that we can't do when we feel overwhelmed and full of chaos all the time is we don't recognize the God moments in our child's day. Those moments where you go,"Oh God is definitely at work here.' Maybe it's a butterfly has landed on the window and you've got a child right there,a little one. And you want to show the butterfly to the child and be like,"look what God made. This is so exciting." Or it can be something bigger. Like maybe one of them is going through a difficult thing and you want to slow down and pray with them over that and let them know that the God of the universe is also personal and loves them specifically and directly. And he wants to be in connection with us. He's a gentleman, he does not force himself on any of us. And so we want to teach our kids to invite him and his power and his work, invite him into our lives. And so that requires slowing down a little bit and taking the time to tend to their heart and souls. And that just can't happen as well when everything is chaos. So that is why I've got these systems for you. Maybe they aren't ideal for your household, but maybe they will bring some ideas for you that you can tweak and make them fit your home better. And I just want you to know moms, I know that this journey is a difficult one and overwhelming. I st ill feel overwhelmed many times in a week. But I want you to know that you're not alone in this and I just want to walk this journey along with you and I am praying for you. I am p r ay ing for all of my l isteners this week and for your families that God would just show you in special ways that he loves you and he is there with you and for you. And I hope you have a great week as you implement something from this podcast. You know, just try one. Don't try all of these, just one at a time. Try a new system to see if it can bring a little more peace to your home and blessings to you. My intentional mom friends. I hope you enjoy today's episode of the practically speaking mom, the podcast for an intentional mom to build a strong family. You can find lots of more from me, my blog books, the six rooms with intentional moms home at my website, practically speaking mom.com if you found this podcast to be helpful, I would be so honored if you would share it with other people. Subscribe to the podcast, follow my blog and joining the practically speaking moms online community through Instagram and Facebook. And we also have a wonderful private Facebook group, a place where I get to interact with you more personally where you can share your ideas and you can give your feedback about the podcast. You can ask me personal questions about it and we can just interact on all different kinds of levels. There's so many wonderful intentional moms in this group and I would love for you to be one of them. The name of that private Facebook group is intentional mom, strong family. So I hope you'll join that today and let me get to know you. If you think other moms would benefit from this podcast, would you please take a few minutes to leave a review on iTunes so that iTunes will recommend this podcast to moms when they search? I'm looking forward to spending time with you again next week. Right here on the practically speaking mom podcast, the place for an intentional mom to build a strong family. See you soon.