Time management - cooking, cleaning, and exercise

I think everyone will agree that for us women, irrespective of whether we work outside the home or not, married or not, with children or not, have domestic help or not, time management is crucial.

At some time or the other we must surely have wished there were 30 hours a day.

I am one such person. Many times, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of tasks at hand, I have felt I cannot take it anymore.
But the stark reality is whether we like it or not we have to take care of our homes, clean, make our home comfortable for our family, prepare healthy and delicious meals on time (this combination is so hard), maintain our health, and rear our children to be excellent citizens of the world!

Having worked in India since marriage I had adjusted my routine many times to accommodate the changing size and needs of my family. However, there was always something not right with my time management and I always ended up feeling I have been working the whole day without accomplishing anything.

My home and my mind were always in the state of CHAOS (Can’t Have Anyone over Syndrome).:drowning

One day overwhelmed with work I decided to see on paper where my time goes.
•Weekday – 24hours; Sleep time – 8 hours; Remaining – 16 hours; Work + commute- 8 +2= 10
•Remaining -6 hours
•Weekends – 48 hours; Sleep time – 16 +2(to wake up late) = 18hours
•Balance= 30 hours
•Deducted TV time, computer time, calling family & friends, personal grooming etc.
•This roughly left about 4-5 hours on each weekday and 20-25 hours on weekends. (Actually less)
•Deducted an entire weekday/afternoon (be it for outings, movies, or just doing nothing).
•Listed all the work and the approximate time each takes. Some were multi-tasks- e.g. while a load is washing, another drying, another batch is folded and ironed, or a small area cleaned.

I now realized that I had more work than I had time:rant!

I read a lot of time management books, websites, articles, even here on IL, and got tips from everyone. I found the two sources helpful – one was a book that told me to get up an hour early (see my article on this http://www.indusladies.com/forums/s...ion/129813-in-search-of-time.html#post1719230 ) and the other was Flylady.net.

The second one was more appealing because the main message was to do stuff in small chunks and the whole house was separated in zones for each week.

Another source of my inspiration was my late grandmother. She lived well into her 90s, was very active till the end. The one mantra she always lived her life by was, “don’t sit; keep moving”.

Having adapted flylady’s cleaning methods I tweaked the routines a bit to suit my lifestyle.

I thought I will share my consolidated time management that includes, cooking, cleaning, and exercise each day here. My husband’s job takes him out quite often, and my kids are away in college, so I did not factor their help in my calculations. If they pitch in when home, fine; but I decided to plan my days, assuming that I am handling everything on my own.

My routine is not a one-size-fits-all solution because everyone’s life style and family demands are different. However, even if one person finds it useful, I will be happy.

Anyways, why don't we give it a try and see if this works?
Please feel free to add in your routines too so that someone somewhere can follow it.

 

Let’s go.
Some points:
• Flylady says to “dress up to your shoes”. Well, I am old-school and still do not wear shoes inside the home but I change from my sleepwear to regular clothes in the morning and this energizes me to start work.
• Now it’s warm so you will find a lot of garden and yard work in my schedule.
• I have too many sarees for which I haven’t sewn the edges/falls. This will be my daily focus for the next weeks/months till all are done.
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My plan for Sunday, April 22.
5:00 am – Wake up. Make the bed.
5:30-6:30 am – Exercise
6:30-7:30 am – Weed garden, plant plants. (if it rains skip this part)
7:30-8:30- Clean the bathroom and then take shower. Post shower - Wipe down the shower stall and leave to air dry (to prevent mold)
8:30 –10 am

• put one batch of clothes in washer.
• Light lamp in puja room. Chant prayers.
• Breakfast – prepare, enjoy, wash dishes, clean up.

10 am – noon –

• Cook lunch and dinner. Wash dishes. Clean up.
• Dry clothes. Wash another batch of clothes.

12 –3pm -fold clothes, lunch, go weekly grocery shopping.
3-4 pm – put away groceries; dry clothes, fold, iron.
4:30 – 5:30pm– music class
5:30 – 7pm –

• Light lamp for deity.
• Check vegetables, prepare menu, roast, grind masalas as needed –refrigerate/freeze; pressure cook dhal-cool, freeze into usable portions, soak dry ingredients.
• Chop onions and refrigerate.

7-9pm -

• Dinner.
• Wash dishes, clean kitchen sink, wipe down stove, sweep and mop floor.
• Throw away trash. Place clean liner in trash can.
• Sew falls if needed and iron one saree and its matching blouse.

9-9:30 pm – Brush teeth, moisturize hands and feet, write down-Monday’s schedule.
*************
Tomorrow, I will post Monday’s plan.

 

Dear Manju
Thank you for your feedback.
Yes, I know about "Clean home" and I nominated it for the winning post.
I also nominated your contributions in the subsequent month .

I did think of posting it there but for the very reasons you mentioned - cooking and exercise were not part of that thread I decided to start a new one which addresses all the challenges we women face.

I read through all the threads in this forum and found valuable tips but nothing specific on how to incorporate them in daily routine. Actually my intention here is to also focus on stuff that we plan but cannot accomplish in a given day and to forgive ourselves for not being perfect.

Therefore because of the slightly different direction I intend this thread to take, I thought I should start a fresh one.

 

Dear Savvyheal
Thank you for your feedback.
I will definitely read mindtools. It sounds interesting and I definitely can use some valuable information on Time Management.