Christmas is over and a New Year is here! This is the time I like to think about goals. I really don't want to make any resolutions as those seem to come and go. This year I have been thinking about how to plan my long term goals and then make shorter ones so I can see my accomplishments or how well or bad I am doing thru out the year. When I was a young mother I felt really disorganized and so I read many books on organization. I also read how to motivate your kids type books. I made up several different motivation games to help my kids and myself to keep on tasks and try to make cleaning, and maintaining my house fun. Then I realized that some jobs are really not fun. The fun part sometimes can be that the job is finally done. I did figure out though that how fast or trying to make a job fun was not the secret to getting my kids to clean. The secret I learned was in a book that I think is out of print, but it was called the Side Track Home Executives. This was written by 2 sisters that had a hard time keeping organized. You used a card file with 3 X 5 cards to list all the jobs in your house and filed them by daily, weekly, bi-weekly, Monthly, Bi-Monthly, 6 months, yearly. It seemed overwhelming at first but It really helped me. The big think that I learned with this system was to time a job and to see how long it really takes to do it. For example-the bathroom. I made a card for, Clean the toilet- 3 minutes, Clean the mirror-3 minutes, Clean off the counter top 3 minutes, Clean the tub 7 minutes, Sweep and Mop the floor-10 minutes. Now I put down how long I thought it would take, and then I took all the cards into the bathroom and timed myself. I can tell you these times are pretty accurate. So then I would take one of my Kids into the bathroom with all the cards and say you are incharge of cleaning the bathroom. I explained the cards and each chore ( if they can't read then put pictures next to what you want them to clean.) Have them take a card and explain exactly how to clean it. Then take a stop watch and time them doing it. You both with find that maybe it takes less time than you put on the card. I explained to my children that if we split up the jobs and all did a different part of the house then we could get every thing done in about 20 min. I found that after 20 minutes they were no good to me anyway. Then I made sure I did not make them do any more large type chores that day. My husband says that I still can clean really quick. It is a good thing since I am really good at making a mess! My Mother was not the best at keeping the house really neat but we were really good at quick speedy clean ups. As a kid I really did not watch commercials. When there was a commercial on during a show our family was watching, my Mom would say, "Everyone get up and pick up 5 things and go put them away. With 8 kids and 5 items each. the room would be clean in no time. I also use to play the same music when we were cleaning. Whistle while you work, and Supercalifragilistic. Years later I played that music when my kids were home and one of them said, why do I know this song? So let's have a Happy New Year and Make some New Changes for good in our lives. With God Nothing is Impossible! Pray for help, I came to realize that Heavenly Father knows us and our loved ones very well and he will help us improve if we want to.
