Time Management At Home
A lot of the time management at home depends on if you are single, married or married with children. In this article it will all be blended together. The overall principles are the same.
Traditionally the husband and father is the leader in the home. I did not say he is the family dictator. It is the father’s job to have the vision and make important things happen working united with his wife.
If you have children delegate family responsibilities to your children in the form of committees. You children will have stewardship over and be responsible for those committees. Your children report to you the parents on their stewardships.
Your children do not have to old to participate, as young as five years old would do. Your youngest could be on the cheer committee. Young children are often full of cheer. They just need to be old enough to think on their own and be able to plan.
For example if you had say six children you would assign each child or two a committee based on their age and aptitude. A committee represents the important responsibilities or duties of family life.
Your committees could look something like the following;
1. Activities Committee
2. Service/Compassionate Service committee
3. Vacations committee
4. Sports Committee
The concept behind assigning children committees is so the parents don’t have to do all the work. Remember that it is not the job of any leader to do all the work. Having children assigned to committees helps them feel more united.
The family becomes more of a team instead of individuals living under the same roof. The parents decide on the importance and emphasis on each committee. For example you might decide that the service committee needs to plan a family service project once a week. The vacations committee could plan something once a year, or once every three months depending on your family situation.
The advantages and blessings this will bring to your children are huge. They will learn leadership at a young age. Leadership skills and experience will be invaluable to them as they grow into adulthood. Your children will be light years ahead of their peers. Psychologist’s say many people never really grow up, and those who do it takes them well into adulthood to figure it out. People are naturally drawn to leaders. There are few greater gifts you could give to your children than the gift of leadership.
Activities Committee
One child or two is in charge of coming up with ideas for family activities such as; movies, bowling, eating out etc. The parents will set the guidelines and the budget. You know what is appropriate for your family and make sure your children stay within the guidelines you set.
Service Committee
Service is a universal law of happiness. The most miserable people are the most selfish. Assign a child or two to come up with a plan to provide service in your area. Visit the elderly in a retirement home or do something in the nearby hospital are only examples. Doing service together as a family will unite everyone and bring a bond of love that will astound you.
Vacations Committee
This one might be better for the teenager. A little kid will know what he/she wants to do for fun but has not grown up enough to plan out the details. Planning the details of a vacation might be hard for a teenager but not if he/she has stewardship over it. They will do it with pleasure and great pride.
Sports Committee
If you have boys they probably like sports in some fashion to both play and watch. Have a plan for sports. Generally it is better to play sports as a family than watch it.
Here is where the techniques come into play and this doesn’t have to be in stone.
You need to review your day, week and month both you personally and with your spouse and with your family. You go over what you did during the week; you plan what needs to be done the next week. Don’t ignore your fixed tasks.
Fixed tasks are the things that must be done no matter what is going on. It is ok not to list the fixed tasks if you are already in a habit of doing them. If you are not in the habit of doing your fixed tasks then mark it down on your to do list. Every week review your monthly, mid term and long-term goals; this could also work better in your monthly planning session.
Your daily review is a simplified version of the weekly review. You identify what you did during the day and what you need to do the next day. Think about how you were blessed during the day. Write an overall assessment of the day.
The monthly review includes the same areas as the weekly but you add more areas that apply to your family and all the issues and challenges your family faces.
Your children will report to you about their stewardships. This could happen weekly or monthly. Every day accounting is too much.
Conclusion
Time management at home is similar to the workplace. It requires delegation and teamwork. One person is should not make all the decisions and plans. Constant planning insures the important things happen and that you are not frequently dealing with emergencies. If you do not plan for the important things, they will not happen on their own and you will by default be working on emergencies.
Some of the ideas in this article I learned from one of my religious mentors Dr. Scott Anderson.
About the author
Bret owns the website mindbodyandmoney.com, a site about self-help/self-development and running a business from home.Distributed by Content Crooner
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