Weekly Planning for Moms: Building a Time Map

Hey! You’re back. 🙂 Are you ready to get your life in order and kick some of the craziness to the curb?

Great! Let’s get started!

Last time we talked about clearing your life-clutter by listing your priorities–deciding which things are Essential, Necessary, and Nice. (If you missed that post, go ahead and take a peek at it. It will make your time mapping go way quicker!)

Today I want to show you how to actually fit all the best stuff into your life.

On Keeping Your Essentials First (Even Though it Feels Selfish)

If you’re like me, you probably ended up with a lot of things on your list. Maybe you even looked at it and thought, I don’t have time to do all of this!

You can see on my list that the “essential” (the things that make me feel healthy, whole, and connected to my family) list takes up almost a whole column of the page! And that’s even before we get to the necessary–you know, the stuff like cooking and eating.

For a lot of us, it is easy to look at the “necessary” and “nice” lists, and think we should start to narrow down our “essentials.” Because the essential list is about me and my well-being, I start to feel selfish putting all that first. Why is making sure I get 8 hours of sleep more important than budgeting? Cooking? Bathing my kids?!

I guess it all depends on your ultimate goals for your family. But for me, the #1 goal is for our home to be a place of peace, safety, love, and connection for my children.

And I know I cannot provide them with the nurturing, playfulness, thoughtful conversation, and good attitude they need to have that if I’m not taking care of myself. (In fact, I am absolutely the worst and such a grouch and my kids ask things like, “Are you crabby?” and “Are you h-angry?”)

So that’s why sometimes we have cereal for dinner instead of a well-balanced meal–because this mama hates cooking, and if it has to be one of the other, I’d rather give them a love than lettuce wrapped teriyaki chicken. Sometimes we skip bath time in favor of reading a book on the sofa. Sometimes the house is a mess and I still read a book instead of cleaning up after they’re all snug in their beds.

My essential list protects my personhood, my health, and my happiness. And that benefits my family in a million ways. (And gives me the energy to do the “necessary” things, too!)

So keep your essentials a priority, okay?

Now lets make our maps.

From List to Time Map

All right, mama. Here’s what you need for this part:

1. Your “Essential, Necessary, and Nice” priority list (learn how to make one here)
2. This blank [download label=”Ideal Week Time Map”]https://www.brightlightmama.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Ideal_Week_Time_Map.xlsx[/download] (based on one I found via Michael Hyatt)
3. A pen/pencil or a computer

The next part is pretty straightforward. You just open up that little time map I made for you, and start mapping out your ideal week.

This isn’t a picture of the upcoming week, but instead a map of what your perfect week–one that balances self- and family-care with productivity and fun–would look like. (I’ll tell you how to use it in a minute, so don’t panic!)

The half-hour blocks are to give you flexibility and margin. (Margin is just extra time for your kids to dawdle or throw a tantrum, or for you to get lost or forget your wallet at home without losing your whole day to it.) So even though it only takes me about 20 minutes to drop my kids off at school, I schedule it for the whole half-hour block so I don’t feel rushed or stressed. (If something is only going to take you 5 minutes, go ahead and throw it in with a couple other things.)

The Essential

Start by adding anything that you absolutely must do at a certain time. (Not things you already do at certain times, like playgroups, but things you HAVE to do or your family will suffer serious consequences. So, taking your kid to school? Yes. Going to soccer practice? No.) For me that’s school pickup and drop-off, and church on Sunday at our assigned time. Other than that, nothing must be done at a certain time.

Next, start figuring in items from your Essential list.

You’ll notice one of my essentials is to get 8 hours of sleep. (I am a wreck if I don’t, and I know that.) To do that, I’ll have to figure out what time I need to go to bed and mark a goal bedtime. I also decided I can’t get up before 6:30 and still be a nice person, so I blocked that time out in gray. I’m not a morning person, so that’s No Man’s Land.

Then I punch in some other things on my essential list. I want to do something spiritually focused (scripture study, prayer) and get dressed before the kids are up.

I need to improve my flexibility in my neck (short girl problems) so I need to stretch. I put that–and reading, too–in as part of my bedtime routine, because (bonus) they’re also relaxing.

Then I just add more essentials where they fit, and my time is filling up nicely with things that replenish and rejuvenate me and my family.

Wondering about the color coding?

Blue is for themes. I find it easier to group my days and hours into themed chunks so I don’t get distracted as easily. (Not that I ever get distracted… SHINY OBJECT!)

Green is for my anchors–the parts of the day when timing is non-negotiable (read more about how I plan a flexible daily rhythm with little kids here).

Yellow is for things that are blocked into the daily plan, but are more flexible.

White is free, unscheduled space. It always gets filled with something, of course, but it’s planned margin–free time to fill with what we choose to fill it with.

You’ll see I leave plenty of white  margin-space even as the plan fills in more!

The Necessary

Once you’ve got all your weekly essentials blocked into their spaces, you can start filling in the necessaries. I use the same technique, just sorting through the pros and cons of when to do what.

I know I am tired in the afternoons, so I typically try to load all the chores, shopping, meal prep, etc. into the first half of the day. I like getting it done, and I know I’ll have the energy for it.

Evenings (once the kids are in bed) are probably the most peaceful time for me. So that’s my time to plan for tomorrow, maybe do a little work, and wind down.

One thing I want to recommend, is that you leave some blank space in your plan. Don’t feel like you have to fill it up. We all need structure, but it’s important to have flexibility, too–especially when you are dealing with young and unpredictable kids.

You’ll notice that my schedule has plenty of white space. That is done on purpose.

The Nice

So, here’s the thing with the “nice…” I don’t put those things on my ideal schedule. You can if you want to. But they’re not essential, and they’re not necessary, so usually I just fill them in to the white space as my week allows.

And the way I use that white space is different every week. Maybe one week we do a playgroup, another week that time gets filled with a library trip, and another we stay home and watch PBS Kids. It’s all fine. As long as I’m getting the things from the first two groups done, the nice things fill in the cracks.

The only exception to this rule would be a scheduled extracurricular–for you or the kids. Those you could put on the schedule. Just be very conscious of how much value your kids are getting from them–when you say yes to something scheduled and demanding, you are saying “no” to something else, like free time to play and explore as a family.

A Few Things…

Okay. A few things you need to know about your map:

1. Your time map is not a prison. It’s not there to tell you how much you’re failing or not accomplishing. It’s not there to guilt you and make you feel bad. It’s just a map–a tool to help you head in the direction you want to go. If you get off track or get confused about what you’d planned to do with your time, you simply glance at your map and course-correct a little.
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2. It’s not a calendar. Your calendar is still your calendar–keep using it. Your map is just a way to know what to do with the wide-open stretches of day that you want to fill with really good stuff.
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3. You can make changes. You’re the boss, not the map. In fact, my latest schedule has only been in effect for about a week, and already I’m making tweaks, rearranging to make it work better for me.
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4. It can save a you a ton of wasted energy. So there is this real psychological phenomenon called “Decision Fatigue.” Basically, it shows that the more decisions we have to make in a row, the harder it becomes to make good decisions. Your time map takes some of that pressure away, because it is just a list of decisions you’ve made in advance.

Okay–its your turn!

[download label=”Download the spreadsheet and put together your map!”]https://www.brightlightmama.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Ideal_Week_Time_Map.xlsx[/download]

Happy mapping, Mama. You can do it!

xo,
Jamie

p.s. If you found this helpful, would you do me a favor and pin it? I’m still new to the blogosphere, and your pins really help! 😀 You can just click the image below. ⬇⬇⬇