Four Moms, Large Family Logistics Section Two

Here's what each of us had to say about this section:

Connie, Smockity Frocks

Kim B, Large Family Logistics

Kim, Life In a Shoe

Kimberly, Raising Olives

Here's section one

This week we are discussing chapters 18-27, organizing your week.

Just like our grandmothers and great-grandmothers did, Kim has rediscovered the value of having a specific day of the week for larger projects. She has a laundry day, a going to town day, an office day, a kitchen day, and even a Tea Party day (here's what that used to look like at my house).  It was in the chapter on the Kitchen day I realized this book truly is for young mothers- she advises mopping the floor on your hands and knees. I simply can't,although I have had some success with scrubbing the tub using an old set of football kneepads.=)

In each chapter she gives some helpful tips and suggestions about how to use that day to do your most efficient work in that room or area. One neat idea she shared for the laundry is a family she knows who assign the laundry to the ten year old in the family. When the next younger child turns ten, they graduate to laundry and the older child moves on.  this could be a handy way to handle a number of chores.  She also recommends detailed cleaning charts or posters for your child assistants to refer to.  This is the living room chart we used for a few years.This is the chart for cleaning the computer area., and I am very fond of this adaptation of Benedict's Rule of Order for cleaning the kitchen.

The first chapter in this section is on a home management book.  She strongly encourages you to make your own.  There are good forms here and here at DIYplanner.com



Other ways to get a notebook approach going are through:

The-Organizer-Lady@yahoogroups.com


http://www.flylady.net/

http://donnayoung.org/index.htm

But what I found particularly helpful is her advice on doing laundry- if you hate that chore, replace all the negative thoughts with positive thoughts focused on God. Do the laundry for Him.  This goes along with the previous section where she mentions that loving God is foundational.  Mostly when I am failing at something I have found that it is my focus on God (or lack thereof) that is the underlying problem. When I was younger I kicked against the goads over this suggestion, because I did love God. But I loved God like a teenager loves, without wisdom or understanding, with thoughts of how that love gratified me and made me feel good, but not so much attention on what God means by love and what He asks of those who profess to love Him.


This is foundational. Also, no routine, system, of notebook of household management in the world is going to help you if you don't have the will power and intestinal fortitude to be helped, to replace bad habits with good ones, to fight the sin of sloth and the lawless habit of scattering, of putting things down instead of away. There aren't really any short cuts.

I asked some questions about this in this post, particularly:

*How* do you make yourself do things that you *really* do not want to do? These things can be anything,  from making the bed to doing a math lesson to speaking to a stranger to befriending somebody you find simply tiresome to scrubbing the sink to balancing the checkbook to taking the time to call and price check something instead of just buying it because it's quicker to taking a vitamin every day to taking a walk to going into a thrift shop where you know you will find excellent bargains but you just don't like the smell, to getting up when the alarm goes off, to regular family devotions to cutting back on the length of your showers to putting tools away where they go instead of tossing them in the general direction, to ????

Whatever the 'thing' is, what does it take to break the inertia, to get you moving toward doing those things that you are most resistant to doing?

Also:

"Just do it" is the end result, the goal- what we need is the small, practical, baby steps between HERE and THERE. People with high energy, high motivation, or low obstacles just don't get it- it's as though we ask them, "How do you get to the Jones' house?" and they reply blankly, "You just get in the car and *drive.*

 I wrote about this here as well, in a review of A Mother's Rule of Order:

sometimes, if we are honest with ourselves, we must acknowledge that some of us just don't get things done because we are really being lazy and demonstrating a lack of self discipline. Holly honestly acknowledges, rebukes, and offers corrective teaching on that real issue that keeps many of us from having the level of order we would like in our homes, and she calls it what it is- sloth. Ladies, I know it's not popular to say things that might make people feel bad even if they are true. I know that in our culture the only really unforgivable sin is to utter hard truths and say things that make people feel 'judged.' If you know sloth has nothing to do with why you're not getting things done that you believe should be done, then you have no need to feel guilty about my use of that word- but you have no right to try to prevent others from using it. It's your house, not mine. But because I know that I just cannot be the only person in the western world who fails in this area, who actually, gasp, sins in this area, I offer this recommendation. Skip to the end if you like- that's where the chapters on sloth are.

We are a lazy people in many regards, and one of them is a spiritual sloth. We think that we need only do what we feel like doing, and sometimes not even that. Duty, ought, must, these are words we'd like to remove from our vocabulary. Holly will make some suggestions to help you correct those errors in thinking, but you'll still have to do the work.

Sorry about that.

 I think it's like being an alcoholic. No book or program will fix it until you've hit the place that you decide from within yourself that you must fix this, it just can't continue 'as is.'

How it's your turn- what do you think?  Add your link, following the usual rules- link to your post, link back to one of the Four Moms, your link must be related to the subject (no spam).  Tell us what's helped you the most in Large Family Logistics- or maybe you have something else you want to share about it.

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