Scheduling the Routine and Driving Myself Crazy

Yesterday I hit schedule overload. I had a beautiful, quiet hour to myself, and instead of enjoying it, I was curled up in bed in semi-meltdown mode. I was behind in pretty much every area of my life: cleaning, blogging, meal planning, Bible reading, and I just didn't know what to tackle first. I was like a deer caught in the headlights of a semi-truck threatening to flatten me like a pancake.

(FYI: Semi-meltdown mode involves lots of chocolate, diet coke, and furious journaling.)

I'm one of those people who believe you can never have too much of a good thing. Ice cream, children, laughter :) Bring it on!

However, this tendency to the extreme can easily get me in trouble, especially when it comes to scheduling. I don't schedule; I over schedule!   And when I inevitably fall behind, I get very overwhelmed. 

I have a cleaning schedule, a blog schedule, and a bible reading schedule. There is my food plan and my meal plan (totally separate things). Teacup has a sleeping and eating schedule and Rooster...well he's in the process of dropping a nap so I can't wait till he's back on schedule. Oh and I set a goal to walk/jog 15 miles this week because I'm really not busy enough already.

If I have a plan, things get done. However, when I have 7 different plans nothing gets done. Too much of a good thing. 

Now in mulling over my hyper-scheduling problem, I ran into two ideas worth sharing. 

1. If you already have a good routine, you really don't need a schedule! Routines are a habitual and comfortable way of doing things. Schedules are more of a specific guideline for when and how things need to be done. Now, if you routinely never clean your house, then a cleaning schedule might be just what you need to get back on track.  However, sometimes a schedule just isn't necessary. 

My cleaning routine is pretty simple. Every day I just clean what's annoying me the most. This means the kitchen gets cleaned almost every day and the guest bedroom hardly ever. Bathrooms get cleaned right before company comes. I've tried the whole clean certain rooms on certain days thing, and it really doesn't work for me. On the days I have time to clean, I clean, and I try to make sure I have time fairly often. 

Yep, last time I made a meal plan was back in Sept...

My meal planning is also fairly laid back. I routinely take the time to write out a list of 6-7 meals we want to eat and then go grocery shopping. This doesn't happen on any certain day. When we run out of food, I go to the store. It's a comfortable way of doing things, but there are no set rules or specific time frames. 

Both of these routines work for me, but because they aren't super organized I felt the need to start micro-managing these areas of my life. Bad decision! Trying impose someone else's schedule on my routines just made my life miserable.

This brings me to point number...

2. If you run across another Christian mommy blogger/homemaker guru out there who tells you that you need schedules to be a good mother/wife/Christian punch her in the face kindly stop following her blog.

We all have things that work for us. Our schedules and routines are as different as our personalities, and there is great benefit in sharing those things with others. We can often find new ideas and new ways of doing things that will make our lives easier and less stressful (hallelujah!).

However, it's not okay for us to let other people's {seemingly} perfect routines make us feel less than stellar about ourselves. Your schedule/routine does not define your value as a wife or mother.

Do you have a comfortable home that your family enjoys?
Do you take care of your children and teach them to love the Lord?
Do you respect and support your husband in his role as the head of the family?

Then live on the wild side if you want too! If you want to go to the grocery store with nothing but a dream and a prayer, by all means embrace the chaos!

OR if you want to plan out your meals for an entire year, buy in bulk, and freeze everything so you never have to cook again, more power to you!

What's important is that we are caring for and loving our families. What's not important is the method by which we do those things. 

I need to stop comparing myself to others.  I need to stop trying to implement every good idea I find on someone else's blog and just start being my own kind of homemaker.

The kind with happy children and a really long to-do list :)