Homemaking 911

Go here to read Part 1

Decisions

Here is the Second Part of Bringing Organization to Your Home .

Just to review.  We started with Chaos and discussed that there are two things we should subtract from this formula in order to lead to order.  The first one is Distractions.  The second one is Decisions.

Let’s take a peek at Joshua and see how this works.

“Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.  But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

Right here, Joshua is saying:  It is time to make a decision folks.  You can go on serving all those false gods or you can serve the LORD.  He stood for his decision that his family WOULD serve the LORD.  Case closed.  No more consideration otherwise, no looking back and no second guessing.  He took a stand.  The others quickly followed suit.

Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD to serve other gods!  It was the LORD our God himself who brought us and our fathers up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. And the LORD drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the LORD, because he is our God.”

“Now then,” said Joshua, “throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the LORD, the God of Israel.”

Right here we see that a decision was made and from that decision a specific action had to be taken.  There was no debating or arguing that decision.  Once the choice was made, there is nothing left to debate.

And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the LORD our God and obey him.”

Now, let me ask you, how many decisions do you think you make a day?  I know I make thousands in a day.  Every word that comes out of my mouth is a decision.  How I wear my hair, if I wear make-up, whether I will make my bed, what will I feed the kids for breakfast,  what time will I get up, whose turn is it to take out the trash.  All of these decisions are made before the first half hour has gone from my day.  Making a decision according to dictionary.com is:  the passing of judgment on an issue under consideration.  Each decision I make in the course of a day requires energy and attention.  How many times a day does your children ask you to play on the computer or watch TV, or go to a friend’s house?  How often does the phone ring in your home?

In order to stop some of the chaos in your home, simply make some of your decisions ahead of time, then relax your mind from all the trivial daily decision making.  Leave room in your day for basking in the Lord’s presence or to spend sustained time reading to your toddler, or play a game with your kids, or get caught up on the laundry.  You cannot avoid making some decisions on the spur of the moment, but for those you can plan ahead for and anticipate, consider the following:

1. Eliminate decisions
   1. Place for everything - “If something is not special enough to you to have its own place, you probably will not be able to find it again when you need it anyway.  Get rid of it.” - Mary Pride in School Proof.  Stop deciding where to stash or store stuff.  Make a final call on where you want things, or get rid of them.
   2. Schedule for the day/week by prayerfully laying out your plans for the week, you eliminate all the confusion of “flying by the seat of your pants”.  This can be very detailed (MOTH) or very informal (Jotting it on the calendar) to somewhere in the middle (Large Family Logistics).   You might want to just make a rough plan for your toddler’s day to keep them active and happily occupied.
   3. Meal plans:  By making a meal plan of any sort you can eliminate the constant nagging problem of what to have for dinner, lunch, breakfast, as well as the cost associated with extra trips to the store, carry out or dining out.  Meal plans can be very simple to very detailed, depending on your personality.  Handwritten, computer generated, on your calendar or separate.  Do not go overboard….leave room for spontaneity.  Consider your own cooking style and your family’s schedule for the evening.
   4. Grocery lists- This can be a set place where you jot down what you need as you run out, or a standard list you keep posted that you check off as things get low.  If can be part of your calendar, near your meals for the next week.
   5. Paperwork - ONE place for All paperwork (Bills and ONE Calendar), ONE place for completed school papers waiting to be graded, Binder for each child’s work to keep.
   6. Budget - You can really help yourself if you make a budget and decide you will stick to it.  It eliminates a ton of decisions throughout the week.  If it is not on the budget, you will not even consider it.  Decide ahead of time how much to spend on categories and make a 30 day list or wish list for items not in the budget.
   7. Rules/consequences:  I am not going to tell you what kinds of rules and consequences you should have in your home, but I will tell you this:  let your rules be consistent and consequences simple.  Decide what types of training is required for your kids to be able to conform easily to the rules of your home.
   8. School work required: If you homeschool, at the beginning of the school year, go ahead and take out your calendar and decide when you want to be finished with school for the year and what big breaks you want to take.  Then, take each curriculum and divide up the lessons into the number of weeks you want to be in session.  Usually I revisit this list in December, Late February, and almost every week after that until we are finished.  I try to plan where I will finish some things early in the year, so when spring fever hits, we can play outside instead of finish a text book.

   To hear this workshop in it’s entirety, you can purchase an MP3 of this workshop in our store.

   Also, our book, Chaos to Order, 25 Tools Bringing Organization to Your Home may be a benefit to you.

To read the next installment, go here.

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