Binders and Schedules and Lists, Oh My!

My Favorite Practical Tips
from the 2015 Homemaking Ministries Online Conference

Okay, if you've known me long you know that I am an office supply junkie!  It's really quite ridiculous how excited I get about folders and pens and notebooks!  In fact, just the other day I was at Walmart and they had packages of Pilot Frixion Erasable pens on clearance!  I had not heard of these specific pens and was excited to buy a pack and try them!  Well, let me tell you, they are AWESOME!!!  They write like a gel pen but are completely erasable!  I went back the next day and bought three more packages! (That was using self-control!  I wanted to buy them out!)

This first tip makes use of both my obsession for office supplies and organization!

Tip #1 : Create and Use a Home Management Binder
          I created a binder similar to this when Josh and I first got married, but I didn't really have much direction, purpose, or plan for using the binder.  It just seemed like a good thing to do (and was an excuse to go to Staples and buy a new binder and dividers!)  This time I have clear direction, instructions, advice, examples and even some free printables!  If you don't know what a Home Management Binder is you can google it and there are tons of great resources.  I am putting mine together a little at a time, but I look forward to having all of my important information (insurance info, passwords and user names, etc...) in one place (and portable so I can take it back and forth in between the trailer and our house) and have plans in place for keeping up on cleaning and meal planning!

Tip #2 : Allow God to Direct my Priorities
          Through prayer and talking to Josh, I made a list of God's top priorities for my life.  They are : 1) God   2) Josh  3) Caden & Noah  4)Homeschooling   5)One Hope One Truth Ministries

Tip #3 : Determine my Schedule/Routine based on those Priorities
           After clarifying God's priorities in my life, I made a list of everything that I do and everything that I think I "should" do.  Then I matched all of those things up with one of my top 5 priorities as listed above.  While looking at that list, I was able to determine whether I was giving the appropriate amount of time to the things on my "list", according to where they fall in my order of priorities.  For example, if I'm spending more time each day working on my blog than I am investing in my relationship with my boys and growing their character, then I am not ordering my time appropriately.  Then I came up with a rough draft schedule/routine for how I will spend my time each day.  Of course, my first draft was way too detailed and overwhelming, so 5 days in I already have a second draft! :)

Tip #4 : Do a little bit of Deep Cleaning Every Day
           I loved this!  It has already been so helpful!  I divided the trailer into four zones (I know, I know!  Those of you with big houses are probably rolling your eyes at the thought of dividing my trailer into zones, but I figure it's practice for when I'm at my new house in January!  I get to ease into it!) and listed all of the deep cleaning items for each zone.  Then I spend about 15 minutes each day doing a few items on my deep cleaning list for that zone!  I intend to begin planning my zone cleaning for the house soon, so I'll be ready when we get there in January!

There were so many other ideas and tricks for home management that I loved, but these were the four that had the most impact immediately! 

As I said in yesterday's post, the real goal here is to have a home that glorifies God and live in a way that makes the most of every day - pointing my family to Jesus!
After all of the specific suggestions for cleaning and organizing, I so appreciated that Marci Ferrell took the time to remind us this...
"God is not more pleased with you because you have a neat and tidy home!  God is pleased with you because His perfect Son Jesus lives in you!"

My identity and favor is no more found in my house (trailer) cleaning than it is found in my worship leading, parenting, homeschooling, or anything else that I "DO"!  God loves me because God is love and He is pleased with me because I am His daughter!