I thought I would share three things that I’ve been trying to implement in our daily flow that, when they all go as they should (which, trust me, is not all the time), help to reduce stress in our lives!

1. The Chore Chart. Axton loves TV. I mean, he loves tv. Most mornings, that is the first thing he asks for after waking up. If it’s on, I can’t turn it off without a fight. If it’s on, nothing gets through to him. He is completely zoned out. Although I felt like Adam and I were already pretty moderate about how much tv we let Axton watch, we still felt like we needed to change our approach to his show time. We wanted Axton to feel like TV was a reward, something he was supposed to earn, instead of it being a luxury he was entitled to simply for waking up in the morning. So I created a list of things that needed to be done every morning – “The Required Chores – before Axton could watch any tv. This list allows me a non-argumentative answer to give him when he asks for television first thing in the morning. Now all I have to say is, “You haven’t done your chores yet,” and he knows he can’t fight that answer. The next issue I needed to solve was putting a limit to his tv. Which led me to “The Extra Chores.” For each extra chore he does with me he can earn either another show, 20 minutes of educational (yes I threw that in there to feel better about my mothering) games on the iPad, a small treat, or a quarter to add to his money jar.

 

This system has truly changed not only the way I answer his requests for television, but it also has revolutionized (that’s a bit dramatic, but it feels true!) the way I approach my own household chores…..Since I have to help Axton with the extra chore he chooses, that means I also have to actually do my chores!! Imagine that! The Chore Chart has opened up awesome conversations with Axton, too. When he whines about it being “too hard!” I tell him, “Being a part of a family means working together. Sometimes that means doing hard things together.” or “Mommy thinks it’s hard too, but I’m still doing it, and it’s easier when we help each other.” Another great result from this system is that it keeps me from just playing show after show for him when I am editing or working on my laptop. It allows me to stop what I’m doing, evaluate how much work I am actually accomplishing, and forces me to stay on task when I know I only have 24 minute segments to work with. Now instead of Axton screaming and crying everytime I turn off the tv, he knows that he has to do another chore before he can earn another show. All around, when I stick to The Chore Chart, it means, less crying from Axton, less overall tv time, a sense of responsibility for Axton, and designates time for me to do housework (something I wasn’t prioritizing before).

 

2. Waking up at 5am. This is a trick that I learned from Kristy Dickerson, photographer, small business owner, and creator of Start Planner, while at the United Conference. (But we all know my dear friend Emily was implementing this long before it was cool to do it) This is something I have teased myself with for years – a habit I always wish I could claim as my own. But I could never stick with it! And it’s not even that I’m not a morning person! That’s never what this was about. What my real problem is, is I don’t know how to go to bed at night. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that the moment the kids are finally asleep is probably the most blissful feeling of the day…I can start working on the things I’ve been putting aside for hours, I can actually have an uninterrupted conversation with Adam, I can watch The Voice. I can do whatever I want and it just feels so good! So the idea that I have to go to bed early in order to wake up early is just depressing sometimes! However, doing this has really sucked me into a terrible condition! For the past year and a half I have averaged between 4 to 6.5 hours of sleep every night. I would tell myself, “Okay, the kids should wake up at 7am. Which means if I go to bed at midnight, then I will get 7 hours of sleep. That should be plenty!” ….But we all know it never works out the way we plan. I’d end up going to bed at 1am instead of midnight, and then I couldn’t fall asleep until 1:30 and then the kids would actually be up at 6am instead of 7, giving me a grand total of 4.5 hours of sleep. This happened time and time again. I know this is simply not healthy, and I know I need to get this under control and make myself and my health important. Waking up at 5am means I know what time I’ll be waking up (instead of relying on whatever time my kids want to wake up as my alarm clock), which forces me to say, “Okay I have to be sleeping by 10pm. No excuses.”

My kids still wake up at unpredictable times, but luckily they haven’t woken up earlier than 5am yet. That means I am no longer at their mercy for my sleep. It also means, when they do actually sleep until a normal time in the morning, that I just got a lot of work done!

3. The Desktop ScreenSaver. This is a trick I learned from Katelyn James when I attended her workshop a few years back, but I am just now implementing it in a way that works for me. This how she organizes the folders on her desktop. She creates an image with boxes on it, and moves the folders to their corresponding boxes. For me, I used this trick a bit differently. Because my work is always done on my laptop, seeing this image every time I sit down to work helps remind me where my time should be spent and simplifies my entirely-too-long to-do list.

It reminds me to eat throughout the day (because this is not something I always remember to do), but it also reminds me to be thinking about dinner. So often I would get to 3:30pm, Adam would pull up into the driveway, and I wouldn’t have even the slightest clue of what to make, and then I’d be rushing around trying to thaw something out of the freezer. It keeps me on track with my editing – I need to edit in the order that I shoot, not in the order that I’m most excited about! It helps me remember that I should always be striving to learn something new about my business, too. Whether that be an online class, a webinar, a business book, or something else. Of course it reminds me that I need to blog!! It also keeps my social media workflow from feeling overwhelming.

I’m obviously not perfect at any one of these things. In fact, this morning I slept in until 5:30 and then Rhenner woke up at 5:45, giving me a grand total of 15 minutes to work on a huge list of things to do today! Sarcastic enthusiasm! But, they do give me a great starting point for better habits and smoother workflow. I hope one of these things either helps you in your own home or business workflow, or that it inspires you to put your own twist on one of these ideas!