Scheduling, Or the Lack Thereof

Last December, I posted about my unschedule, scorning (in a nice, non-judgmental, Christian way, of course) the whole idea of living on a schedule, because I am so much cooler than that. I said this:

I have something I like to call an unschedule. There aren’t any particular times that things must begin or end, but there’s a rhythm to it. We eat when we’re hungry, rest when we’re sleepy, take a break when we’re cranky or bored with what we’re doing. In short, we take it kind of easy around here. And that’s OK! Here’s how a day at home unfolds for us, most of the time:

Then I proceeded to outline the way my life was going at the time. Just then, that unschedule thing seemed to be working. Maybe it was. I’m not sure. I could have been in denial, I guess. At any rate, when we started our school year in late July, I added not one, but two children to the lessons. Within a week, it became obvious to me that teaching three kids is a lot more difficult than teaching one. In fact, it was so hard I very nearly cried at the end of the first week. We ate out twice that week, my house was a wreck, and my kids were not getting the kind of individual attention I want to give them. And my blog? Oh, people, I’m so sorry I’ve neglected you. I miss you! I think I’ve got something worked out now so we can be friends again.

I’d like to be able to tell you that I’m just a free spirit who thrives on chaos, and that the reason I didn’t want to make an honest-to-goodness schedule for our family was that I didn’t want to be boxed in. You know, all those little boxes just destroy creativity (this is absolutely untrue, btw). The truth is, I was just rebellious. I didn’t want to be boxed in, alright. I didn’t want to commit myself to scrubbing the bathrooms at the same time on the same day every week because I’d really prefer to ignore that aspect of my job. (Incidentally, thanks sweetheart, for all the times you’ve cleaned those toilets for me. Feel free to do that any time you like!)

I can remember back when I had only one child and a small apartment to take care of. I had this neat book called Home Comforts, and it taught me how to keep house. I had a floor day, and a bathroom-scrubbing day, and an organizing day, and the budget got my attention twice a month. Oh, I was little Sally Homemaker. I’m not sure what happened between that first kid and the fourth, but somewhere along the way, I forgot how much easier life is if you do everything with regularity. (I sound like an ad for laxatives, don’t I? Well, that should be done with regularity, too!)

Yes, life is more predictable when you’re on a schedule. And scrubbing toilets is always a bore, so I guess I can predict that at one o’clock every Monday, I’m going to be rather bored, and maybe slightly disgusted. But you know what? I like being able to predict that my bathrooms will smell nice for at least several hours every Monday. It beats having my bathrooms presentable at random intervals, and maybe not even weekly.

In the past few weeks, I’ve done an about-face on the idea of scheduling. I realized after the first few days of lessons that my children needed considerably more from me than they were getting, and the problem was that I was too disorganized. I was so overwhelmed with putting out one fire after another–somebody needs to potty, someone is marking on the walls, hubby just called and wants to know if someone can come for dinner, which I forgot to make–that I wasn’t accomplishing much in the way of actual schooling. Only one week into our school year, I lost it. Either something drastic was going to have to change, or I was going to have to sacrifice an awful lot of principles—principles that I hold a lot more dear than the unscheduling thing—and send my children to public schools.

So I made some lists and schedules, along with some practical changes in the way we handle things like toys. I’m going to tell you all about them, too! But not today.

On September 1st, some of my favorite blogging friends and I will be hosting a link-up and blog-hop on the topic of scheduling and organizing your home. The theme is Honoring God in the Details, and we would be delighted if you’d join us! Anybody can play along, whether you homeschool or not. We all have to manage our homes, right?

If you’re a blogger, either write a new post about the topic or dig some old ones out of your archives. Then on September 1st, drop by any of the participating blogs and leave your link so we can all read it. It’s a great way to introduce yourself to new readers. If you’re not a blogger, you will, of course, be welcome to drop your comments in the usual place.

You have a whole week to think about it and get your posts ready, and visit these other bloggers next Thursday to read their posts. (Or you could go right now and read them, because they’re all very readable.):

Spell Out Loud

A Slob Comes Clean (my inspiration!)

Raising Arrows

Finding Joy

Catholic Icing

Sunflower Schoolhouse

Many Little Blessings

Jimmie’s Collage

Adventures of a Somewhat Crunchy Mama

Mama’s Learning Corner

 This post is linked up at Feels Like Home