How Do I Do it All? (Systems)

This is part 2 of the answers to the question: “How do you do it all?” If you read my last post, you will know the first answer is chores! How else do I get it all done?

Systems

As much as doing chores can help out big time, they don’t necessarily help us to get out of the house on time (unless it has helped to make sure we can find BOTH shoes on the way out the door). So I have systems in place that contribute towards us having some sort of organization.

Here are  our systems:

Clothing Systems:

We have a couple systems in play here. 6 kids, 2 adults… that’s a lot of clothing to work through.

• We take out clothes the day before.
  Weekends are a big one for this. We won’t get to church anywhere near on time unless our clothes are picked out and ironed, the day before. When we scramble around to find clothing and they are wrinkled, this is not peaceful in any way! We make sure this includes: vests, tights, underwear, caridgans… any item they will be wearing. Trust me…. we have had tights go missing…
• We have a tub for clothes that will be worn again.
  We have a plastic tub where we put clothes that have been worn that are not freshly clean but are not necessarily dirty either. Our clothes are folded neatly so we can wear them again before we wash them. It cuts down on laundry and helps us get out of the house faster when we have to do something simple like grocery shopping.

Food Systems

• I try to have a meal plan system.
  This isn’t set in stone and I want to work on this more over the summer, but we pretty much stick to the same ideas with twists here and there to keep it interesting. This makes for easy grocery shopping, especially if I DO decide to try something completely new.
• A list of meals that we enjoy
  This way I can look up meals so we don’t get stuck in a rut. I also list some favourites that take too long to cook in the everyday life but that are perfect for special occasions. These lists are especially helpful to me as a couple of my children have allergies and it can be so easy to keep making the same things over and over again. This way I have a reference so we can keep things interesting.
• We have joined a  vegetable co-op
  This may not seem like a system but during the summer and autumn seasons we get vegetables every week. We pay either up front or monthly and we get an abundance of fresh veg. It’s an easy way for us to eat healthy because it tastes so fresh and good and we don’t want to waste any food we have paid for. I then try to plan our meals around what veg we are getting that week by looking up recipes we plan to use.

Devotional System

Why is this a system?

Because when we spend time together in the presence of God before we begin our day I find our days run so much smoother. I have had seasons in life where morning devotion doesn’t happen frequently and those days have been the most unpleasant days.

It’s almost like missing breakfast. If you are someone who is used to having breakfast and you miss it for a day or more, you may find yourself getting a little cranky around lunch time. Well for our family when we miss devotions we find that the atmosphere in the home can get quite tense. Children bothering each other on purpose, disrespectful attitudes, less than diligent work and the list goes on.

We fill up with God first.

During devotion time we either use a devotional or scripture from our Bible curriculum. Our current History curriculum has us reading through the Bible from Genesis right now.
We watch our Seeds Family Worship DVD’s and worship as a family.(You can get a free sample of their music here). After worship we pray. We like to pray scripture, or we pray about character traits, attributes or lessons we learned from the passage.

This is the most important system because the Word of God reminds us:

” But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” 

When we seek God first I find I can supernaturally do more in my day than I thought was possible. The things that need to get done get done. Seeking God first gives us something to hold onto throughout the day and ‘…all these things…’ are added to us. As I teach the Word to the children I like us to all look inward and see where we need work, I admit my faults to them openly and we are able to be real with one another and allow God to work on our hearts. This is a sweet time for us and God truly does the rest.

I encourage you ladies as much as systems can help you ‘do it all’, remember the most important system is to seek the Lord first!