I am wondering how some of you wonderful people manage time around your kids? My kids are home for the summer, and we are in transition-getting ready to move by the end of the month-and when they were in school all day, it was easy to move from room to room cleaning, setting the timer, but now I find I am easily distracted by them, they need to be helping me, but I don't waste time and or energy in enlisting their help, I just do it, and I am not a martyr or anything, but I feel they will be morelikely to jump in if they see how they can help me. We are cleaning out everything, but this is what I do- while the laundry, dishes pile up, floors are gunky and bathrooms are a mess, I am alphabatizing spices or looking at pictures or whatever that is not really important at the moment. Getting started seems to be my hardest thing to do, once I start and continue, I do pretty well, so maybe it is how do you start? Any help would be good, do routines work for you, for me they are boring and I hate them, though I know they are necessary for success at anything-you can put it out of your mind. thanks for your help

Lost in my house in IL

LORI

You have a challenging stretch ahead. I wish you well. flylady.net has helped to keep my home life on track somewhat.

I don't ever expect to follow every little reminder issued in the many emails I get daily from flylady, but even if I do only a fraction of what's perscribed, I'm far ahead of where I was.

It's changed my outlook completely and empowered me to make much better use of my time when it comes to the mundane chores of daily life at home.

Good luck with the move. My experiences with summer haven't been good. I too find that systems that work in the winter when school regulates so much of the day go down the drain in the summer.

I'm hoping that with the help of some reminders from flylady that this summer will at least offer some small differences.
Cheers!

1. Always use a "to do" list. Always put it in your right front pocket.
2. Prioritize them using a code. eg. Top priority is "a", second level is "b".

eg. paying the hydro bill (A) before they cut it off is more important than grocery shopping (B/C -- depending on how empty the cupboards are.).

[That is what i learned in Project Management. The Library might have Books on it.]