We are note worthy! We are note worthy!
Rosie
The HomeRoutines app makes it simple for you to keep track of your regular household chores and routines - and adds a bit of fun with gold stars and the world's most triumphant music at the end of the 15 minute timer! And at the end of the day, you can look at your Accomplishments list and say "Go me!"
HomeRoutines featured on the App Store as New and Noteworthy
Great post on SimpleMom about the value of routines with kids
Tsh on SimpleMom has an excellent article today about the value of thinking about, and developing your own routines with kids
There’s nothing magical about any one particular routine — it’ll probably change in a month anyway, as routines often do with little ones in the house. But simply having some sort of written-out plan helps me know what’s next, how to stay focused, and not feel like I’m running in a hamster wheel.
I love this thought. I can get stuck in a stupid perfectionist rut where I wrote out a routine a month ago that was okay then, for like five minutes, and then it didn’t work for me any more, but I still felt guilty for not following that particular routine. I’m just happy to be “allowed” to edit my routine as I wish!
15 Minutes* in the Dining Room Hotspot of DOOM
I’ve got this pair of little black shelves in my dining room, and I had not been keeping up with it. Oh, no, I had not. But last week was dining room week in my focus zones, and something had to be done. So I set my HomeRoutines 15 minute timer and got on with it.
To be honest, I had to set my timer twice, because I got kind of distracted by the kids and a text from my sister reminding me I needed to send a message on facebook to somebody because it was his birthday. Urgent, right? I should have waited for the timer to finish for that… but still. Also that basket of paper took some sorting.
By the time the Music! of Triumph! went off at the end of the second 15-minute chunk, the shelves (and the noticeboard above them) were looking quite a lot better, and there was less of a pile-up of kids’ art, bills, school documents and so forth all tumbled together on the top. And I took back the DVDs to the shop. Now the girls have a better place for their crayons, and a basket-full of recycled computer paper to draw on.
I don’t know what’s in those red-and-black baskets. That must be my 15 minutes for next month!
* and then some.
Routines: Good and bad examples
Creating your own routines is a great way to get in the habit of completing the regular tasks you do throughout the day. Everybody has some sort of routine, but it is not always a good one. A few years ago I had a really crappy morning routine. It involved waking up late, rummaging through a pile of washing, ironing something from the pile, brushing my teeth and running to the bus-stop without any breakfast. Then there was that one bus driver who would flash his lights at me. I had to change my schedule to catch a different bus.
That was not a good routine.
Here are some examples of good routines.
- Flylady’s daily and weekly routines
- Schedules and Routines at Household Management 101 – with great daily and weekly examples
- Leo Babauta’s morning and evening routine
- Simple Mom’s morning routine and weekly routine
- Magic Minimum at Organized Home
- The Daily 7 at Totally Together Journal
- Establishing Routines at Unclutterer
- S.H.E. ROUTINES keeping you sane at The Shebang
- Strong Bad’s morning routine (perhaps that is not a good example either)
If you put your routines into the HomeRoutines app (or write them down on paper in a home management notebook!) it has such a powerful effect. Firstly, it is a reminder of the tasks that you have chosen to be most important. And secondly, it’s a really nice feeling when you complete a task and you mark it as complete. That’s why you get to give yourself a gold star when you complete a task with HomeRoutines.
The app also lets you give yourself credit for the regular, routine jobs that do not register in your brain somehow (which leads to the horrible “Did I lock the house?” feeling because you’ve been running on autopilot)
That autopilot effect sometimes makes us feel like we haven’t done anything at all, all day – especially for stay-at-home parents who have little children running in circles around them all day. So HomeRoutines has a daily Accomplishments screen: it compiles everything you’ve done, from your ToDo list and your Routines and Focus Zone work.
I read something good today on the Zen Family Habits blog. In an article about assessing your work, particularly as a SAHM, it ends with some positive advice:
Finally, celebrate. Celebrate your victories no matter how small. So you haven’t accomplished all you’ve set out to do. So what? Maybe you’ve finished some small yet significant task. Celebrate!
Keep your HomeRoutines on your iPhone or iPod Touch
HomeRoutines is a happy place for all those repetitive (and often thankless) jobs that come with running a household. Each time you complete a job or routine, you give yourself a star. At the end of the day, you can look at the Accomplishments screen and see how much you got done – even on the days that it feels like you didn’t do anything.
HomeRoutines is ideal to store your own personalized routines and detailed cleaning tasks, whether they are your very own or based on a system like FlyLady or Motivated Moms.
We always welcome feedback and questions – just email support@homeroutines.com.
HomeRoutines is now available in the App Store
We’re thrilled to annouce that the HomeRoutines app is now available in the app store. It’s just the place to store your own housework routines or your Flylady routines, on your iPhone or iPod touch.
