A Master Schedule
First off, a Master Schedule just means that it's a day to day schedule. It won't always be followed, because each day is different. Basically, it's a template for the perfect homemaking day. The times on your schedule are suggestions, and not hard and fast rules. You will have multiple columns on your schedule: One for you, and one for each child, and anyone else in your household, if need be. Some ladies include their husband's schedule on the Master Schedule too, but usually this is unnecessary.
A Master Schedule isn't meant to control you, or make you feel trapped. Instead, it should be used as a tool to help you better visualize and order your day. Since your Master Schedule should be a picture of your perfect homemaking day, do not beat yourself up if you don't follow it perfectly. It is a suggestion and a guide, but never the unbudging must.
Often, just the act of putting together the schedule points out conflicts and issues in your day to day life that need tweaked and resolved, and putting and seeing it all out on paper can often bring ideas of resolution not before conceived of.
Let's get started. We will do this in steps, to keep this nice and simple:
1) Make a list of everything you need to get done, each day. You already have your Daily Chores page, so a lot of what's on that list is what you need, here.
2)Now add to that list, answering these questions: What times do you want to arise, and retire, each day? What times do you want to serve the meals? What days and times do you have certain regular appointments, or functions? Gymnastics for the kids? Swimming? The gym?
3) Look at your list from 1 and 2, and plug in whatever is left, into whatever time slots you still have open.
4) There are often certain things that just happen on certain days. For example - church on Sundays, and maybe something like gymnastics on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and swim on Fridays and Saturdays, etc. Plug these into their needed time slots, and put in alternate plans to do on those days, for when you are not at those planned events.
5) After you have your schedule written out, make a column next to your schedule for each of your children - one column per child, and write down what they are doing, while you are doing what you are doing. (Note: I like to make my schedule in MS Word, using their 'table' function. This way, when all of my children are assigned to do the same thing at the same time, I can just have it all in one box, spanning all of their columns, meaning, I only have to write that thing once, not several times.)
Do you see how this can really help you visualize your day? This is also good for identifying any time-wasters, if any, and nipping that in the bud.
Put your Master Schedule in your planner, after your Daily Chores page.
Children's Chores
In the previous installment, you made a list of daily to do's for yourself. Now, let's make daily cleaning chores lists for your children. First off, don't just tell your children some chore, without much detail, and tell them to just get it done sometime that day. Chances are it won't be done, or it will be completed late in the day, and the job will be shoddy. That's human nature, for you, LOL.
Instead, tell your children specifics about their chores, how you expect the chores to be completed, and when said chore is supposed to be completed. Assign time slots for said chores in each child's schedule column in your Master Schedule.
The first set of chores for children should be their morning chores. Here is an example:
Children's Morning Chores
Make bed
Get dressed and practice proper morning hygiene
Tidy bedroom and the bathroom they use
Animal/pet chores
Personal Bible study and begin home school independent study for the morning
The suggested time slot for morning chores for the children, should be from the moment they wake up, until it's breakfast time. Make sure you give them time to do their chores. Very young children will need training, help, guidance, and loving patience.
After each meal, the children shouldn't all scatter from the family table. They should each have a table chore to complete before they are excused to move to the next thing. First, make a list of the usual chores that need to be done after each meal. For example:
Table Chores
Clear and wipe table, put away leftovers, and straighten chairs
Sweep floor
Wipe counters and stove top
Dishes
Consider creating a rotation schedule, so that no one has the same table chore two days in a row.
Obviously, the logical Master Schedule time slot for Table Chores would be after each family meal is complete.
Children should also have one or more cleaning chores to do around the house, sometime during the day. Look around your house... Are there certain areas of the house that almost seem like they get disorganized, or dirty, within seconds of you cleaning them? If so, that is a chore that needs attention every single day, so assign that to a specific child.
If there is a child that is known for making certain messes in a certain area of the house each day, that area is now their daily cleaning chore.
In addition to these, you may find that toilets need to be scrubbed more than once a week, and floors may need to be mopped more than once a week, etc. This is where you assign the additional toilet cleaning and mopping to your children. You do the major toilet cleaning and mopping at least once a week, but your children can learn to provide upkeep, to help keep these and other areas tidy through out the week.
Are there other things that need cleaned regularly around the house, that aren't listed on your daily chores? If so, assign them to your children.
If you homeschool, or your children live busy lives, then I suggest no more than one or two daily cleaning tasks per child, as they need time to study, rest, and play. The purposes of these chores are to
1) Build their character
2) Teach them cleaning skills and how to take care of a home
3) To help you out around the house
Take a look at your Master Schedule, and decide what time slot would be good, to plug in these children's chores. I would suggest that perhaps your kids should be doing their chores during the same time slot for when you work on your listed Daily Chores for the day.
If you decide to do this, then realize that your children will likely be done with their cleaning chores before you are done with yours, so let them know what they are to do after they are done with their chores. Suggestion: Personal Bible study, silent reading time, or work on home school assignments.
The last set of chores for children should be their before bed chores, and really that is just them practicing proper hygiene and getting ready for bed each night.
If you have teenagers with acne, here's a tip: Keep a small container in their bathroom, that contains 1 part organic, raw, apple cider vinegar, and 1 part filtered water. Keep a bag of cotton balls by the container. The teen with the acne should apply this vinegar solution to their cleaned face every morning as part of their morning routine, and every night, as part of their getting ready for bed.
Also, if you or anyone in your family suffers from eczema, this has been found to help with that, as well, AND this stuff is a good toner for us 30 somethings and up ladies. ;-)
After your Master Schedule, put in a page of your children's chores, and then a table chores page.
Do you see how you are able to use various things in your planner, to build on other things a bit? For example, your Daily Chores and Children's Chores meld right into your Master Schedule.
The Master Schedule is kind of like the central brain in this special planner you are putting together. The Master Schedule shows you, visually, how it all fits together. Don't be afraid to scribble things out, and write new things in. Your planner pages do not have to look perfect. If you want to make an experimental change to your schedule, then put some washi tape on the proper slot on your schedule page, and write the change on the washi tape. If the change seems good, then you can put it in, in a more permanent form later. If the experimental change didn't work out, then you can just gently remove the washi tape, and throw it away, and your schedule is back to the way it was.
When/if you have some pages in your planner that have a lot of stuff scribbled out and re-written, then schedule a day and time, when you will sit down and re-type, or re-write the pages in their updated form.