Planning With Kids is about getting organised at home, setting up solid foundations, so you can spend more time with your family and on the fun bits of family life.
I have put together this list of key posts on the blog to give you a quick guide through some of the key plans, templates and processes that we have used to help simplify and add fun to our family life.
If you are thinking, I just need to do something now! Then this post lists the three key routines I would implement to make a start – Where to start getting organised at home?.
Getting started can be the hardest part. Think about what area of family life is causing you the most stress, find a routine to eliminate that one, spend time to make sure it is established and then move on to the next area. One routine, one step at a time you can get there. Good luck!
Menu Planning:
Stress free meal time is essential when you have a busy family. Meal planning allows you to simplify the eating and shopping process in one hit.
- Why Menu Plan?
- Menu Planning Process
- How To Menu Plan For A Month In 35 Minutes!
- Family Menu Planning FAQ and Monthly Menu Plan
- My weekly food prep process
- The Planning With Kids Menu Planning Process
- Kid Friendly Recipes
Night Time Preparation / Smooth Mornings:
Going to bed organised, means that mornings will run so much smoother and allow it to be an enjoyable as opposed to a hectic time of the day.
- 10 Things To Do Before You Go To Bed
- Evening routine – getting prepared for the next day – an update from 2015 on how I get ready for the next day.
- Packing school lunches – my process
- 10 Tips For Organised School Mornings
- Morning Routine – What We Do – this is when the kids were aged 13 – 3.
- School morning routine 2015 – this is when the kids were aged 16 – 6.
- Our Big Family School Morning Routine – a guest post from a mum to 8 kids
Children’s Timetables and School Activities:
Once kids start school, there are a number of plans you can put into place to allow kids to manage themselves, so they can become independent in getting themselves ready for school.
The associated paperwork and activities that come along with school mean you need to have systems in place so you can stay on top of it all.
- Getting Ready For Starting School
- Children’s Routines
- Creating A Children’s Timetable
- Preschool Morning Routine
- Back To School Routines – getting organised after the school holidays
Productivity
Productivity = using your time + energy + attention effectively to achieve your goal. I deliberately used effectively instead of efficiently in my definition. We can be efficient in our days, working on tasks in a very organised manner, but if those tasks are of low value or come at the expense of more important tasks, then we are not being productive.
I focus on productivity in the home so I can complete tasks I need in a minimum amount of time, so I have more time to spend being with the family, not doing for the family.
- What is productivity and why does it matter?
- How can I best prioritise my time?
- The key to productivity at home
- Setting one personal goal for 2016
- Creating an effective to do list
- 5 simple family organisation tools
- 6 key time management principles and resources
Home routines
Home routines are just like habits. Habits work because they take the thinking out of the minutia of the everyday activities you have to do. Scientists generally believe habits emerge because the brain is always looking for ways to save effort. Left to its own devices, the brain will try to make almost any routine into a habit, because habits allow our minds to ramp down more often.
By being conscious about the habits we develop for the home, we can make our own life much easier.
- Why routines help you make better decisions
- How to change a habit
- How to create a weekly schedule
- 5 ways Evernote can help you stay organised
- How to use Evernote to reduce paper clutter in the home
- 19 processes and tools to make family life easier
- Managing information flow
- Tips for staying on top of the household cleaning
- Setting up a kids’ snack fridge
- Tips For Decluttering Your Home
- Budget Basics
Children’s Jobs:
Allocating age appropriate tasks to the kids, not only reduces mum and dad’s work loads, but begins teaching them responsibility.
- Family contribution schedule – our kids are allocated tasks for their family contribution based on age
- Children’s Jobs List (Scroll to the end of this post for the list.)
- 10 Steps To Get Children Involved In Housework
- School Holiday Tips – Keeping The House Tidy
Family Relationships:
Communication is the key to keeping the relationships in the family in a healthy shape. Here are some ways we manage the relationships in our family:
- Family Meetings
- Alternative To Time Out
- Spending Individual Time With The Kids
- Discipline Strategies
- Parenting Tips For Teenagers
- Getting your partner to help around the house
- The tension between being organised and being present with the family
Play:
Play is such an essential ingredient of a happy family. Play can take many different forms and you will find ideas in the post listed:
- 10 School Holiday Activities To Do At Home
- Building Play Into The Every Day
- 10 Activities To Do At Home With The Kids
- 10 Children’s Activities To Do With The Kids When It Is Hot!
- Preparing For School Holidays
Mum:
It is essential for a mum to have a range of activities in her life, to ensure that you can best take care of your family. Planning time for your work, rest and play means it is far more likely to happen.
- 10 Tips For Coping With A Larger Family
- The Typical Day Of A Stay At Home Mum
- The Dilemma Of Balance
- How to stay organised
- Advice For Mums To Be and New Mums
- My training schedule and tips for making it happen
- 5 Tips To Help You Organise Time To Exercise
If you have any questions, comments or tips you would like to share, feel free to leave them in the comment section below or you can email me at nicole@planningwithkids.com.
Wishing you simplicity and happy times for your family!
Do you want some free tools to help you organise the chaos of family life?
The Planning With Kids Newsletter is called NOW with Nicole Avery. It is an upbeat weekly newsletter that aims to help you organise the chaos of family life and find simple ways to enjoy it more.
My philosophy is to organise the known and repetitive tasks of family life so you create a solid foundation that allows you to manage the more unpredictable and challenging elements.
You can sign up for the free newsletter in the sign-up box below! To say thank you for signing up for the newsletter I have created a simple but super useful guide for you to help you organise the chaos of family life. The free download helps simplify some of the repetitive and time-consuming tasks that occur as part of daily family life. Guide ✼ Plan ✼ Check ✓ contains 10 separate printable tools that you will be able to use over and over again.
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