5 Tips For Getting Back into a Routine

At the end of last school year I had a pretty good routine going. I was getting up early, exercising regularly and pretty much had the house running as well as can be expected when you have a 3 year old around. Sure there were messes and mishaps but we had a solid routine to fall back on.

Then Summer came along and the routine went out the window. I started sleeping in, if you call 7 am sleeping in. I stopped planning meals and bedtime went out the window. And the house well I did the best I could but it’s sort of felt like a failed attempt at keeping up with the clutter and chaos. All my hard set rules about keeping toys off the couch and out of the living room went unheard. And sometimes I just didn’t care, it was summer but now, now I really feel the need to get back into the swing of things. And I’m having the hardest time getting back into my old routine.

Last Monday I was all set to get back into a routine and then Jack got sick. So this week I’m working at getting back into a routine that works for my family.

Make a List. I like to make a list or schedule of all the things that need to get done in a day so that I can plan the order to do them in. I try to do this the night before so that I’m not trying to remember everything in the morning when we are usually in a time crunch to get out the door.

Make a Schedule. I love routine, and my family thrives on routine. I also like to know what I’m doing each day. So each day gets assigned a job. Mondays are almost always working day which means I go food shopping, do the laundry and try to run any and all errands that need doing. I like for each day to have a task that I regularly do so it becomes more of a routine than a chore.

Set the alarm earlier. It’s kind of a shock to my system to go back to getting up at 6 am or some days as early as 5:30 am when I used to sleep till 7. But the fact is I need those hours to get some work done and I’m a much happier person when I’m the first one up in the house. So I’ve been gradually setting my alarm earlier and earlier.

Use a timer. I use a timer all the time with Jackson. When it’s approaching bedtime I say 5 minutes till bedtime and then I set the timer, when the timer goes off it’s time to go to bed. You don’t get just one more minute. I find the same thing works for chores I don’t want to do. If I know I only have 30 minutes to clean the kitchen I know I won’t be checking Facebook or reading a magazine because I have to get it done in 30 minutes.

Get to bed on time. Sleep is important, well at least to me. I’ve been trying to make sure that Jack gets to bed on time, so that he stays happy and healthy but also make sure that I get to bed on time too. We have a lights out rule in our house that the lights in the bedroom go out at 10:30. So if my husband wants to stay up late watching TV and I want to get my sleep he has to watch TV downstairs. Same rule applies if I want to stay up reading and he wants to sleep. If your in the bedroom it’s bedtime at 10:30.

I’m hoping to get back into a good routine this week and keep it going through the school year. I know it’s not always possible and things come up, but when you have a good routine that works it’s easy to keep at it.

Did you get out of your routine this summer? How are you getting back into it?