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This month we are looking at money and time for a real food diet. I thought for the time part of the scenario it may be important to talk about schedules.
Whether working outside the home or from the home -for pay or not- we all have a schedule to consider when getting food on the table.
What does your schedule look like?
Mine is somewhat set and somewhat seasonal. I work from home both as an employee for someone else and with my own business.
For someone else, I work as a virtual bookkeeper, payroll person, HR person, accounts payable and other miscellaneous positions as the need arises. Separate from that position, I also do special projects for them including one big one that we’ve been working on for nearly 3 years! During tax seasons I sometimes work 40 hours in a week but the rest of the year it is more like 10 hours each week with the special project hours not included.
For myself, I work 10-15 hours each week fulfilling a contract that I have plus another 10+ hours doing virtual assistant work. And I also work on things for this blog and eBooks around 10 hours each week.
The biggest challenge when I first started working from home was making sure that I was staying on task. At that time, I just had the bookkeeping job so that was fairly easy to focus on. As time as progressed and I’ve added the other things I’ve worked at ‘perfecting’ (ha, that’s a good word but I haven’t really perfected anything) my time organization. It is easy for me to have a list that is way to big and almost paralyzing. I am happy that several years ago I took a Franklin-Covey time management course based on a book by Stephen Covey. Even though there is now new technology for organizing my day I still used paper and pen following those principle. It works for me.
Besides for my ‘jobs’ we have the usual (or maybe not so usual) stuff going on around here. We have chickens, ducks and 2 guineas plus dogs and cats to care for. And I’m attempting a garden again this year (attempting is the operative word here). Each day I try to do some ‘pre-school’ type things with Christopher age 3. My girls ages 15 and 16 are in high school and each is involved in one or two activities, they leave the house a few minutes after 7 and return between 3:30 and 7:30 depending on their day. My husband works (outside the home) and leaves each morning around 9:15 and returns around 7:30. We hold dinner until he gets home.
So there is the background. Here is what my days look like.
Monday-Wednesday and Friday:
I usually get up around 6:30. Earlier if needed, once in a while later. If I have bookkeeping work to do, I need to get it done before 9AM (due to the way we’ve arranged our technology I do myself during non office hours, before 9 or after 5) so that is first on the agenda. While I can only do my specific stuff during that time, I am ‘on call’ during office hours. Some days I hear nothing some days things really stack up!
The girls have a simple breakfast before leaving usually of something premade and simple like yogurt, muffins or sourdough toast.
During the week, Joe takes care of the morning chores and often goes for a jog.
Around 8 Joe, Christopher and I have breakfast. Often times Joe will make this (his specialty is fried eggs and toast). I hate to admit that sometimes I’ll just keep working and eat later, I’m often not yet hungry.
9AM to 10AM. I use this time to do basic housework like laundry, making the bed, swishing the bathroom and cleaning up the kitchen. I also put things on to ‘soak’ as needed like bread, muffins, etc. And if our dinner is a crock pot meal, I get that going.
From here until the end of the day things are a little more loose. I have a list that I make each morning (using my Franklin-Covey principles) of what needs to be accomplished and I use this to structure my day. I use my kitchen timer to keep me on schedule. I’ll set it for anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour and work, work, work. Because I am ‘on call’ for my employer I sometimes have to pause my timer to take a call. When the timer is up then I’ll move on to the next task which usually results in resetting the timer. Christopher and I do take a lunch break and then go outside and gather eggs plus maybe spend a few minutes in the garden. We also have a break and snack around the time the girls are to return from school. Some days he takes a nap and some days he doesn’t.
5:30. If I have any cooking or baking to do from things started in the morning I’ll do that now. If I don’t have cooking or baking to do then I’ll keep working until it is time to start dinner. I start dinner at different times based on what we are having. Some meals take only a few minutes to prepare while others take longer.
7:30. Joe will be home and we’ll have dinner.
After dinner. One of the girls does the evening dishes, Joe and Christopher have been going out to water the garden (obviously, this is seasonal) and take care of the chickens. I wrap up things as needed. I might put something on to soak for breakfast (oatmeal for example) or take things out of the freezer. I also wrap up my computer stuff during this time.
9. This is when we start heading off to bed.
Thursday
I have to go into town to do filing and a few other things on this day for my business. I leave sometime between 6:30 and 7:30 depending on that days work load.
Joe brings Christopher into town with him and brings him to me before he goes to work. Then Christopher and I do errands. Deliver eggs, pick up milk, shop, etc. My sweet husband always packs a lunch for Christopher in a brown bag and writes CJ on it (what Joe calls him). Christopher is always so cute and proud of that lunch! He usually wants to eat it almost as soon as our errands start. 🙂
We are usually home around 1 and I make a ‘second lunch’. We take care of the chickens and any other house stuff. During the afternoon I catch up with anything I missed for my bookkeeping job. Then work on my business. We don’t do ‘school’ on Thursdays. I also don’t do much in the way of housework on Thursdays, I’ll make the bed and do the dishes but that is usually all. Dinners are very simple on this day.
Saturdays
No scheduled work. Since my husband does the morning chicken chores during the week, I do them on the weekend mornings.
Sundays
I use Sunday afternoons to do any bookkeeping stuff that is in-depth. If I don’t have bookkeeping, then I’ll work a couple of hours on my contract. I also try to line up all of my blog posts on Sunday. We also often spend an hour doing cleaning. With 4 of us working we can get both bathrooms done, windows done, dusting, vacuuming and a good kitchen cleaning. And finally, I try to make bread, muffins, etc on this day to get a jump on the week. Of course, that doesn’t always work due to other things coming up so then I’ll do batch baking on Monday.
AND…
Things sometimes come up and my schedule changes. I might have a meeting or something. The wind might blow our fencing down (true story) and I spend the afternoon trying to fix that (in the wind). Once in a while after I’ve worked in the morning and completed what absolutely needs to be done, Christopher and I will take the afternoon off and do something fun. That something fun might just be playing outside for awhile and ‘unplugging’.
Just to keep things even more fun, with the gardening season revving up my schedule will be needing to change to accomodate that. Not quite sure how that is going to look yet. Stay tuned to find out!
Share your schedule in the comments.
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