On to level 3, the household manager! We are building in guardrails to pause, reflect, and think, without interruptions, about all the invisible work and get it all planned. For years I have stressed the importance of the Sunday Basket® and often say it's the first thing you should do in your organization journey. EXCEPT when we are talking about building these levels. For this framework you must first identify the housework you need to do and establish a cadence. Then organize your home in order for the household management in the Sunday Basket® to stick!
The Sunday Basket®
There are two options for the Sunday Basket®. You may get the Classic or Complete Sunday Basket®. I explained what is included with each option and I will give you the cliff notes that if you are more digital go with the Classic. Each week you can expect to spend roughly 90 minutes - 2 hours weekly after you have it set up and have established the routine. I can't make more people to help you with your household management and you can't make the people in your household do their "fair share." This safe holding place for your actionable papers and projects will free up about 5 hours for you to get more done! When you delay decision making till Sunday a few things will happen. You will schedule your time better because you can think through your week and decide what you actually have time for. AND, the details may change or the task may just go away. While you are delaying someone else is still filling requests on demand and may say yes before you do on Sunday or "next week" AND they may start to realize you aren't the "go to" person anymore and there will be less pressure to always say yes. And don't tell me you can't. You have so much more say than you think you do. It may be overwhelming in the beginning but then it turns into a rewarding behavior.
Deconstruct Your To Do List
This is all the invisible work you do and don't really recognize will you hear these episodes or implement the Sunday Basket®. As the household manager you are constantly calendaring, weekly planning, coordinating, planning for learning, delegating, making returns then reordering, managing insurance, care for your cars, making sure you children have what the need for school, strategizing, buying, tracking, remembering, monitoring who's been to the dentist, doctor, had their annual eye exams, the invisible work list goes on and on. In your 20's it's like "This is easy!" because maybe you are only managing yourself and one car. But as your life grows in complexity so do your responsibilities. Now, as you remember you need to do all these mind numbing things, you should be writing them down on index cards. This is how you deconstruct your to do list. One thing on each card. You can move them around or delay each task based on importance. No need to keep rewriting your to-do list. This prevents your ship from sinking!
What Do You Want?
You need to keep asking yourself, what do you want? When you delay your decision making you care in control of what you will spend your time on. I remember someone saying "Everytime you say yes to someone else, you say no to your family." And the other thing to remember when you are planning, strategically set time aside to accomplish the projects that are important to you. It's almost back to school time and the Sunday Basket® will help you really think about what you want and then you can plan how to get there. The Sunday Basket helps you to have a much more realistic allocation of your time, your talent, and your treasure.
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