Power Moms Unite

How many times have you said, “the weekend just slipped past me?”  Weekends, deeply packed with band practice, scout meetings and birthday parties leave little time to prepare for the week or have some of your own emotional and physical down time to regroup for the coming week.  We have had weekends, in which the days were so packed that a best friend’s birthday party was missed: our family only realizing it, after discovering the gift on the pack seat as we pulled into our driveway.  To add insult to injury, I would then feel guilty that I had overlooked the party, scout event, band practice and then worry about what else I might miss.  I fretted about appearing disorganized or disrespectful- which I admit kept me up at night.

The Weekend Planning Worksheet (613) grew out of this recurring experience for our family of 7.  On the planning sheet, each family member is assigned a color.  Just as an aside, this color is used to identify the person throughout the house, including calendars, shoe buckets, lunch boxes, laundry bins, etc.  Gray sections on the worksheet are for parents and caregivers.

What’s on the worksheet? The weekend planning worksheet is designed to be a trigger to help you organize weekend tasks and initiate planning for the coming week.  Sections on the sheet include household management, car care, family meeting, work related, meals for the coming week, homework/projects/events, as well as sections for listing errands, and follow-up items for the coming week.  As well as being color-coded, work –related and homework/projects/events sections contain a box in which to  write an individual’s initials.

The family meeting section is sub-divided into the following 3 sub-sections: value activity, concerns, and compliments.  Our family meetings are held on Sunday nights, but it can be held on any time in the week.  Each month, we focus on a specific value we want to impart on our children.  Our values include respect, love, peaceability, and honesty, to name a few.  Our family meeting always includes a thought-provoking activity to help the kids understand the value.  Over the course of the month, we as parents work hard to live and reinforce the presence of those values in our children.  The other sub-sections are self-explanatory.  Concerns are problems to be discussed as a family and compliments are items we want to publically recognize and reinforce.  Compliments might be anything from applauding how one child waited for the bathroom patiently to celebrating hard work a child put toward a project.  Ideally compliments include items that reinforce the value the family is working on that month.

When using the planning sheet be sure to include a task for yourself that boosts your own emotional and spiritual health.  Tasks might include going for a run, reading a book quietly, constructing a puzzle, or taking a bubble bath.- anything that gives a little time for yourself- so you feel rejuvenated to be the best mom for the coming week.  As a friend recently reminded me, “You are the glue- if the glue isn’t working, everything falls apart- you must make yourself a priority!”

When to complete the worksheet? I find completing the worksheet on Thursday nights very helpful.  Over dinner, I talk with the kids and my husband, if he is home from business travel, about what they want to accomplish over the weekend.  We look over schedules to make sure we know when and where all our events are occurring.  I take requests for meals in the coming week, which assures I plan my meals ahead, and lowers my weekday stress.  It also has the side benefit of limiting battles over meals, thus, raising the peace level in my home, and lowering everyone’s stress level.  When we are done with dinner, we typically have the worksheet completed.  I post it on the fridge and we all refer to it over the coming weekend.

…And so I give you the worksheet that has helped me feel effective and efficient, as well as allowed me to find my mommy-refresh time and lower my anxiety level.  Best wishes!