Anti-Scheduler (a.k.a. Slacker Woman)

I have a basic schedule that we follow every day.  The kids know what to expect which is good.  They seem to have this huge need to know what comes next, and I'm glad to oblige.  Here is what our day usually looks like:

8:00 a.m. - Rise and Shine (get dressed, eat breakfast, read a chapter of Proverbs, work on chores)
10:00 a.m. - Bible Study (we sing hymns, read scripture and pray)
11:00 a.m. - History or Science
12:00 p.m. - Get ready for lunch, finish chores, eat, freetime
2:00 p.m. - Seatwork
5:00 p.m. - freetime, get ready for dinner
6:00 p.m. - evening pick-ups (each one has an assigned area of the house to make sure is cleaned up)
6:30 p.m. - Dad comes home and we eat dinner
After dinner - clean the kitchen, take baths and showers
After showers - we read a book together as a family, sing a song, and pray.
BED!

There are no other details to our schedule.  We keep it lose and go with life.  The only time during the day when things get hairy for me is in the afternoon during our Seatwork time.  I've got three that need to work with me, as well as a 15 month old running lose.  On those especially frantic days, I vow to make a more detailed schedule so things aren't so haphazard during this time.  And every now and then I actually follow through.  The only thing I don't follow through on is following the schedule.  I've just never been able to bring myself to do it.  I look at the schedule and cringe.

On my latest rampage, I bought Managers of Their Homes.  That was three or four months ago, and I haven't done anything with it.  I just have a mental block in this area!  In her latest Mom's Corner, Terri Maxwell wrote about we moms who resist detailed schedules and something she wrote really hit home for me:

I will also challenge the mom who wrote me about Spirit-led scheduling to evaluate why she would feel stifled by her schedule. Is it because her schedule is put together wrong? If so, then she wants to determine where the problem lies. Did she pray about her schedule as developed it? Did she discuss it with her husband? Is the difficulty with having wrong activities on the schedule? Perhaps she hasn't allowed enough time for those activities.

Good points!  Where is my focus?  On the correct things?  I have to honestly say that I have never prayed over any schedule that I've made, and only once did I discuss a schedule I was making with my husband, and then I just sort of ram-rodded what I thought was best into the schedule.  Basically, I made a schedule in the presence of my husband. 

So I can see that I need to go back and put more prayer and input from my husband into this whole schedule business and see what we can all come up with.  ;-)  Maybe then I can be at peace with more details in our Seatwork time.  Who knows, maybe we'll just throw seatwork out the window.  HA!  What would the kids think about THAT?