Photo: Lynn Davison
Being a mom reminds me of being a student. The work never ends, I can always think of more things to do to enhance my grades/family and spending time with the people I love is the best. I remember thinking these same thoughts years ago at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.
So here is where my satisfaction with my Weekly To Do List faded. Sure I was keeping track of what I needed to do and where I needed to be (most of the time.) But when I could catch my breath, I was having a hard time choosing what I should do next. Of the one hundred plus things to do, which was most important to do at this time?
I decided to use another tool from my years in business: a project plan. Here I listed my things to do and projects by type. After a few months trying different names for categorizing my next actions and projects, I found I could organize everything I did into nine areas of focus:
- Finance: Tracking spending, reviewing our investments and insurances plus teaching our kids frugal habits.
- Food: Designing menus, grocery shopping, storing supplies, preparing, serving and cleaning up after meals, researching new recipes, teaching our children nutrition and right-sized portions, etc.
- Health: Taking children to the doctor, dentist, orthodontist, therapist, and specialist; scheduling regular medical tests like mammograms and colonoscopies, pap smears, etc. and stress management (!) and teaching our children healthy habits. Oh, and exercising, sometimes. Daily.
- Home: Laundry, cleaning, straightening, gardening, maintenance, decorating, painting, garbage, recycling, taxes, cable, internet, cell phones (well, they have to go somewhere,) and teaching the kids to pick up and organize their rooms.
- Jobs: School, work, studying, volunteering, and teaching our kids how to work hard and the value of grit.
- Keeping: Cars, clothes, computers, haircuts, library books, postage stamps, dry cleaning and keeping it all organized and teaching our kids lean, uncluttered habits.
- Learning: Sports, music, acting, dancing, reading, and tutoring and fostering an appreciation of the arts and sports in our kids.
- Legacy: Birthday Parties, vacations, photography, photo- and scrap booking, crafts, pets, movies, television, emotion management, relationship and problem solving skills and teaching our children to savor family time and resolve disagreements in a mutually satisfactory manner through civil discussion.
- Virtues: Parenting, family rules and values that guide our actions and teach our children how to realize inner security, abundance and personal moral authority.
It helped me to break my work into these mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive groups as it always does when we break big, scary projects into smaller pieces. It also gave me a way to bring order to the many important parts of being head of a large household.
- Now I had a way to organize all my projects.
- I file our papers in one tub with tabs using these nine areas of focus.
- I bookmark my favorite websites using folders with these names.
- I track our expenses using these categories.
- I organize my files on my computer as well.
I organized my projects, papers, Internet bookmarks, computer files and expenses. It helped me establish a sense of order around our household. Any parent will tell you that just taming the paperwork is no small task. However, focusing on each of these nine areas helped me the most when I used another tool from my days in the corporate world: the strategic plan.
Aloha, Auntie Lynn
Framework4Life 
What a great way to focus your priorities! I know a few people who could benefit from being more organised, something like this might help them to be able to get on the right track – if only they would be interested in trying!
Perhaps they aren’t interested because they are afraid to fail. It is likely they have tried to get organized before and it didn’t work out so they are so discouraged. I’ve learned the hard way myself to make small changes in my organizing routine and not try to ‘swallow the elephant in one bite.’ Christine Carter from the Greater Good Science Center has made two wonderful videos where she is coaching a mom to make a change in her family’s nightly routine at In these videos she recommends changing one small part of a habit at a time. Thanks for your comment!
Great article. I found myself thinking in a similar way, so I decided to google it. So I came across your article and realized my train of thought wasn’t wrong at all. Can’t wait to try this out. Thanks a bunch!
Now, which category to Bookmark this article… Hmm…
Hi Mike: I put Framework4Life under Keeping as it helps me be organized and purposeful. Thanks for your comment!