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Time Plans:
Managing time involves both making plans and carrying them out. A time plan shows what one expects to do in a given period such as a morning, an afternoon, or possibly during a whole day or a week.
Most home-makers follow some sort of time plans. As might be expected, all do not manage time equally well. Some studies have shown that home managers tend to fall into three groups:
- A small group for whom home work is a minor consideration.
- A large group who by careful management fit most of their work into the morning and into an hour or two in the afternoon with many afternoon and evenings relatively free for the children, their husbands, social life and community activities.
- A large group for whom each day is a nip-and-tuck race to accomplish the things that must be done between morning and bed time with occasional afternoons and evenings free only by planning for them well in advance.
The success or failure of these groups of homemakers is due largely to their approach to homemaking responsibilities. Homemaking and managerial skills can be learned if one is interested and willing to work and study.
Steps in Making Daily and Weekly Time and Activity Plans:
A workable time and activity plan must be built step by step to fit the needs of one's family. Conditions in no two homes are the same. Plans for a family with young children will differ greatly from a family with teenage children. Some homemakers, such as doctors', and farmers' wives, must dovetail their work with that of their husbands and plan time for interruptions and unexpected demands, because they are a part of the day's activity. Although the details of time and activity plans will differ in each household, the steps in making them are much the same.
Step 1: Consists of listing the everyday, weekly, special and recreational activities of the family. The list will probably include such tasks as the follow
Everyday Jobs and Activities
- Caring for children and invalids
- planning, preparing and serving meals
- Packing lunches
- Baking cookies, cakes, breads
- Preparing baby's food and caring for baby
- Washing dishes
- Doing unexpected tasks
- Making beds
- Caring for house
- Caring for pets
- Resting and personal care
- Recreation and social activities
- Doing farm work
- Doing any other tasks
Weekly and Special Tasks And Activities:
- Washing and ironing
- Mending and sewing
- Cleaning house thoroughly
- Other special cleaning
- Shopping and ordering
- Washing Windows
- Special cooking and baking
- Preparing special meals
- Going to meetings, clubs etc.
- Doing any other tasks
- Going to doctor, dentist etc.
- Errands away from home
- Doing farm tasks
- Making repairs on equipment and house
- Going to bank and keeping accounts
- Engaging in recreational activities.
Seasonal Tasks and Activities:
- Planning and directing children's vacation activities.
- Preparing for holidays
- Preparing for birthdays
- Storing seasonal clothing
- Preserving food
- Sewing
- Vegetable and flower gardening Caring for yard
- Putting on and taking off screens and storm windows
- Doing any other tasks.
Step 2:
Consists of making a plan for everyday or routine tasks and starting or underlining those that must be done at a definite time. This provides a skeleton around which build the rest of the plans. Such duties as preparing and serving meals, packing up lunches, taking children to school and picking them up and daily cleaning are included in this skeleton plan.
Step 3:
Consists of completing the weekly plan. At this point we must fit the weekly, special and seasonal jobs into the free blocks of time in the daily plan. In allocating these jobs the homemaker must consider the needs of her own household, the work habits and free time of members of the family.
Step 4:
Consists of deciding who will do various tasks and calls for group discussion and planning. In doing this, the work carried out by the mother and father individually as well as the responsibilities they share together and the duties of each child, no matter how small, are clearly defined and understood. Step 4 is usually combined with steps 2 and 3, because many of these decisions are made when the order and time of work are being determined.
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