When I was
younger, I used to think that air was limitless. People who suffer from asthma know better,
having felt the unforgettable panic of “oxygen starvation.” In similar fashion, most of us go through our
youth thinking that “time” comes in limitless supply as well, like the air that
comes free at gas stations. We wish it
away, watching school clocks plod one second at a time to that magic
dismissal. We count the seconds it takes
for five minutes to pass on a road trip, and we make chains to pass the time
before Christmas more “efficiently.”
And then suddenly,
we are middle aged. The mirror announces
that time has been tricking us all along, pretending to be slow-as-molasses when
she was really wearing waxed skates. We look back on entire decades with the same
glance we once cast in remembering last summer or the previous school
year. 1993? Why, that was just . . . twenty-two years
ago! Time is now a precious commodity,
one to be valued and counted out carefully, like pennies during a
recession. Seconds and minutes matter now.
For those of
us who homeschool and add dozens of other responsibilities on top of that, saving
those seconds is as valuable as cutting out 40-cent coupons. Seconds and pennies both add up. Let me share with you a few of my strategies
for saving seconds.
1. Expect first-time obedience from your kids
early on.
Begging a
child to eat his banana or arguing about bath time is, among many other things,
a waste of time. Ideally, this training ought to begin before
the age of one, when your commands are as simple as requiring him to comply for
a diaper change or to lie down in his own bed for naptime. When the child disobeys (and believe me when
I tell you that they all disobey at first), they need a spanking. I can safely blog that, since spanking is
still legal almost everywhere in the U.S.
(If it’s not legal where you live, ask God for wisdom. My blog is directed to those who have that
legal right.) I’m certainly not
promoting child abuse against toddlers, but a simple spanking from a loving mom
will set you up as the authority who needs to be obeyed and respected. And it will save you lots of time and
emotional energy when your demands graduate to homework, chores, and curfews. I am convinced that the number one mistake of
first-time parents (and I include our own rookie years here too) is not expecting first-time obedience. If even puppies are expected to learn to obey
simple commands with one word, on the first call, every single time, our kids
really can get this. J
2. Delegate as much as possible.
Do you know the
feeling you get when you discover a generous coupon—unused and now expired,
sitting in your stack of papers? Ugh. We spent $2 of our own money at the grocery
store, when we could have had it free!
Time is money too. Are you using
all your “coupons,” or are you letting them expire? Mom doesn’t need to be spending all her
precious time picking up toys, wiping down the bathroom sink each morning, or
emptying all the trash. Those are great jobs for the “littles.” Set aside perfectionism and turn over the
simple jobs to the under-20 crowd.
The key to
delegation is two-fold: Simple and specific. Most of us are not
very good at retaining more than three steps to a process. Keep it basic.
3. Learn the value of that five-letter
word: “While.”
For me, that
means getting that washer going as early in the day as possible, so it’s
working for me while we’re eating breakfast; or giving a spelling test while
washing dishes. Review quiz questions
while folding clothes. You can’t spend
the same dollar twice, economists
tell us—but you can spend the same second
twice by capitalizing on ways to conquer two tasks at once.
4. Stop caring about things that don’t matter.
Unmatched
socks or unfolded pajamas stuffed into teenagers’ dresser drawers; old candles,
rubber bands, a few stray Christmas tree ornaments, and unidentified keys lying in close proximity
in some random junk drawer. My OCD friends are probably having trouble breathing
right about now, but lean closer, so you can hear me whisper where no one else
can hear me: It doesn’t matter. There
really are some things not worth your time and energy. If your kids can look presentable in clean,
unwrinkled clothes each day, then I won’t tell anyone you haven’t been doing
underwear drawer checks. (And don’t you
tell anyone I haven’t either.)
5. Develop parameters to keep from becoming a slave
to your electronics.
Even though
I’m a pastor’s wife, I don’t answer the phone during school hours. If there’s an emergency, everyone we know has
my husband’s cell phone, or they can leave a message on the home answering
machine.
When I was
growing up, we wrote letters—you know, with pens,
paper, envelopes—stuff like that. The
average turn-around time for a letter-and-reply was at least two weeks. Nowadays, with texting, the average
turn-around time for message-and-reply is about one minute. Younger moms who have grown up with texting
and Facebooking may find that they need to put their electronics where they don’t
hear the notifications every time someone "likes” a Facebook photo or wants to
send that infamous text: “Call me.” J Free yourself up and save
some time. Re-adjust your friends’
expectations if they are used to getting a reply back within 30 seconds.
The TV can
be a real time waster, too. Unless there
is a national emergency, it’s not usually a good idea to start the day with the
TV on. We get drawn in so easily to
human-interest stories that disguise themselves as “news.” Every hour of TV offers at least 15 minutes
of commercials. None of us have that
kind of time!
6. Discover “auto pilot.”
It’s OK to
eat the same food on a regular basis.
Creativity takes time and energy.
If your time is at a premium, as mine is, then you may have to save your
“Martha Stewart” meals for later, when you have the time to purchase specialty
ingredients and can afford to experiment.
Routines in meals, chores, homeschool classes, and household maintenance
save us the time and energy of having to make constant decisions.
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The Apostle
Paul exhorts us to be “redeeming the time because the days are evil.” Time is money; money is time. Choose carefully how you spend both!
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