Thursday, August 21, 2008

baby steps - day 22 - margins continued

Baby Steps toward purposeful home keeping continues! The beginning of this series is here.

My last few posts have been on the subject of margins. My daily and weekly margins have purpose and I fill them in not fill them up with those Make it Priority tasks so that I can create sanctuary on my homefront and have time with those needful relationship connections for my personal growth. I do it on purpose and I do it with the end in mind.

EXAMPLES
I know our bed will be made every day and once a week I’ll put fresh sheets on the bed. My goal is to make the bed first thing in the morning (and generally that happens) and every Saturday the sheets are fresh, but if that doesn’t happen (for whatever reason) then it will on Monday morning. It’s all good. Not rigid, but grace filled. I do this task because I not only feel good about it, but I know Michael enjoys it too. That's sanctuary.

I also know that it's my responsibility to serve nutritious meals. My husband feels loved, respected and he knows that I'm making him my priority when I plan, prepare and serve him a good meal. So, I daily prepare us breakfast and we eat together. It's our morning time to connect, evaluate the day and be a part of what each other is going to do. Generally, I serve breakfast outside on our patio. I prepare and plan this and place it in a margin, because I know my husband enjoys this, needs this and feels loved and respected when I serve him this way.

Since daily meal preparation requires planning I must add that space to plan and prepare and think through the week and shop accordingly to my margins.

I also think about making sure that our refrigerator is cleaned out and organized BEFORE I go shopping so that it's not a last minute thing I do with bags of groceries on the counter waiting to be put away.

Michael's heart trusts that I'm going to be responsible to take care of this. It's a way that I create sanctuary.

So, there are daily and weekly priority tasks to accomplish so that I can take care of my husband and create sanctuary in our home.

I’ve determined the best time for me to accomplish what I need to and I place those tasks within my margins spaces.

General daily margins look like this:
Soul Care Margin - 5 – 7:30 am – (This is the time for me – to read, workout, shower, think and look at my day.) I can choose to get up early or I can choose to sleep a bit longer and perhaps not have the Soul Care time that I might really need.

Morning Margin - 7:30 am – until Noon

Afternoon Margin - Noon – 6 pm

Evening Margin - 6 pm – 10 pm

We all get these basic time margins and it’s our choice how we steward them and what we use them for. How do you fill in or fill up your margins and how do you determine your priorities?

Stumble Upon Toolbar

1 comments:

Ronel said...

I like these margins... I think I am going to use them.. Thanks!!