Busy Mums

Early summer is a great time to re evaluate how we all do things. We start off with New Year resolutions but for most of us by the time we get to the end of January we have given up, or half forgotten what we were going to do differently this year.

Part of the problem is we are still suffering the excesses of Christmas during January.

So I have yet again decided to visit routines. You could say that this is a bit of a routine in itself. This was brought about by a good friend of mine who made this simple statement.

Routines are good. When I thought about this simple statement I realised how true it was. Especially as a lot of my routines are nonexistent!!

They save time. Things happen automatically when there are routines. As well as saving time orchestrating kids to get kids to do things it also saves the endless nagging.

Routines can be something as simple as cleaning your teeth before going to bed or something more challenging like getting to the gym.

They could be bedtime habits or eating habits.

They could be housework routines or keep fit routines They could be kids chores or time for you routines.

Routines are really just habits, but mainly habits with a positive ring to them.

So if habits are often bad routines, then perhaps to change or remove the bad habit we need to change or replace the bad routines.

Think about it. If like many mums you are trying to make a real effort to get the family to eat more healthily or watch less television, before you try to change the behaviour you need to change the routines which sits behind the behaviour. Then a good habit or routine will follow more easily.

Spending time examining the behaviour behind a habit, or an ineffective routine, is likely to result in much more long term success. For example: if you want the family to eat more healthily, then you need to make sure that there is a good range of healthy food in the house. This means in turn you need to do a healthy shop and work out some healthy recipes.

So what routines would you like to put in place?

And what input is needed by you to get your new routine in place?