Today while the kids napped, I completed one of the projects that was ranked high on my list; 1 - because of it's usefulness and 2 - because we were getting sick of that giant corkboard floating around our bedroom!
So i made good use of my mediocre scrapbooking skills, and here it is!!
Now that i have your attention, i will explain. This is what i call our Multi-Functional Family Board (though i wrote "Goals Chart" on the title). It tracks household chores, personal and family goals, and Family Home Evening assignments. The bright colors are fun and attract attention, I made a space for an "inspirational quote" that i will change occasionally, and the overall functionality will hopefully inspire us to do and be better.
I will admit, i am a pretty lazy person who gets overwhelmed VERY easily. I often think to myself, "I should do something useful today!" and yet, when i go through that mental list of everything that needs to get done, i reply to myself, "That's a lot! And now i'm tired. Let's take a break, or do something more fun!"
I have made many lists of chores for myself, and even more lists of "personal improvement goals", and yet after the second day, i'm through with them! I'm too lazy, and really no one cares if i accomplish what's on my lists. Except me, and even i don't care THAT much. *wink*
Now, in my brutal honesty i'm afraid i'm making myself out to be worse than i am. I DO do a lot of work around the house! But there are certain things, in the chaos of the day, that just get forgotten, or procrastinated. Then something happens that makes me exclaim "Why wasn't that done!!"
That all being said, i came to the decision that my lists were a great idea for me, but my folly came in trying to do it alone. I needed to get EVERYONE involved! Josh has the same problem - we know that we want to do something, but there's so much that we don't know where to start!
I started with the lists - I wrote down all the household chores that i want accomplished on a regular basis. I then divided them up into groups - what needs to be done every day, once a week, and things we could get away with doing just once a month.
Second, i made lists of personal goals - things i want to make sure i do every day, or every week, for my own personal improvement. Examples include saying my personal prayers morning AND night, studying the scriptures, listening to good music, exercising, and reading more. I also made lists for my kids, including things that i want to teach them, such as "be nice to your brother today" or "Clean up your toys at the end of the day" or "Lessons for 15 minutes" (my kids aren't in school yet, so we do - or should do - lessons at home). Josh gets to make his own list later.
Then i thought - now i have these lists, how can we make sure that we stick to them?? The simple answer, sticker charts!! Kids love sticker charts! And i'll admit, i'm just a big kid!
So i used Microsoft Word to make up charts for all the different catagories, and fancied them up on the second-biggest corkboard i could find!
On the top in the middle is our name, and below that our inspirational quote. On either side is the "family goals", things we will accomplish together. On the right is the "Daily" list, with seven spaces so it can track for a week. On the left are the Weekly and Monthly lists, with an appropriate number of columns to track for the month.
Josh has expressed numerous times that he would love to help out more around the house, but he just doesn't know what needs to be done! Now he has no excuse! Everything is right there! All he has to do is pick something, do it, and mark it down that it's been done. And yes, in going over the chart together tonight, we will most certainly discuss "picking out the easy ones every week".
I made a decorative border across the middle out of colored cardstock and those metal words you can get at craft stores - i had a TON of them laying around, and figured i'd put them to good use.
On the bottom half of the board are our personal spaces. Here's a closeup of mine:
"M" is for "Mom".
All the colored cardstock on the board is stuck with double-sided tape, and all the charts are simply pinned so we can change them out when they're full. On each of our spaces we find our own personal daily goals charts, a hanging tag to the side of our initial which indicates what our Family Home Evening assignment is for the week, and some extra space below to pin up other things, such as bills, appointments, messages, etc. that we need to take care of. For example, those notes i keep getting that remind me that Elijah is due for his dental checkup, that i keep losing and forgetting to call to set one up? Yeah, i'd put that in Elijah's section.
So now we are all "Goal Makers" together! And hopefully we will share more in the household chores, now that the boys are old enough to do somet things. Mom is getting VERY tired of doing it all herself!
So that was todays project... I think i'll rest tomorrow! Hahaha! The charts start tracking from Sunday, so we'll start then.
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