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Daily schedule for family


Routines for families: how & why they work

Routines: the basics

Family routines set out how families organise themselves to get things done, spend time together and have fun. Routines help family members know who should do what, when, in what order and how often.

Routines also let your children know what’s important to your family. For example, really special routines are sometimes called rituals. These can help strengthen your shared beliefs and values, and build a sense of belonging and togetherness in your family.

Why routines are good for children

Routines can be good for children for several reasons.

Safety, belonging and relationships
Routines can be part of an organised and predictable home environment, which helps children and teenagers feel safe, secure and looked after. And a predictable family life can also help children cope during development changes like puberty, or life events like the birth of a new child, divorce, illness or a house move.

Also, routines built around having fun or spending time together foster a sense of belonging and strengthen family relationships. For example, reading a story together before bed, sharing regular family meals or having a kick with your child before soccer practice can be special time for you and your child.

Skills and responsibility
Having chores as part of family routines helps children and teenagers develop a sense of responsibility and some basic skills like time management. These are skills children can use for life.

And when children can do their parts of the routine with less help or supervision from you, it also helps them become more independent.

Healthy habits
Routines can teach younger children healthy habits, like brushing their teeth, taking medicine regularly, exercising, or washing their hands after using the toilet.

This means that routines can be good for children’s health. For example, children who wash their hands more regularly might be less likely to get colds and other common illnesses.

Also, routines can reduce stress, and lower stress is good for children’s immune systems.

Daily routines help set our body clocks too. For example, bedtime routines help children’s bodies ‘know’ when it’s time to sleep. This can be a big help when children reach adolescence and their body clocks start to change.

Why routines are good for parents

Routines take some effort to create. But once you’ve set them up, they have many benefits:

  • When life is busy, routines can help you feel more organised and in control, which lowers your stress.
  • Regular and consistent routines can help you feel like you’re doing a good job as a parent.
  • Routines help your family get through your daily tasks more efficiently and free up time for other things.
  • Routines often mean you don’t have to sort out disputes and make decisions. For example, if Sunday night is pizza night, no-one needs to argue about what’s for dinner.

It can be easy to overschedule family life. Routines have many benefits, but it’s also good for children and parents to have free time to play, relax or be creative.

What makes a good daily routine?

A good routine is one that suits your family. It also has three key features.

Well planned
In a good routine, everyone understands their roles, knows what they need to do and sees their roles as reasonable and fair. For example, your children know that they take turns with washing up and drying up each night after dinner. As children get older, they can have a say in planning routines.

Regular
Good routines become part of everyday family life. For example, you might all look forward to Sunday night barbecues with your children’s grandparents.

Predictable
In a good routine, things happen in the same order each time. Everyone knows what to expect for the day. For example, you always wash school uniforms on the weekend, so you know they’ll be ready for Monday morning.

Routines for children with disabilities can be a big help. They can be even more important for children who find it hard to understand or cope with change.

Toddlers and preschoolers: ideas for daily routines

For toddlers and preschoolers, you could have routines for:

  • getting ready in the morning
  • eating meals
  • spending time playing and talking together
  • reading books or telling stories
  • having quiet time and going to bed at night.

You could also have weekly routines for playdates or playgroup, trips to the park or visits to extended family. Your child will probably look forward to these special events each week.

School-age children: ideas for daily routines

For school-age children, you could have routines for:

  • getting ready in the morning and going to bed at night
  • doing after-school activities like hobbies or sport
  • doing chores – for example, setting the dinner table, unpacking the dishwasher, helping with the laundry, or caring for pets
  • doing homework.

For school-age children, you might be more flexible with routines during school holidays. You might let your child sleep in a bit later, have extra playdates with their friends or spend a little more time playing video games.

Teenagers: ideas for daily routines

For teenagers, you could have routines for:

  • getting ready in the morning or winding down after coming home from school
  • doing laundry or other chores like making beds and cleaning rooms
  • doing homework
  • doing after-school activities, including hobbies or sport
  • spending time with family
  • relaxing before bed.

Older children and teenagers might grow out of or start to challenge some routines. You’ll probably need to be flexible and adapt routines as your children get older. For example, you might need to adjust bedtimes or chores.

How to Create a Daily Schedule for Your Family When You're Cooped Up

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The world feels pretty crazy right now. And for many of us, our daily schedules are completely upended. Schools are closed, businesses are closed, and many of us find ourselves stuck at home amidst a wave of uncertainty.

But one of the best ways you can feel more in control and at more peace during this time is to create the right daily schedule for your family. Because when done right, routines and schedules can feel like a lifeline when you’re drowning.

But the key here is THE RIGHT schedule. 

Trying to keep the wrong schedule—especially one that’s too rigid—will just make you feel like a failure. And the reality is that a lot of the schedules floating around right now aren’t going to work for many of us. 

I’ve seen brightly colored schedules making the rounds which at first glance, seem awesome. But for those of us who have to work from home or who don’t feel up to playing the part of camp counselor, they can feel impossible.  

In this post, you’re going to to learn how to create a realistic schedule for your family. One that keeps you sane and helps you on the road to your goals. 

(BTW, you’ll find the link to the Microsoft Word daily schedule template at the bottom of this post)

Don’t feel like reading? Just watch the video. Plus, I show you how to use the template. 

DAILY SCHEDULES SHOULD GIVE US FREEDOM

Here’s the way I see it: making a schedule is like creating the architecture of our day. Every day, we have this empty land (our time) that we can fill. We can wander aimlessly, or we can build something that helps us accomplish our goals and provides flexibility and comfort. 

A great schedule is like building a comfortable house on that land. A house that gives protection and room to move. 

On the other hand, scheduling every second is like building a tunnel through your day. You might be able to cover a lot of ground in that tunnel, but you might feel claustrophobic, limited, and a little insane. 

Schedules can be so rigid and restrictive that they drive us crazy and set us up for failure. Or they can simply be too unrealistic. Creating a schedule is not a time to be super idealistic. 

Remember…

Parenthood + rigid/unrealistic schedules = Locking yourself in the bathroom 

So with all that in mind, I want to go through the steps to create a workable and realistic family schedule for you during this time. 

HOW TO CREATE A DAILY FAMILY SCHEDULE WHEN YOU’RE COOPED UP AT HOME

Step 1: List all the things you want to fit in your day. This includes sleep!

This is just brainstorming, so write down everything you can think of. For example, this might include:

  • Meal prep
  • Meals
  • Sleep
  • Kid’s activities
  • Exercise
  • Academic time
  • Self Care & relaxation (Super important right now. How can you show up for your kids, if you’re not well?)
  • Cleaning & chores
  • Working from home
  • Relax with partner 
  • Family time
  • Watching your favorite TV show 

Don’t judge yourself here. Just list the kinds of things that show up in your day. 

RELATED: A Simple Cleaning Schedule You Can Stick to

GET THE FREE DAILY PLANNER

Step 2: Prioritize that list. 

You can do anything…but you can’t do everything.

Which is why you need to figure out what are the most important things on your list. Take a step back and think about what is most important to you. What tasks are going to ultimately impact your health and happiness?

And now, I know you’re all thinking: of course, my kids are the most important. Time to jump into the role of camp counselor/home school extraordinaire.

Hold on. Putting your kids first DOES NOT mean a day full of reading, math, science, structured crafts, and learning about Michelangelo. I mean, if that gives you life, go for it. 

But if you just started hyperventilating thinking about that, know that’s definitely not necessary to actually put your kids first.

For me, putting my kids first means that I prioritize my self care and sleep. It’s going on a morning run and taking care of myself physically and mentally so that I can show up for my kids in the right way. So I have the patience and energy to give them what they need. 

It means giving them chores so they help out, learn responsibility, and know they’re essential to our home. (At this moment, chores are more important than math.)

It’s also making sure I fulfill my responsibilities in my work so that I can provide the income necessary to maintain our modest lifestyle. This also means lowering my expectations for what I can accomplish work wise. Because I want my office door to be open to my kids while I work (for the most part). 

So as you prioritize, think about what’s really important and the outcomes you want.    

And something to remember: kids don’t need everything scheduled. Yes, they need routines. But research shows that they NEED free play. Unstructured time with out any academic pressures.

Personally, we just bought a TON of legos and lego mats that are currently keep our kids occupied for hours. Here are some more awesome suggestions for toys and activities that provide kids unstructured free play. 

RELATED: How to Keep Kids Busy so You Can Get Stuff Done

Step 3: Start scheduling the top priorities and INCLUDE buffer & downtime

Start working your most important tasks (ahem, sleep and self care) into your schedule and work your way through your list. And plan space between your tasks.  

As a parent, you need buffers. Which is the number 1 reason restrictive schedules are recipes for disaster. Life happens. 

I mean, as a parent, you have those moments where you announce that it’s time to put on shoes and get in the car. And then it proceeds to take 45 minutes to actually get shoes on everyone and get bodies in the car. 

Someone’s gonna pee their pants, lose their shoes, or have a have an epic meltdown. This is just real life that doesn’t always make its way onto Instagram. Your schedule should plan for that.

Step 4: Eliminate the unimportant

Now in this process, you may find that you realistically don’t have room in your day to get everything done AND keep a buffer. 

Resist the urge to cram and cut down the essentials in order to accommodate the unimportant. That’s why you prioritized in step 2. So you make sure you do the most important and know what stuff can go by the wayside. 

(At least for right now…)

Step 5: Create a schedule using the temple provided (Optional).

Personally, I love to create our schedules in Word, print them out, laminate, and post them where everyone can see. That way the schedule becomes routine.

To help you create your own schedule, I’ve created a little daily schedule template in Word that you are welcome to use and edit. The video at the top of this post explains how to edit the schedule to fit your needs.

Feel free to add or delete columns, merge cells, and use color fills to create a schedule that makes you happy.

You can download that file right here: Family Daily Schedule Template Docx

Here’s how our schedule looks right bow:

USE THE TEMPLATE TO CREATE YOUR OWN DAILY FAMILY SCHEDULE

As you create your family schedule, remember that the most important thing right now is your health and well being and that of your family. If the thought of trying to create structures homeschool environment stresses you out, don’t do it. 

The key is to find what worlds for you. If perfection is your standard, you’ll just end up disappointed.

One of my favorite quotes is about writers block. But I swear it applies to life in general: “ When faced with writer’s block, lower your standards and keep going.” (Sandra Tsing).

So lower your standards and prioritize what matters.

You’re going to get through this. 

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE…

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13 Ways to Get Kids Excited About Chores

Lesson 1. The correct regime of the day

How to correctly compose the regime of the day is one of the most important topics of a healthy lifestyle. Everyone is faced with the need to allocate their time. Sometimes, as in the case of work, this is a necessity. Sometimes, for example, when planning the most productive pastime or vacation, this is expediency.

Proper daily routine includes the rational use of sleep, personal hygiene, nutrition, work, rest, sports and physical activity. Planning a daily routine and following it makes a person disciplined, develops organization and focus. As a result, a mode of life is also developed, in which the expenditure of time and energy on non-essential things is minimized.

In this lesson, answers will be given to questions about the correct daily routine, the features of the influence of biological rhythms on the activity and efficiency of human activity, the main approaches and methods for compiling a daily routine for different people: men and women of different professions, adults, students and schoolchildren.

Contents:

  • What is the daily routine
  • Biological rhythms and daily routine
  • Owls and larks
  • Components of the daily routine
  • How to plan your daily routine
  • Verification test

What is the routine of the day

Let's start with the definition:

Daily routine is a well-thought-out schedule of actions for the day, planning time with the aim of its rational and most efficient distribution.

As mentioned above, the routine is of great importance for the self-discipline and organization of any person, and it is also important for many other applied aspects of our lives. For example, the daily routine plays an important role in building training programs, compiling diets and organizing proper nutrition in general, choosing the most productive hours of our lives for work or creativity.

Mason Curry, in his book The Genius Routine: The Daily Routine of Great People, gives the following analogy to the daily routine:

we lack most of all, as well as willpower, self-discipline, optimism. An ordered routine is like a track along which mental forces move at a good pace…”

The daily routine is needed so that time does not take advantage of our absent-mindedness (see epigraph). Each person faced in his work haste, a sense of the amorphousness of time, confusion in personal and work affairs. We cannot always clearly tell how much time we spent on this or that activity, because we do not consider it necessary to constantly monitor the use of our time. However, it is the whole day's routine that helps to most intelligently and effectively allocate your time. In addition, without the skill of successfully planning your day, a person will not learn to make longer-term plans, especially since it is not so difficult to plan your daily schedule completely, after:

✔ Day as the minimum unit for planning is most convenient due to easy visibility.
✔ If any attempt fails, you can rebuild and change the mode the next day.

Let us also note the fact that the use of the epithet "correct" in relation to the daily routine is somewhat arbitrary. Individually for each person, the concept of the correct routine can be different and depend on many factors: work, habits, characteristics of the body. But, according to experts (psychologists and doctors), the physiological aspects of the functioning of the main life systems of people are identical [Wedemeyer G. A., 1996]. On the basis of this, it is possible to compile a universal regimen containing general recommendations that will suit everyone to one degree or another. Based on the proposed recommendations, taking into account your individual needs, you can develop a daily routine that is best for you.

Biological rhythms and daily routine

Without taking into account the daily biological rhythms of the body, a person is unlikely to be able to create an organized and effective daily routine [Nature, 2009]. For example, if a person who is used to usually waking up at 7 am, sleeps until 4 pm one day, after waking up, he will most likely feel tired, weak, slowing down the pace of activity. This condition occurs as a result of ignoring the features of biological rhythms, biological clocks and circadian rhythms.

Biological rhythms ( biorhythms ) – periodically repeating changes in the nature and intensity of biological processes and phenomena in living organisms, on which their functionality depends.

Biorhythms are internal ( endogenous ), depending on the body's biological clock, and external ( exogenous ), which manifest themselves in synchronization of internal cycles (change of sleep and wakefulness) with external stimuli (change of day and night). In terms of compiling the daily routine, we are most interested in circadian rhythms - cyclic fluctuations in the intensity of various biological processes associated with the change of day and night, the period of which is approximately equal to 24 hours [Komsomolskaya Pravda, 2016].

Many researchers, until recently, attributed the study of biorhythms to a non-academic area of ​​physiology, but thanks to recent research, the situation has changed somewhat. So, in the human brain, they found a tiny cluster in the hypothalamus, about 20,000 neurons in size, which controls many of the body's circadian rhythms. Known as the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), this center performs the work of the body's internal pacemaker and affects human biorhythms [Moore R. Y., 2001].

Owls and larks

Psychologists often refer to the well-known division of people depending on the period of their activity into "owls" and "larks". It is difficult for the first to get up early in the morning, and the peak of their activity falls on the evening and night hours. The latter, on the contrary, are active in the morning, and by the evening they quickly lose their energy reserves. Interestingly, in many African countries there are practically no “owls”, this is due to the fact that many villages and cities are not electrified, which means that when the sun sets, local life stops.

The proposed classification is rather arbitrary, because, as practice shows, a normal healthy person, if desired, can gradually change his type of wakefulness without harm to the body. The main thing is the presence of willpower and the right strategy.

For example, many politicians, businessmen, athletes who travel a lot around the world often have to adjust their circadian rhythms in accordance with the time difference between cities in order not to lose efficiency in their work when changing time zones. In practice, even special recommendations have been developed that will help to rebuild your regime as painlessly as possible after changing the time zone. For this you are follows:

1 Plan the first days of arrival in such a way that, if possible, psychological and physical stress are minimal.
2 Eat only light meals two days before the flight, avoid alcoholic beverages and foods that are unusual for you, and refrain from smoking if possible.
3 Please note that it is better to fly from east to west on a morning or afternoon flight, and from west to east - in the evening.
4 3-5 days before departure, gradually rebuild your schedule in accordance with the time zone of the place where you are going to fly.
5 If you're flying west, try to go to bed and wake up later. When traveling eastward, you need to fall asleep earlier and wake up early in the morning.

Often people do not even have to use their willpower to change their activity regime, since the human body is able to independently adapt to changing external conditions. For example, regular schoolchildren tend to go to class by 8:30 a.m. during a long period of study. Over the years, the student's body gets used to follow the given circadian rhythm, that is, to work actively in the first half of the day. However, if, after graduation, a graduate enters the university in the evening department, where classes are held on the second shift, the body has to adjust to the new schedule. Over time, the student's biological clock naturally adapts to the new system without much effort on his part.

Knowing how the biological clock works will help you plan your day correctly. Below is an approximate calculation of the periods of activity of different systems of an average person by hours:

04:00. The beginning of the circadian rhythm. At this time, the body releases the stress hormone cortisol into the bloodstream, which triggers the mechanisms of basic functions and is responsible for our activity. It is this hormone that helps wake up people who prefer to get up early.

05:00-06:00. Awakening of the organism. During this period, the metabolism accelerates, the level of amino acids and sugar increases, which do not allow a person to sleep soundly in the morning.

07:00-09:00. The ideal time for light physical activity, when you can quickly bring the body relaxed after sleep into tone. At this time, the digestive system works well: the absorption of nutrients occurs faster, which helps to efficiently process food and convert it into energy.

09:00-10:00. The period when the energy received from eating is mastered. During this time, a person is able to cope well with tasks for attention and intelligence, as well as successfully use short-term memory.

10:00-12:00. The first peak of efficiency, the period of maximum mental activity. At this time, a person copes well with tasks that require increased concentration.

12:00-14:00. Deterioration time, when it is necessary to rest the tired brain. This period is suitable for a lunch break, as the work of the digestive tract accelerates, blood flows to the stomach, and the mental activity of the body decreases.

14:00-16:00. It is better to devote this time to the calm digestion of what you have eaten, as the body is in a state of slight fatigue after dinner.

16:00-18:00. The second peak of activity and performance. The body received energy from food, all systems again work in full mode.

18:00-20:00. The best time for dinner, the food received by the body will have time to digest until the morning. After eating, you can take a walk or after an hour to do physical exercises, go to training.

20:00-21:00. This time is suitable for playing sports, visiting sections, socializing.

21:00-22:00. The period when the ability of the brain to memorize increases. At this time, eating is not recommended.

22:00. Start of the sleep phase. Recovery processes are launched in the body, hormones of youth are released. The body goes into a state of rest.

23:00-01:00. At this time, the metabolic process slows down as much as possible, body temperature and pulse rate decrease. The deep sleep phase is when our body is at its best resting.

02:00-03:00. The period when all chemical reactions are slowed down, hormones are practically not produced. Lack of sleep at this time can lead to a deterioration in condition and mood throughout the day.

Note: in the cold season there is a slight shift of the described processes of physiological activity forward in time.

Lark or Owl Test

We invite you to take a test to determine whether you are an owl, a lark or a dove. This can help you determine what time of day you are most productive and adjust your daily routine accordingly.