by Mindi Popovich-Schneider
With the start of school and the changing of the seasons, the last days of summer are energized in a unique way. We admire our shiny new books (even if they’re only new to us), carefully pick out our notebooks, pencils, and other materials, and plan out how beautifully organized our days are going to be.
But if your family is anything like mine, the organization falls by the wayside as soon as illness or a major Feast (or an out-of-town friend or a big extracurricular activity, etc.) comes knocking.
I am decidedly not good at implementing new habits, so I have to work hard at making them stick. Here are a few things that have helped me, and will hopefully help you too.
Think of rhythms, not schedules.
I have noticed that my kids don’t do well without any structure, but at the same time, our days vary far too much for me to even attempt writing down a schedule. Some days we all sleep in, Papa gets to go into work a bit later, we need to spend more time cleaning the house, or we have liturgy for a special feast…and so on.
Instead, on the advice of a friend, I’ve started to think in terms of rhythms. “These are the things we do in the morning: prayers, breakfast, make beds/tidy, school/chores. They might vary in order or length of time spent, but that’s generally what we want to accomplish each day. These are the chores/school tasks we do on Mondays; this is what we do on Tuesdays, etc. Those things may not always happen at the same time each week, but that’s typically what we try to accomplish on that day.” Thinking in general terms helps us go with the flow, while still giving a loose shape to our days.
Start small.
If you struggle to get consistent with a habit, consider breaking it down into smaller components. For example, if you find it hard to fit exercise into your day, don’t go straight to adding trips to the gym or a three-mile walk into your normal routine. Start off with something much smaller that can fit more naturally into the habits you already have. Perhaps when you first go downstairs for the day, you can pause at the bottom of the stairs and do a few reps of stair-steps (i.e., up and down the bottom step a certain number of times). Or maybe you could have your family do some light stretching before everyone sits down to start their schoolwork. Then, once you’ve mastered that small habit, you can think of ways to add onto it, until the habit has become what you originally had in mind.
Another example: if you want to pray more, don’t go straight to trying to do an Akathist each week. Start by praying one or two rounds on your prayer rope. Once you have mastered that, add in one or two shorter prayers, and so on. When you do face some major disruption to your routine, you’ll know how to start over.
Create physical barriers.
Each morning, I feel a lot of pressure to get work done before my kids wake up for the day. That results in prayers–and especially reading my Bible–always getting pushed to the side. Recently, I’ve started putting my prayer rope and Bible on top of my laptop each night–meaning that I have to physically remove them before I can start work…and let me tell you, the guilt makes it very hard to move them aside without engaging with them!
Follow your natural inclinations.
It would be really great if my family (myself included) naturally always put their shoes and socks away in their rooms the moment they took them off. That just doesn’t happen. Instead of fighting it, I made room for a second shoe rack in our coat closet. Our “pop on” shoes can stay by the back door, but anything else goes into the closet, just a few feet away. Socks don’t make it up to the laundry basket? Boom, now there’s a laundry basket in the downstairs closet (yes, I do still constantly have to remind my three year old that’s where they go).
Going back to the goal of exercising more: a friend put a kettlebell in his kitchen so that when he’s between tasks making dinner, he can get in a bit of weightlifting. An added benefit is that if you have toddlers under foot, you can distract them by having them lift weights (or attempt to lift weights) when you have to attend to the food.
The oft-discussed habit stacking falls under this category too. If there’s a habit you already have (e.g., a cup of coffee every morning), add a habit onto it, such as doing squats or rounds on your prayer rope while the coffee brews (you might have to stare at the pot while you exercise/pray to make sure you don’t forget to do it!). My husband and I wanted to start saying prayers at the end of our meals but could never quite make it work, primarily because we and my mother-in-law always linger at the table to chat before we start cleaning up. My oldest kiddo always finishes eating before everyone else and must ask to be excused, so we attached praying to that instead of to when the adults were ready to leave the table.
Don’t try to change the way your household functions; instead, find ways to shape new, good habits to the way your family already naturally works.
Do it together.
I find that I enjoy doing most things ten times more when I’m doing them with my family–plus, getting my kids involved means they’re developing better habits too. Instead of making my kids clean up before bed–or waiting until they’re asleep to just do it myself–we’ve started cleaning up as a family. Sometimes we’ll put on music and blitz-tidy as long as the song plays. (Yes, of course my kids still complain, but I have more fun!)
The same applies to other chores as well. When my son was two, we made up a silly game involving folding socks to occupy him while we put away laundry. It very naturally segued into him folding and putting away his own clothing.
I know none of these concepts are particularly revolutionary, but I do hope that as you prepare for the new liturgical year and school year, they will serve as motivations to grab those habits you’ve been wanting to implement–without feeling pressure to do too much or to be perfect. May God bless you, your family, and all you undertake in the upcoming year!