What Are Your Non-negotiables?

     I find myself pulled in so many different directions at times - family, work (plus a second job), friends, church, chores, the gym, hobbies. If you’re like me, it always seems like there's something I’m forgetting or something that falls to the side that doesn’t get enough of my attention. I often get more stressed when I get busier, but I don’t always get more productive. Spinning your wheels and going nowhere is really disheartening. Through these especially busy seasons of life, I’ve discovered one essential piece of advice that will help you focus on what’s most important. 

     To focus on what's important, you first have to identify the important things in your life. What are your non-negotiables on your calendar? These non-negotiables are things that you NEVER miss. It might be church on Sunday mornings, hitting the gym after work, or family dinner on Tuesday nights. After you identify them, schedule your non-negotiables first. Put them on your calendar first before the less important things take up space. Plan your days, weeks, and months around these essential, important, no-exceptions events. 

     For me, work, my second job, and church are the three things that are non-negotiable (as an unmarried guy, I am not ignoring my family, don’t worry!). Since these three things dictate a lot of my schedule, they go on the calendar first. Then I schedule the less important, more flexible events around the important ones. When I have free time with my friends or family, I make sure that I give them my undivided attention. I turn off my phone when I am visiting my mom. I don't check my email when I'm with my friends. I want each person I'm with to know that my focus is on them and not worries about my job or other things.

     If you take the time to identify and schedule your non-negotiables first, even when you get busy, you'll still be focused on what matters. Sometimes busyness creeps in when we let a lot of little, unimportant tasks fill up our time. To effectively love our family and find success at work, we all need to define and focus on what's most important.

What's most important to you? When will you focus on it? 

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P.S. If you want to learn more about this concept, Craig Groeschel of Life Church has some excellent lessons on time management (watch part 1 and part 2). 

Routines That Work

     I don’t know about you, but nothing makes me feel more on top of things than when I fall into a good routine. It's true for me both at work and at home. If I have a regular plan for how things should go and I execute that plan well, things hum along smoothly. On the other hand, nothing makes me feel more off my game than when I can’t settle into a groove. If my routines are disrupted, I get grumpy fast (you’ve been warned!).

     I don’t think this just applies me. Routines help all of us by letting us put the unimportant parts of life on autopilot. We all have laundry, dishes, cleaning, and a million other things that need to get done. When we have to spend time actively thinking about all of those things, we get dragged down. Honesty check! Have you ever had these laundry room thoughts: 

• “How many more days can I go without doing laundry?”  
• “I definitely did not buy this many pairs of socks for my kids. Where did they all come from?!”
• “That business about separating light clothes from dark clothes is probably an urban legend. I'll just dump all the clothes in together!”

Note: These examples have no correlation with my personal experience (No really, I promise.).

     Hopefully you get my point. If we have to give mundane but necessary tasks our full mental attention, it keeps us from focusing on what's truly important. I know that I’d rather focus on my relationship with God, my wife, and my kids instead of undone laundry and dirty dishes. Routines can automate the ‘need to get done’ parts of our life so we can spend more time focusing on what matters.

     The pitfall of a routine, of course, is that things can become so rote, so run-of-the-mill, that we stop caring. We all need a Parenting Wake Up Call from time to time to make sure we’re not putting all of life on auto-pilot. Our routines need to serve our families, giving us more focused time with them, and not robbing us of meaningful interaction. I recently heard a story of a husband who sent automated emails to his wife if he was working late. Let me go on record and state that I think that is a bad idea.

     Here are three Lindell family routines that work wonders for our sanity (and with 5 kids, we’re taking all of the extra sanity we can find!).

• Laundry Sorting Wednesdays. Every Wednesday evening before we start our bedtime routine, we all get our laundry to the washing machine and sort it into piles. Huge piles, like mountains. We get the first load started right away. Getting that head start allows us to have all of our clean laundry fully put away 24 hours later.  
• Bedtime Clean Up. Most of our bedtime routine is pretty standard: PJs, brushing teeth, reading stories. However, before we start those things we begin with a whole house clean up. Getting all the toys and general clutter picked up before the kids go to bed makes everything feel so much more peaceful. When we forget this part of the routine even for a night or two, things get messy fast!
• Grocery Shopping. We go grocery shopping every two weeks. We always go on the same day at the same time. Our shopping routine has two benefits. First, we don’t spend time wondering when we’re going to the store next. Second, we save money. The less we shop the less we spend.

     What about you? What routines have you found that work for your family? We’d love to learn from you! Leave a comment and share your wisdom.