Do you struggle through the day trying to get things off your to-do list? or getting ready in the morning or before bed?

You could use a little more routine in your life to make the day go a little easier and I am going to help you do that.

The biggest part to starting a routine is writing a list of what you actually want to accomplish. I needed to rework my routine and add a few things so I started from scratch. I divided the list into several categories that summarize my day – you’ll want to change these so they represent your life. I used the categories of Before School, After School, Morning, Afternoon, and After Kids in Bed. I purposely left out the After Dinner category because that is our family time and we have some built in items that I didn’t feel I needed to write down.

My Morning and Afternoon category changes depending if both kids are gone at school, if I am volunteering somewhere, errands to run or just have other projects going on. I treated my mornings and afternoons as if none of the above things occurred as sort of a worst case scenario.

I also wrote some things down that I would like to accomplish every day, just not necessarily at a certain time. Some of these things are exercise, how much water I drink, and tracking my food intake.

Once I had all this stuff set for my day, I wanted to make a sort of worksheet that would help me keep up with these items daily. Here’s a look at what I put together.

What I plan on doing is printing several copies during my Sunday planning session, and getting them ready for the week. I then fill them out as part of my After Kids in Bed routine. They are printed on an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper which I fold in half. I carry it with me all day and keep any notes on the empty side. When I fill out my next sheet I transfer those notes where they need to go. These might contain tasks I need to do later, things I need to remember or items that need to be added to the grocery list. At home I keep mine on a little clipboard so I always have something to write on it with. Take a look at my most recent one from the past weekend.

I find that this helps to remind me of what I need to do each day while giving me a vessel to record the many random thoughts that I may have. One of my favorite sections is the one where I record things that I need to tell my husband. There used to be so many times I would think of something to ask or tell him and by the time he would come home from work I would completely forget it.

Wish you had something like this? Well, if you take a trip over to my personal blog you can download a customizable sheet for yourself. Plus, you can learn some more tips there!

Kim Ross also writes at  A Little Bit of This and That ~ The Adventures of a Stay at Home Mom.