This article will focus on Step 3 of your home time management plan. The first is to examine (briefly) your current problems. The second is to identify what changes you want to make. Figuring out your first area of ​​focus is the next logical step. That’s because, of the various issues you listed and the various changes you’d like to see, it seems logical to choose a to get started.

There are many reasons for this:

• Gives you a good solid starting point
• Keep you from feeling overwhelmed
• Prevent you from overdoing it
• keeps you focused
• You can achieve your goal faster

Let’s look at each of these a little more closely.

Gives you a good solid starting point

A good starting point is essential to… well… start. Many people have great ideas about what their problems are and what they would like to see change, but they never pick that starting point and therefore never see the change. It would be like going round and round at the grocery store because you don’t know what to make for dinner.

So choosing a single area to tackle first helps ensure you start something.

For example, if you spend too much time picking things up around the house and trying to keep it in good shape while your kids are busy messing it up and playing… that might be your first area to address. However, if you’re feeling heavy pressure night after night with the mealtime craziness and end up serving…I’ll be nice here and not say it’s the most nutritious meal…then you might want to start by directing your energy towards creating weekly meal plans.

Keep you from feeling overwhelmed

I really don’t need to tell you that you will feel absolutely overwhelmed if you try to tackle too many changes at once. And, I don’t know about you, but sometimes when I was feeling overwhelmed, I’d end up on the couch watching TV…and I didn’t even care to watch TV. That feeling just drains you instead of energizing you.

So avoiding getting overwhelmed is one of the best things you can do to ensure your success.

Prevent you from overdoing it

This goes hand-in-hand with feeling overwhelmed, except you may feel comfortable tackling several major changes at once. If he does, he is likely to overreach himself and not be able to devote his full time and attention to either of them.

keeps you focused

Speaking of attention…focus is a powerful force in the entire “change” equation. Without focus, you probably won’t accomplish much, even if you’ve followed all the other steps. Let’s be honest…it takes focus to tackle that house that hasn’t been cleaned in a long time. It takes focus to create those weekly meal plans. It takes concentration… and a lot of patience… to teach a child to clean the bathroom from the bottom up. And it definitely takes focus to teach them how to do their own laundry.

You can achieve your goal faster

It should come as no surprise that when we devote all of our time and attention to a single task…with a few exceptions…we can accomplish it much faster than if that attention is shared across multiple tasks. If you’re working on creating those weekly meal plans, but your 6-year-old keeps asking questions about what he’s supposed to do to clean the bathroom, and your teen keeps interrupting with questions about clothes…well, it is better to try again later. . His attention was probably shot at the moment.