Scheduling Time

We all go through it, how the hell do we fit everything into our days?  How do we meet the needs and wants of our children, our partner, our home and ourselves?  No, I'm not about to give you the golden ticket to figuring it out. 

I've recently been struggling with figuring out how to make every little thing fit into the few hours we have each day, the few days we have each week, and the few weeks we have each month.  The year can go fuck itself.  Some of the demands I'm navigating:
Kara
School (now 3 days a week)
Dance lessons (enrolling in this fall)
Playdates (she's very social and wants to know who we're seeing and where we're going each day)
Homeschooling (she's very intelligent and we want to have her tested next Spring for early entrance to Kindergarten)
One-on-one time with Adam and I (when we do this, she behaves better)

Rowan
FunFit classes (enrolled in for the fall once a week)
Playdates (all of her friends are Kara's friends.  She needs more babies and toddlers closer to her age around)
Naps (she doesn't nap so well out and about and is a horrid night time sleeper without them)
One-on-one time with Adam and/or I (she often has to share us with Kara or other household chores)

Adam
Some sort of athletic activity
One-on-one time with me
Time to himself
Socialization
Work and conference time

Household
Cleaning (as in, all of it.  I don't want to admit how much of this gets negelcted.  But if you're a dirt or germaphobe, don't come over)
Cooking (I want to be sure what we're eating is healthy and a wide variety of styles)

Self
Projects (I can't count how many I have half started somewhere)
Organizing (since I can't use my organizational skills in an office setting I go nuts at home and organize and label everything.  But it never stays that way)
Artistic expression (I miss theater and writing.  I just signed up for a once a week for four week writing boot camp)
Socialization
Time to myself
Time with Adam

So yeah, it's a lot.  It's hard to fit all of that into the time that we have.  Our general weekly schedule fits in the basics and the hard scheduled items (like school and classes).  But then on the weekends it gets tricky.  We have to go grocery shopping (and that includes the meal planning, which can take over an hour).  We have naps to get in.  We try to pick up and clean around the house the things we don't do daily (toy pick up, bits of laundry- although one load can take over a day to go from getting it to the washer to put away, dishwasher unloaded/reload, kitchen picked up).  We also fit in a lot of our socialization with other families, errands we want to do together and then time at home, doing nothing.  Ahhhhh nothing.

Often things get pushed aside.  Like, I don't give Kara much attention when she works on her workbooks because I'm trying to play with Rowan.  Or both girls get ignored while I try to cook dinner.  Often Adam and I don't get time together so we can get things picked up.

I've started to remove things from my to-do list and social calendar.  I used to have a planned playdate once a month on Saturday for babies and toddlers.  I've sinced decided that no one was coming anyway to not waste time on it.  I had to cut back what work I do with my mom's group because it was taking away from time with Adam or to work on my projects.  I've scheduled activities that will fit what each person needs and then set up weekends and near schedule free times.  We try to have at least one "unplanned" weekend a month.  That means we turn down ALL invitations for that weekend.  If we really want to do something, we rearrange so that we have one free weekend. 

I don't know if this need for uber scheduling or the need to ignore half your house is part of being a parent or just part of life in general.  But I do know that each month I look at my calendar and wonder how the hell I got so booked up so fast.  And when will life slow down? The answer?  Never.