New Year’s resolutions should be called New Year’s fairy tales. They are wishes, prompted by unfulfilled dreams that leave us feeling more mocked than motivated.

Let’s take back the resolve in resolution.

Let’s make a commitment we can keep, rather than dreaming about a wish that can never happen.

Are you ready to trade pipe dream for realistic resolve?

I think you and I have a lot in common:

• We love Jesus. We want to make Him known.
• We love the Word. We want to read it, know it, and live it.
• We love our families. We want to love them well.
• We want to be good stewards of our bodies, our minds, and our souls.
• We want to read the stack of books on our nightstand, invite the neighbors over for coffee, and use the spiritual gifts God has given us.

Those are all Christ-honoring, worthy goals we share. I think Mary—the sister sitting at the feet of Jesus in Luke 10—would embrace and applaud our list, too.

But our Mary hearts live in a Martha world. And I’m convinced that keeping a bit of order and cleanliness in our lives will keep our Martha responsibilities met, enabling us to live out our Mary resolutions. Keeping a neat and tidy home is not the end goal; those are outlined on the bullet list above.  Our Martha tasks are the means to meet our Mary resolutions.

Our Mary hearts live in a Martha world. Keeping a bit of order and cleanliness in our lives will keep our Martha responsibilities met, enabling us to live out our Mary resolutions. Click To Tweet

Sounds good, right? But as with all commitments, it’s the implementation that trips us up. We are all in with the what …. but it’s the how that leaves us floundering.

That’s why we’ve created our series of 2018 ‘Do It’ lists. Download your copy for January here – January 2018 'Do-It' List – and take a look.

We’ve intended for it to be fairly self-explanatory, but I’d like to share a few features and points of clarification:

1. It’s all on one page. A complete notebook with multiple pages just feels overwhelming. Our strategy: keep it simple and keep it doable.
2. Front and center is a Bible verse. Our start-the-day focus must always be on God and His Word. And if you are writing and memorizing the word with us this year, the featured verse will tie in with our Write the Word and Sunday Soaking posts. (This Sunday’s post will unpack Colossians 3:1-2).
3. ‘Do It Today’ tasks will be checked off each day of the month.
   • We begin with the Word. If we give God the first minutes and thoughts of our day, all the others will be transformed. Read the Word, write out a verse in a journal, and work on memorizing it—hiding it in your heart. We are drilling down on Colossians 3, but you may choose a different passage. (Daily Do Its 1-3)
   • Make your bed. As you smooth out the sheets, and pull up the bedspread, pray. Lord, thank you for a night of rest and a roof over my head. Thank you for this new day to serve you and others. Smooth out the wrinkles, let me respond in love, cover me with you grace, and work in me to extend grace to others. Bless me and make me a blessing. (Daily Do It 4)
   • Sort and start one load of laundry. Pray as you load and pray as you fold. Let each piece of laundry prompt your prayers.
     God, I pray that Kyle would always walk in your truth as a man of God. Lord, I pray Ginger would put on love in all she does. Jesus, cover Luke with your grace today. Holy Spirit, I ask the fruit you provide would be worn well by Lydia.
   • Process the mail. Don’t let it pile up on the counter. Open it up and toss all the envelopes. What is clearly junk mail can go straight to the recycle bin. Put bills into a file to be paid, correspondence and other items that need a response in a file to be addressed. If it takes less than five minutes, simply do it. (For example, if it’s a postcard reminder for a dental cleaning, just go ahead and call to make the appointment now.) Adding a bullet to your To-Do list sometimes takes as much time as doing the task.
   • Dishes and counters. Begin training yourself and your children to press on to the end when it comes to dishes. If dirty dishes make it to the counter or the sink, just take the next step and put them in the dishwasher. If the dishwasher has clean dishes, empty immediately so it’s ready for a new batch of dirties. Pull in the kids to help. An assembly line approach works well: one person picks up two glasses, hands off to person #2, who then hands to #3 who places in the cabinet. The silverware basket can be lifted out and another person is unloading that while the plates are getting stacked on the shelf. The whole process takes less than five minutes. And don’t forget the counters! This is my personal pet peeve. When my children clean up the kitchen, I remind them, “You’re not finished if there are still crumbs and spots on the counters. Please wipe them!”
   • Dust one room. When I was a young mom, my friend Kathy and I would talk every morning at 8:30 am. It was just a touch-base, love-on-each-other visit that lasted 10-15 minutes, but it lifted me up and filled my friendship cup for the day. And, thanks to the invention of a cordless phone, I would dust one room while we talked. A visit with someone you love makes even dusting something to look forward to. By the end of the week, five (or more) rooms will be dust-free!
   • Vacuum one room. I love seeing those tracks in the carpet! It makes the room look clean whether it is or not. Vacuuming is a great time to SING and SING LOUD! With the noise of the vacuum, even a poor singer like me can feel like she is making a joyful noise.
   • Wipe Bath Counters. Cleaning one bathroom is on the weekly task list. You might save that one for Saturday or a free afternoon. But when the bathroom is clean, a daily quick wipe-down of the sink and counter will keep it clean. I leave antibacterial cleaning wipes easily accessible under the bathroom counter.
   • Sweep Kitchen. Same idea as above. The kitchen will get mopped once per week, but a daily sweeping will keep it clean.
   • Read One Chapter. Take a look at the stack of books on your end table, night stand, or sitting in the basket by your toilet. (I told you we have a lot in common.) So many good ones. You want to read them all, but they have been sitting there for months (years?). If your books are dusted instead of read, it’s time to work on a strategy. It’s exceedingly rare to have the luxury of reading a book cover to cover in one setting—and optimally, we need to read it slowly anyway, so it can be processed, thought about and digested. Give yourself permission to read one chapter per day. Make a cup of coffee or tea, sit in a comfortable chair and devote 15 minutes a day to reading one chapter. If your book has 14 chapters, you will polish off two books per month in 2018! You can make this a family routine by scheduling D.E.A.R. time – Drop Everything And Read.

4. Weekly ‘Do Its’ might be tackled on a Saturday morning or a Tuesday afternoon or just allocated throughout the week. We will unpack each of these more thoroughly in a future post, but just try to check off each of these every week. (There is a column for each of the four weeks of the month.)
5. Monthly ‘Do Its’ will include some tasks that repeat each month and some that are unique to the specific month. Our January unique task is to organize your income tax data. I recommend creating a file folder marked taxes and putting everything there (W-2, 1099, charitable giving receipts, etc.) as your process your mail.
6. Delegate. It’s your job to train your children to manage their homes well when they become adults. Doing everything for them is a disservice to them, and creates unnecessary burden for you. Every birthday should bring new and different chores that they are now old enough to take on. See our previous posts on chores here.
7. Be kind to yourself. If all those boxes aren’t checked off, celebrate the ones that are. Perhaps as the month goes on, there will be more check marks for the daily columns as you get into a routine. This is a guide and a help—not a legalistic have-to, not a burden. It’s a tool for you to tweak and change to fit your lifestyle and your family. That’s why we’ve also provided a blank worksheet ( Blank January 2018 'Do It' List ) you can completely tailor to your family, if you choose.

I’m praying our 2018 ‘DO IT’ lists will spur all of us on to worship as we work and embrace our call to be both Marys and Marthas as we serve God and our families! To quote my 3-year-old granddaughter Julia Grace, “Let’s do it!”

Download your January list
with or without pre-printed tasks:

January 2018 'Do-It' List

Blank January 2018 'Do It' List