How We Organize Everything - the FLOM, 2024 Update

I know I mention our Family Logistics meeting (FLOM for short - Family Logistics and Operations Meeting) fairly frequently here, but my last FLOM summary was written in November 2022.  A lot has changed since then, with the addition of the twins (Oct 2023), the start of my maternity leave, summer holiday, Isaac starting school & various childcares, and more I'm surely forgetting.

After a few months hiatus after the twins were born we started our evening FLOM again.  It's great to get back into planning our week, because there is now a lot more to plan, and a lot less headspace for planning.  Our current FLOM agenda is as follows:

1 - Look at Week ahead and Food plan.

    We used to look at the week and then plan the food, however we've now realized that we can't just plan the food, we also need to plan HOW the food will get made.  When I was working from home I knew I could have a 30 minute lunch break to prep food, one parent would do kid pick up while the other cooked dinner. This worked well, but now there are a lot more kids, so we have to figure out exactly how and when meals will get made.

The first step for food plan is to make a list of 5 or so meals we want to eat in the week.  This can be things we have in the house, things we meant to make the previous week but didn't, or things we thought of and noted down on the calendar.  We also have a list of family favourites, and we try and fill the following meal matrix:

• 1 Pasta thing
• 1 thing in buns served with chips 
• 1 thing cooked in the oven (tray bake or casserole) 
• 1 slow cooker thing
• 1 mac and cheese or pizza dinner.  

Once we have our meals we then assign them to the day, including who is going to make the meal and *when* they are going to make it.  I'm on maternity leave, so I have two naps a day in which to make food.  Maybe some people can make dinner while watching 9 month old twins... I cannot do this.

2 - Grocery Order

We get a grocery delivery on Saturday morning, so we do the online order as soon as we have made the meal plan.  The order has to be final by 9pm for morning delivery.

3 - Look at sport

Andy and I both love exercise, so we try to make sure we can both get some excercise in the week.  Usually I get to do exercise during baby morning nap once or twice a week, but when the kids are home that means the other parent has to watch a lot of kids.  We try and find times where one parent can get out without detracting too much from family life.  Andy likes riding, I enjoy running more at the moment.  I also can do exercise during baby nap if the big kids are in childcare... but not if I'm using baby nap to make dinner.  It's tricky, but I am definitely getting my sport in now.  Light evenings help too, as Andy does a weekly mountain biking night.

4 - Look at weekend and weekend ahead & kid plans

We try to make a solid plan for the impending weekend and a rough plan for the following one.  Including thinking abut who we want to see, and how to get the kids and babies some time apart and time together (and, ideally, give the big kids some time apart from each other, although that is not always possible)

5 - AOB (Any Other Business)

Our AOB right now can be HUGE.  We collect all the things we need to review, or that we think of during the week, and write it down for the meetings.  This bit can take upwards of an hour, depending on the list.  Sometimes we move items into future AOB, sometimes we agree no action is needed, and sometimes we delegate to one person to followup.  AOB can be little (should we get our oven cleaned?) was an AOB a few weeks ago, and sometimes AOB can be big (Do we need to move the kids bedrooms around and what is the timeline for this?).  

6 - Date of Next Meeting

And that's it.  Usually the meetings are friday nights.  before the Twins, and when kids were in the same nursery, FLOM took about around an hour.  It currently takes 1-2 hours.  We still miss things.  It will surely change when kids are back in school, when I'm in work, when the Nanny starts.  But without this check in I know our life would run worse.  We wouldn't get to do the sports we do, and we wouldn't eat the food we eat.  I am fairly confident two hours of weekly planning saves us many more hours of weekly chaos.

Plus, now that the babies sleep better, FLOM can include beer or wine again.  Cheers to that.