End 08 Great - New Habit November
With just 2 months left in 2008, our End 08 Great Challenge should have us all prepared to start 09 Feeling Fine. So far we have challenged everyone (including ourselves) to Conquer the Clutter, spend some extra Face Time with the Kids, Fix Our Finances, and Fall Into Cooking.
The End 08 Great challenge this month is New Habit November. This month will be the perfect opportunity to really focus on developing that new habit we’ve wanted to incorporate in our lives. Sometimes it’s easy to just put the new habit desire on the back-burner in favor of sticking with routine. So let’s all challenge ourselves this month to veer from the course enough to form a new, positive habit.
Popular wisdom tells us that it takes 21 continuous days of repeating a task in order for that task to become habit. As of right now, there are 28 full days left in November. That is plenty of time to decide on a new habit to incorporate into our lives and take the time to make it stick as a permanent habit.
The new habit I will be working on this month is dedicated quality time with all 4 of my children together. As a homeschooling mom, and a mom of small children, I am with my kids all day every day. We get plenty of quantity time together, but do we really get enough quality time?
It is easy to mistake quantity time for quality time. I have been guilty of this plenty of times in the past. I’ve fallen into the mindset that we must be getting in plenty of quality time. How could we not?
When I was pondering this challenge and thinking of the new habit I wanted to incorporate into my daily routine, time spent with my kids was the recurring thought. I knew I needed to focus my new habit around them, and my time spent with them, in some way.
I realized that even though the 5 of us are together all day, every day, it is not often that we are all really together. Because of the age difference between my oldest and youngest (7 1/2 years), I don’t always think we can find a good common ground that would allow us all to play or focus on some project together. But that’s just a lazy excuse. I just need to get creative and find ways for us to be involved as a whole family on a daily basis.
So, my new habit for November will be daily quality time with all 4 of my children as a group. If anyone has some tips or ideas for me on easy ways to include all of the children, I would really appreciate hearing them.
Find more Tackle-It Tuesday at 5 Minutes for Mom and more Talk-About Tuesday at The Lazy Organizer.
And how about you? What new habit would you like to focus on this month? It can be anything, just as long as it is something that will affect your life in a positive way. We challenge you to take advantage of this opportunity and spend the rest of the month creating a new habit. Together we will support, encourage, and inspire one another.
We’d love to have you participate with us. To share your new habit journey with us, leave us a comment, send us an email, post about it on your blog and send us the link, or participate along with us on Twitter. (You can click here to follow our tweets.)
AUTHOR | Kate Miller
Kate, one of the original 3 Moms, is a happy wife and stay-at-home, homeschooling mother of 4 children, ages 9, 4, 3, and 1 1/2. She and her family have spent the past few years purposefully living a simple and frugal life. Along the way, she has learned many frugal and financially-wise tips to help her family save and intelligently spend money while still enjoying an immensely full and wonderful life. You can read more about Kate on her personal blog, A Simple Walk.
Toni,
What about playing Twister together??? That’s always fun and exciting
Or baking cookies…if you want a more chaotic fun 
Great Idea! I’m going to think about this one-we should all do this every month! I am always in need of GOOD habits seeing as I have way too many BAD ones!
With the holidays approaching, how about making Christmas cards together to give to special friends and family members. All kids love to show off their creative side and this would be a good way for them to all bond by all helping each other out and giving each other ideas and you’d all be sitting at the table together, or at least in the same area.
My goal is to get back into our Dave Ramsey’s CASH ONLY plan. We took the FPU class last year and made tremendous growth, but have since fallen back into our comforatable routines.
Great idea! I actually just made a list of priorities that I want to stick with/make a habit. It involves being more organized and disciplined in life all around. Devotions everyday/workouts/cooking etc.
Oh how timely. Last week I wrote up a list of chores for each family member. I printed up a calendar for each of us. We’ll each get a star every day that we follow through and prizes at the end of the month. This challenge will hopefully help me stick with this!
You have completely inspired me to start a new habit this month!
Good idea! I need to get into the habit of always cleaning the kitchen after dinner. Too often I wake up in the morning and it is a wreck.
We all need to tackle this! Thanks for the reminder.
I think it is a great idea (of course) to spend more quality time with your kiddos. BUT. I also think the quantity time is an important thing that is just pushed to the back of the “important” line all the time, since not many people actually have quantities of time to spend with their kids.
I think just being at home with them is important, cuz in a way you cannot escape the quality time then
Wow! Cool concept 21 days! I’ll have to try that! Thanks for sharing this.
Okay… so I am late joining in… but this one really is important to me so I am going to do it! WOO HOO!
Thank you for inspiring me to begin!