What bedtime was like before…

Getting our kids to bed was a struggle. I tried to keep track of time, and when it was close to 7:30 pm I would tell them to get ready for bed.

Often they would say “I’m hungry.” Which would push back bedtime farther and farther. Sometimes I’d have to remind them multiple times that it was bedtime.

Needless to say, our system wasn’t working. We had to keep track of the time. I felt like I was constantly nagging. Getting ready for bed became a chore.

How we made it happen

Step 1) Training

We did weekly challenges where we would work on correcting something that wasn’t working in our home. We all recognized that bedtime was a challenge we needed to solve.

After talking with our kids, we realized that they weren’t really sure exactly what they needed to do to get ready. They both would want to use the bathroom at once.

So, we created a chart for them each to follow. This helped them know what to do in what order, so they wouldn’t be fighting in the bathroom. They referred to this for a few weeks and then had it down by heart.

Step 2) Create an automated system

James took some time and set up our smart lights to flash as a warning at 7:25 each evening. He set up Alexa (and all of the ones in our home) to give our kids their bed time commands at 7:30. He set up the music and all of these details in about an hour.

Alexa has been putting our kids to bed for 4 years now. The system that took about an hour to set up has saved us countless hours in frustration, nagging, and struggle. This is the power of automation.

Step 3) Put it all together

Once our system was automated and our kids knew what to do, we created a marble system. Each kid had their own mason jar and could earn up to six marbles a day, one for each minute on the six-minute timer. If they were ready for bed before the timer went off, they’d get a marble for each minute that was left on the timer.

Our daughter had the idea to get ready when the lights flashed, so she convinced our son to get ready for bed before the timer would even start. That way they could both get all six marbles each.

They were earning enough marbles to go bowling. This incentive helped them to be bought into our new system.

Today, we don’t have a chart or marbles to get them to bed. They just hear the timer go off and get ready.

Tying this all together

A good system matters. Our old system was broken, frustrating, and inefficient. Most people’s money system looks very similar to our old bedtime routine. It just doesn’t work.

Spending a little bit of time automating your money system is a time investment well spent. You can automate your money to work for you just like our kid’s bedtime routine.