Soon, we’ll be in a new year. It’s that time when many of us think of goals like getting organized. You know you’re unlikely to organize everything in a year, so what are the most important areas for homeschoolers to focus on? My answer may surprise you.
Organize Your Homeschool Life All Year
Before we jump in, I want to offer you the digital version of my book, the Organized Homeschool Life for just $7! This year, you can organize more than just the most important areas of your homeschooling life. You’ll be given 15-minute missions that will help you in curriculum planning, preparing for seasons and holidays, and special areas like organizing a business or hobby.
So what are the most important areas? I’m going to share six of the most important areas to organize. But here’s a hint. They aren’t your school room, your kitchen, or even your curriculum. What? The heresy!
But I know from experience that if you don’t get these six key areas of your life down, you won’t be able to organize anything else. With them organized, you can tackle any other area easily.
#1 Daily Devotions
The #1 area to organize in your homeschooling life is daily devotions. If you aren’t spending devoted time with God on a regular basis, the risk of operating out of your own strength is high. As a result, you’re more likely to suffer from burnout, depression, and anger.
Yet, it’s so tempting to skip this time. Perhaps you have a baby or early riser at home. Maybe you’re not getting enough sleep. Or you may have no idea how to find quiet time.
I committed to having daily devotions consisting of Bible reading and prayer more than 20 years ago. That was when I read the Bible through for the first time in a year. The Bible I used was called the Change Your Life Daily Bible by Becky Tirabassi and it did change my life.
I didn’t really know God before I made that commitment. I didn’t think He cared about the details of my life. I felt like I was doing life and motherhood on my own.
I’ve read the Bible several times through in different forms since then, and I continue to learn more about God and myself. I know that He really is working all things together for my good. I know that when committed to Him, I can’t fail. How amazing is that?
If you organize nothing else this year, organize time for God. You don’t have to spend an hour at 5 a.m. Your time could be right before bed. It could be listening to the Bible and praying while walking. It could be using some of your kids’ nap and quiet time to converse with God. No matter when it is or how long it is, keep pursuing it and ask God to give you a desire for it. Why wouldn’t He answer that prayer?
#2 Daily Routine
The second area to organize in your homeschooling life is a daily routine. A routine, or doing key activities in order, is what allowed me to continue to homeschool and have six children. You can hear more about it by listening to the podcast I did with FLYLady on the topic.
Routines sound boring and confining but the truth is they give you freedom and they can even be fun. A quick cleanup each morning after breakfast was a pivotal part of our routine. I had an upbeat music playlist to listen to as we worked. I also set a timer as we worked on each floor. Sometimes when time was short, I would challenge the kids to see how much we could get done in just one minute. I have had competitions for speed during our clean-up time as well.
Whatever you do to make this part of your routine fun will pay off in your sanity. You’ll have a sense of peace and control as you do the simple tasks that keep your home looking tidy. Starting dinner as part of this routine will make your end of the day so relaxing and rewarding.
Routine is also how I brought order to my homeschooling. The kids knew which subjects we would do in which order, but we weren’t being ruled by the clock. If we wanted to read another chapter, we did. I spent less time on other subjects in this case. I found that alternating fun and difficult subjects or tackling the less desirable subjects in the mornings worked well for us.
#3 To-Do List
The third area to organize in your homeschooling life is your to-do list. If you don’t have a way of tracking and completing non-routine tasks, you’re not going to feel organized. Instead, you’ll feel overwhelmed and forgetful.
At one time, I didn’t use a calendar or to-do list in a consistent way. I missed appointments and deadlines all the time. It was embarrassing and I didn’t know what was wrong with me. The fact is I just hadn’t committed to a system for managing these tasks that worked for my personality.
My life changed when I got an iPhone. I made a rule for myself that every event went on my phone’s calendar. That way I would be reminded an hour before and again a half hour before appointments. I also had a constantly accessible place to put my to-do’s and the grocery items I needed. With voice commands, adding these things to one reliable list is even easier.
After a year of experimenting, I learned that I consistently do an average of six tasks aside from my routines. In the past, I would make a list of 25 or more tasks to complete in a day. I felt like a failure when I didn’t even make a dent in them. Now I choose just three priority tasks and three other tasks to put on my Organized Homeschool Life daily planner page, and I frequently complete my priority tasks and at least a couple of the others.
#4 Decluttering
The fourth area to organize in your homeschooling life is decluttering. If you aren’t regularly purging your belongings, you will lose money, time, and self-esteem. You already know that having too much stuff makes it very hard to organize. You spend time looking for what you have in the jumbled mess, give up, and buy more. If you have too much stuff that has taken over your house, you won’t feel comfortable practicing the hospitality that we’re called to. Your kids won’t be comfortable inviting friends over. And you might end up featured in an episode of Hoarders.
Letting go of belongings is an emotional process for many of us. I’ve been in tears packing up the preschool curriculum because I don’t need it anymore. But I’ve learned that hanging onto the curriculum doesn’t change anything. My youngest is still 14! What can change things is letting go of belongings we’re not using so we can truly enjoy the things we are. I can relive the joy of the preschool years any time I want by looking at photos and videos. I don’t want to miss this amazing season of homeschooling because I’m looking backward.
Decluttering must become routine. Everyone in the family needs to learn that it’s just what we do–like brushing our teeth and bathing. Create a regular time to declutter in your home.
#5 Chores
The fifth area to organize in your homeschooling life is chores. You can’t do all the cleaning and home maintenance as part of your morning routine. You need to decide how to get the laundry, the lawn mowing, and the dusting done, for example. There are so many ways to manage chores, and I’ve tried most of them. They’re like diets. They all work if you’re consistent with them!
My tip is to change things up when you get bored. But choose something easy as opposed to complex charts and apps. My kids have done their own laundry from an early age. My youngest does the yard work. Lately, my favorite way to get the rest of the chores done is to move through the house, room to room, as a team. I tell this one to dust, that one to move items to the next room, and the other to vacuum. I might clean the windows as we go. This method keeps the kids engaged and it’s lightning fast. It works if you have little ones too. They can pick things up or help you wipe windows.
#6 Relationships
The final area to organize in your homeschooling life is relationships. You don’t see this in other organizing books, but I knew it had to be in mine. If I don’t dedicate time to connect with my kids and husband and solve problems, it doesn’t matter how cute my school room is or how detailed my curriculum plan is. The whole thing can fall apart.
You need a realistic plan for spending quality time with your spouse or for having time with friends and family if you’re single. You also need a way of making sure you’re meeting your child’s emotional and spiritual needs and not just the academic ones.
I found that I would read books about marriage or parenting or I’d go to conferences and be all excited, but I had no plan for taking action on what I knew would make a difference. That’s why I created separate challenges to address marriage and parenting in The Organized Homeschool Life. And it’s why I added a plan for relationship focus to the daily page in The Organized Homeschool Life planner.
How to Organize the Six Most Important Areas This Year
Those are the six priority areas to organize this year.
Some of you will listen and take action with no problem.
Others will need The Organized Homeschool Life book to remind them what to do.
Still others will need the planner to see when they have time to organize these areas during the week and when on specific days. We know that planning a time makes it more likely you’ll complete the task.
Others have good intentions in buying the book and planner, but they need something more. They need a coach and accountability.
That’s why I’ve created Organized Homeschool LIVE. It’s an online boot camp for Christian homeschool families scheduled for January 3rd, but you can complete the challenge any time.
I’ll give you short, fun assignments to organize the areas I’ve just described and more WITH your kids. You’ll begin the year with a big win! You’ll have experienced what it’s like to have time with God, tidy up with a simple routine, cross off your most important to-do’s, let go of things you don’t need to make room to enjoy those you do, get your house clean in a hurry, and connect with your kids and spouse in a way you’ll want to repeat over and over again.
You’ll check in with our supportive Facebook group and friends you’ve asked to participate with you after you complete each challenge. You’ll find yourself motivated and excited about others’ ideas and successes in getting organized.
The event isn’t a course you buy and probably fail to complete, but an action workshop you’ll be motivated to finish. Your kids will have a blast completing the challenges with you. The low price includes immediate access to the digital PDF version of The Organized Homeschool Life book and planner, so you’ll be able to continue organizing the rest of your homeschool life. You’ll also receive a discount code if you prefer to make a separate purchase of print versions.
Finally, I’ve decided to include a bonus session on the keys to achieving your fitness and nutrition goals this year. I’m a psychologist who has battled these issues and has had victory in the Lord. I can’t wait to tell you about it in this session that won’t be available outside Organized Homeschool LIVE.
If you’d like to start with The Organized Homeschool Life book first but decide you’d like to join us for Organized Homeschool LIVE, I’ll apply your $7 purchase to the ticket price! Tickets are just $47. Click the button below to learn more about this special offer.
I was given free access to the premium version of a chore management app and was compensated for my time. All opinions are my own.
We all want our kids to be responsible people who can care for themselves as adults. One of the best ways to teach responsibility is to require chores. That’s simple enough. You create a list of chores that must be done around your home to keep it functioning and you assign them to children who are old enough to complete them. Your children now have responsibilities that will not only make your life easier but will make them better people.
The Trouble with Teaching Accountability with Chores
If only it were so simple! Giving children chores or responsibilities is meaningless without accountability. There must be some way of determining that the chores are complete. As the saying goes, “You must inspect what you expect.” If you have one child whose sole chore is to feed the dog, it’s easy to check that it’s been done. But accountability becomes much more complex when a child has multiple chores assigned at various times of day in addition to independent school work. When you have multiple children with these responsibilities, teaching accountability with chores becomes PAINFUL.
As a mother of six (three of whom who are grown men living at home at least part of the time), I can tell you how painful it can be to inspect what I expect. I feel like I’m running another small business with six employees who are slacking. I don’t discover until the next day that the trash wasn’t taken out on time. I realize only after a guest has used our bathroom that the toilet hasn’t been cleaned. The failure to complete chores is invariably blamed on another child, who may or may not be available to defend himself. When my husband discovers an incomplete chore, there is a lot of analog communication (aka yelling) to determine who didn’t do what they were supposed to do.
I have used multiple approaches to assigning chores to my kids. All of them work when it comes to determining who is to do what. None of them has helped me with the accountability piece. I don’t have the time or patience to inspect every person’s chores and neither does my husband.
How the Homey App is Teaching My Kids Accountability with Chores
I jumped at the chance to try the Homey App, a chore and allowance app available for iOS and Android. My kids are older now (12 and up) and all of them have mobile devices they use daily. An app for managing chores makes perfect sense for them.
Homey has you set up a family account. I added my husband to it as well. Everyone can see from their mobile device who is supposed to do what. If the chore hasn’t been completed, instead of shouting for them to please come do it, we use the family chat feature. Everyone in the family sees the message, allowing them to respond to any blame shifting.
Homey allows your child to provide proof of completion. I am so happy about this benefit of using the Homey App, I could cry. In the past, my child would say, “Yes, I cleaned my room.” Later I would see what looked like a Hoarders before episode going on. As soon as your child marks a chore complete (and you’ve set it up to require photo proof), their device’s camera opens. When it comes to the bathrooms, I am going to start asking my kids for a close-up of the toilet. I receive notifications of their completed chores and the photo proof on my phone. I don’t have to stop what I’m doing and run up a flight of steps ten times to make sure the kids are being accountable with their chores.
Homey allows you to connect an allowance to chores and jobs. I have always given my kids an allowance that isn’t connected to their chores. I require them to use that money to purchase things they want. I deduct money for offenses and incomplete chores. It has been an excellent disciplinary strategy. I had an app I used to manage their money that was discontinued. I started using Penney Owl but never liked it as well as the old app. When I realized that I could transfer the kids’ money to Homey, I was ecstatic. Instead of deducting money for individual chores not being done (which I rarely remembered to do), Homey allows me to set a percentage of chore completion required before the allowance is granted. I can still deduct money for other infractions without having to use multiple apps.
Homey allows me to assign jobs as well. These are responsibilities with a salary that may or may not be ongoing. In the spring, my son will start mowing again and he is paid for that. When my husband says it needs to be done, I’ll assign it to him in Homey and he’ll be paid when it’s complete. If your child has a checking account in the U.S., you can connect Homey with it and make an actual transfer of money, rather than a virtual one.
Other Reasons I Love the Homey App and You Will Too
Homey automatically rotates chores. My kids hate to be assigned the same chore all the time. They want the chores to be rotated. Homey is hands down, the easiest way to assign rotating chores. It’s not a college-level logic puzzle!
Homey makes it quick to create chores. Homey has built-in chore packs, so you don’t have to come up with them from scratch. You can even save your own list of chores as a pack. Have a chore that is shared or you want assigned as an individual chore to multiple kids? It’s crazy easy to do.
Homey allows you to add school assignments too. While it wouldn’t make sense to schedule a year’s worth of lessons in the Homey app, you can create an assignment as a job with no pay. Here is how I used it. I read the kids their history lesson and then took a picture of the assignment that went with it. I assigned it as a job to each student. The only adjustment you have to make, depending on the age of your child and your preferences, is giving your child permission to complete a job before chores and permission to complete it after it’s due.
Homey helps me stay accountable too. I have assigned myself the clean room task (with photo proof!) and have the task of prayer and Bible time with the rest of the family. I love getting the reminders. This feature can be used for establishing any habit.
Homey provides you with a weekly chore list you can print for younger children and other family members not hip on using mobile devices. This print-out could be highlighted or marked with a star by the little helpers.
Homey allows you to teach financial responsibility. Your child can set up a savings goal and can add money to a spend, save, or give jar. I was taking out a giving amount for my kids automatically. Homey will allow them to decide how much to give on their own. I love that!
Download the Homey App Today!
The basic Homey app is free for families with up to three accounts. Homey Unlimited allows the addition of unlimited family members, connection of banking accounts in the U.S. and customizing the app for each child. Homey Unlimited is just $4.99 a month or even less if you pay annually ($49.99). Try out Homey Unlimited free for a week! Be sure to enter to win a year’s subscription to Homey Unlimited below.
In the meantime, follow Homey on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest to learn more tips for teaching accountability with chores.
Getting organized is one of the most popular goals for the new year. I’ve met many wannabe organized homeschoolers at conferences. Yet I suspect that no matter how great my intentions, many of the homeschoolers who have heard me speak or own my book, The Organized Homeschool Life, still aren’t organized. I’d like to discuss six reasons I think that’s the case.
The first reason you’re still not organized is you’ve decided to get organized. What? You might think it’s true what they say about psychologists — that we’re all a bit crazy. But I mean it. Sometimes deciding to get organized destroys your motivation. Psychological research has demonstrated that the anxiety we feel about goals like getting organized dissipates as soon as we decide to do something about it. So, buying an organizing book, joining an organizing Facebook group, or even setting a goal of getting organized can make you feel like the battle is half won. You can relax because you’ve already started getting organized.
I’m not suggesting that you don’t decide to get organized. I’m saying that you can’t stop there. You’ll understand what I mean as I share more reasons you’re still not organized.
#2 You haven’t made organization a habit
We think organizing is an event — that weekend in August when we may or may not get our school room set up, the day when our husband has all the kids out of the house and we’re going to set up our shiny new record keeping system, the spring day dedicated to cleaning out the garage. There are so many problems with an event approach to organization. First, we’re always running behind. If you’ve waited until August to set up your school space and that’s when you’re starting school, you feel behind. You feel like a failure. You’re understandably stressed.
If we count on the golden time when all the kids are out of the house, you just know something is going to happen to prevent that from happening. Your husband will have another commitment, one of the kids will be sick, or something urgent will come up. Even if your day goes as planned, you’ll discover that there is more to do in your space than you thought or you’ll be frustrated that you can’t do more. When my husband has had the kids out of the house for a period of time, it always, always seems too short.
Organization is not an event, but a habit. If you read my article on mini habits, you know that habits are best established with daily practice. It’s what you do every day that determines how organized you are. If you’re still pinning your hopes on an organizing event, you’re going to remain disorganized.
#3 You’re taking on too much
Those of you who are event organizers are also taking on too much. You want to organize your whole school space, including lesson plans in a weekend, a day, or an hour. But even those of you who are trying to organize on a daily basis are also likely taking on too much. Our eyes are almost always bigger than our schedules. We can’t accomplish what we imagine we can in our fantasy world. So here’s what happens. We don’t do what we planned and we feel like failures. We give up. The organizing book goes back on the shelf or more likely in a messy pile. Another thing that didn’t work. We imagine that we are a hopeless case. Strategies that work for other people won’t work for us. I have been there. The truth is we are taking on too much and no normal homeschool mom can accomplish what we dreamed we could.
#4 You lose track of your why
About the time you give up because it’s all too much, you’ve also forgotten why it was so important to get organized in the first place. Maybe you’re fine just the way you are! You’re certainly better than that disastrous homeschool mom you know. You’re not that bad, so maybe you should just relax. If you kept feeling good about your homeschool life after giving up the quest for organization, I would tell you that was a good decision. There are a number of you who are organized enough to do all that God has called you to do. Hyper-focus on organization isn’t good for you.
But the rest of you? You know you’ll be right back in that place of rushing, being crabby at the kids, embarrassed by your home or your lateness, and wishing things were different. You need to reconnect with your why. Why DO you want to get organized? Think about your worst recent organizational day — the day where you got up late, forgot something important, had nothing planned for dinner, got next to no school finished, didn’t do chores, and wasted too much time online, and stayed up late trying to finish something you should have done a long time ago. Really picture it in your mind. How do you feel? Do you want to continue to feel this way in the future? How does your lack of organization affect your spouse? Your kids? Your finances? Your friends? Your witness? Be honest. Now imagine that you are as organized as you need to be to accomplish all God has planned for you. How does that feel? How does that affect your spouse? Your kids? Your finances? Your friends? Your witness? Now you should have your why. You need to hold onto it in order to finally get organized.
#5 You aren’t considering your time
I have shared why the most important area of your homeschool life to organize is your time. Unfortunately, we tend to focus our organizing efforts on our physical space. We want our books, art supplies, and science materials to look good. We want beautiful bookshelves, smart-looking bins, and creative spaces. I do think that an attractive, organized space is important. But organizing and planning time to maintain an organized space is even more important.
The primary way we fail to properly organize time is not anticipating the obstacles that may get in our way each day. The obstacles include our own temptations and struggles, like the hard time we have not answering the phone or responding to text messages. We ignore the likelihood that our child will be crabby, resistant, or slow to learn. We forget about the possibility of surprises — the guest who drops by, the furnace that konks out, the neighbor’s emergency. We can’t exactly plan for these, but neither should we expect the ideal. What we can do is ask ourselves what may get in the way of our week. And we can plan plenty of margin to accommodate the unexpected.
#6 You don’t have help
About the time we decide that we’re going to get organized, we also decide that WE are going to get organized. On top of everything else we are doing, we imagine that through our own strength, or force of will, we’re going to tackle the organizing problem. Take it from someone whose god has been her own strength for many, many years. That endeavor is destined to fail for a believer. God is not going to let you succeed in your own strength. Not only will you move further from Him and become convinced you can make it on your own, but your pride will grow. You’ll be telling everyone how you did it — how YOU did it with your organizing genius or your superior willpower or this program you found with your keen research skills. Why would God let us do this? He won’t. If you hear nothing else in this episode, I hope you’ll hear this: you can’t get organized if organizing is a struggle without God. You shouldn’t even try. I wrote about homeschooling without striving and I highly recommend that article to you.
The other way we try to get organized without help is creating our own approach. I believe in tailoring every approach or system to your personal needs, but reinventing the wheel isn’t a wise use of our time. Organizing books used to be written by born-organized people. They weren’t very useful for born-messy people like you and me. It isn’t that we’ve never heard of everything in its place. It’s that we need that broken down for us. Fortunately, there are people like FLYLady who have made organizing simple. We can adopt others’ grace-based approaches that recognize our natural tendencies — like if we have the opportunity to avoid putting something away, we’ll take it if we haven’t created habits for that.
Finally, we don’t get help getting organized by going through the process alone. It’s embarrassing to be disorganized. You feel foolish and weak. It feels so good to imagine getting your act together on your own and then pretending as though you’ve always been the same as your born-organized friends. I’ve had born-organized people who haven’t known me long tell me that I’m just like them. I laugh out loud. I’m not. Born-organized people have struggles that aren’t necessarily as visible as messies’ are. As I’ve shared the truth about me with other messies, I find myself loving them to pieces. There’s something so moving about being able to be real with people and their honesty in return. It isn’t that I don’t think it’s possible to get organized alone. God can get our lives in order, now matter how isolated we are. It’s that it’s not nearly as fun.
The tool that can help you finally organize your homeschool
There are people who have bought my book, The Organized Homeschool Life, who still aren’t organized. I can’t make people read the book or do the missions, even though some women wish I could. But I realized I could do something that would address these reasons some still aren’t organized. I’ve created a tool that will take my own organization to the next level. I used everything I’ve learned in years of experimenting with my productivity. I created a complete toolkit for Christian homeschool moms who want to organize their homeschool lives. It’s the Organized Homeschool Life Planner.
It allows homeschool moms to not just decide to get organized, but to take action daily. It allows them to create and track habits as well as each step of the challenges included in The Organized Homeschool Life. The planner encourages moms to choose one focus for the day by naming their day. Huge task lists are reduced to three priorities for the day and just a few others. You can finally finish your list and feel in control. The Organized Homeschool Life planner also has moms schedule their time — something that has been demonstrated to produce results. The weekly planning page prompts moms to write their why and anticipate obstacles to their goals. Finally, the planner prompts homeschooling moms to focus on where their help comes from. The daily page begins with a gratitude list, a place for a Scripture that spoke to you in your quiet time, and your response to God. I like to give any worries I have to God in this space. You could write a short prayer as well. Each month, there is also a devotion that will help focus your organizing efforts on what really matters. To encourage you to connect with other homeschool moms becoming organized, I’ve created The Organized Homeschool Life Facebook group.
The planner I’ve created addresses the major reasons homeschool moms struggle to get organized. It comes in two formats for your preference — a full-year, undated, digital planner or a two-book, undated, printed, spiral-bound planner set. The digital version has daily, weekly, and monthly pages that can be edited on your computer and kept there or printed out. It’s the most economical by far because you can use it year after year. If you’d like to print some or all of the 8.5×11 pages, you can.
The print version comes in a January to June version and a July to December version. Print orders will be shipped free in the US and when ordered direct, include stickers designed exclusively for The Organized Homeschool Life planner. At the time of this podcast, for a very limited time, take advantage of discounted launch pricing that also includes discounts on the book, The Organized Homeschool Life. To learn more and finally get your homeschool life organized, grab your copy today!
You’ll be able to download sample pages in the product notes or join me on Facebook Live for an inside look and coaching on how to organize your time and your homeschool life.
How are you supposed to do it all and stay sane in the process?
You do everything that moms with kids in school do, plus you have the responsibilities of a teacher, lunch lady, janitor, field trip monitor, and guidance counselor too.
To do it all, you have to be organized. But where do you start?
I was a born-messy mom. I was so disorganized with my ADD brain when I started homeschooling my oldest for preschool, that I was convinced I had to quit. I was buried in laundry, toys, diapers, and books. I had no idea what was for dinner and that was after getting no school done.
I was desperate when I found a woman named FLYLady online. She taught me that I needed routines and an approach to getting organized just 15 minutes at a time. Until I figured out what I was doing, I copied FLYLady’s routines.
I eventually found my groove and gained the confidence to have three more children, for a total of six. I longed for 15-minute missions that would not just organize my home, but my homeschool. I wanted to be ready for holidays in advance. I wanted to be organized in my marriage, parenting, and even my hobbies. I created The Organized Homeschool Life book to give homeschool moms like me easy missions for organizing these areas and more. Those who have taken on the weekly challenges tell me it’s made a big difference in their homeschool sanity.
But I needed something more in my quest for an organized homeschool life. I wanted a system for organizing my time and my homeschool.
“I needed a tool to simplify my life — not add to the overwhelm.”
Can you relate? I had used many task and goal-based planners and I wanted a planner that incorporated everything I loved about them in one place.
Monthly calendars, weekly, and daily pages in the digital version can be easily edited on your computer or digital devices. Other forms can be edited using Adobe Reader on your mobile device, Preview on a Mac, or a PDF app on your PC.
Create reusable meal plans with shopping lists that you can save to your phone or print as needed. Save time and your sanity!
Undated pages allow you to start using the print planner any time!
Nearly 300 high quality, planner-weight interior pages in each planner
Beautiful laminated color covers
Thick monthly dividers in color
Lay-flat spiral binding
Open and go — no searching for files or printing time required
Two planners (Jan-June and July-December) so they’re not too thick to tuck in your tote
The Organized Homeschool Life Planner is designed to be used with The Organized Homeschool Life book. The book explains weekly challenges in detail, while the weekly page lists each step of the challenge.
Join our Facebook community (open to anyone who wants to organize their homeschooling life) for support and inspiration. We’ll have daily check-ins and extra tips for success in your organizing journey.
You might expect a complete system that can organize your entire homeschool life to cost a lot. But my desire is for every homeschool mom to be able to afford homeschool sanity.
Download a free, complete, two-week sample (Daily Devotions and Curriculum Challenges) for subscribers by clicking the image below. (You’ll also receive the Sanity Saturday newsletter.) Use it for two weeks and love it! Then order your system so you can have the most organized year ever.
Would you like to get more organized in your homeschooling this year? Many homeschoolers would. But where should you start? Should you start with your bookshelves? The schoolroom? Maybe the kitchen because you spend so much time there?
Organizing these spaces is a good idea. But the most important area in your homeschool to organize isn’t a space at all; it’s your time. I’ve written before about the importance of your calendar in organizing, but now I want to take a closer look at why organizing time usage should be a top priority for you this year.
#1 Organizing takes time
How many times have you said (or at least thought), I need time to get organized? However often you’ve had the thought, you were right. Organizing anything does indeed take time. Of course, we all have the same 24 hours in a day, so what we really mean when we say this is we need to take time for organizing tasks.The key is how much time and can we afford to dedicate it to organizing? We may also ask if we can afford not to take time for organizing.
#2 Homeschooling is time
In my state, I’m required to keep track of hours spent homeschooling. Transcripts for high school and college are an accounting of credit hours. And while we can accomplish more educationally in less time than traditional schools, homeschooling is still about time spent. Success in most subjects for most students will correlate with how much time has been devoted to it. Statistics comparing students who read 20 minutes a day to students who read just 5 or 1 minute a day is astounding. When it comes to homeschooling success, organizing your homeschool time will be far more important than how you organize your art supplies. We know this, yet the results of organizing our homeschool spaces are more Instagram-worthy, so we can get off track.
#3 Our time is our life
My kids don’t remember my system for organizing their toys and frankly, neither do I. (I just remember a lot of weeping when small pieces to things were strewn everywhere). My children didn’t even express awe over the binders and bins I used to keep their school materials organized. But they remember the medieval feast, the states and regions field trips, and the holiday parties. They remember time well spent. And so do we.
How to Organize Time
If we recognize that time is the most important area of our homeschool lives to organize, how do we go about it? Frankly, it can be challenging. I have spent years studying time-management approaches (better known as productivity these days). I can’t distill what I’ve learned into one blog post, but I can give you strategies that have made a huge difference in how I organize my time.
#1 Start with God
I think we have heard this so often, that it begins to be an obligation. “Oh, I have to begin my day with God because that’s the right thing. I won’t be a good Christian mom if I don’t do that. God will be mad at me if I don’t.” That sense of obligation and guilt actually works against us having time with the Lord.
Instead, time with God is for us. Time in the Word and in prayer encourages, reduces anxiety, gives wisdom, and saves time. I have had many days that were headed for disaster before my time with the Lord. I was anxious, despairing, and ready to give up teaching for the day. Then I read God’s Word and He spoke to my heart through it. Some days I found what I needed through my regular reading. Other days it came from looking for specific verses. In praying with thankfulness, in humility, and for the needs of others, I found that whatever was troubling me was small in His eyes. In praying about my overwhelm, I found God using my husband to help, tasks taking less time, and scheduled events being canceled. Beginning the day with God isn’t an obligation, but an honor and a privilege. I couldn’t organize my time without Him. For some homeschool moms, beginning the day with God means the night before or even afternoon. Early morning is not an obligation.
#2 Keep a short list
Have you ever noticed that God’s to-do lists were always short? Even in creation (an undertaking so enormous, we can’t fathom it), God’s task list was short for each day. The list of commandments is just 10 items and Jesus simplified them to just two. Jesus never gave His disciples a list of 30 things they had to do. And believers’ action list is just one item long: “Go and make disciples.” We are the ones who complicate matters. And believe me, I understand why. The Bible was written before email, Pinterest, and blogs like this one. You can come away with a list of to-do’s from everything you read or see. But here’s the thing. God hasn’t asked us to do all these things. When we’re overwhelmed, it’s so often because we’re taking on a load He hasn’t given us. Keeping a short list each day requires us to trim those unnecessary tasks, leaving just the essentials.
But I can hear you now. “That’s all I can do? Just the essentials?” Or maybe that’s my voice I hear in my head. I want to do more than the essentials. When we limit our list to essentials, we prevent overwhelm, and are likely to get these tasks done faster than if we were working from a list of 100 things. With the time left over, we can choose to do any nonessential tasks we’d like. And if we have no extra time? We have the satisfaction of knowing we finished everything that had to be done, without the guilt of frittering time away on nonessentials.
#3 Schedule time
Francis Wade’s guest post is one of the most popular on this blog. He argues for the power of scheduling when organizing our time. He won me over. I didn’t like schedules at all. They felt too restrictive. I’m a homeschooler after all! I shouldn’t have to be on a schedule (It was like a dirty word to me at one time). But scheduling allows us to make time for God, for homeschooling, and for that short list of essentials. A schedule is like a budget for your time.
I used to spend money until I got an overdraft notice. I didn’t have a budget because it was too depressing. I would see that I couldn’t get fast food because I couldn’t afford it and my rent too. We can be like that with our time. We don’t want a schedule because then we will see that we can’t sign up for ten field trips next month plus have our kids in the musical and start a podcast, while still homeschooling our kids. So we just do it all and complain that we’re overwhelmed, as though some maniac is in charge of our time. I know a maniac has been in charge of my time!
The solution is to schedule our time — not to the minute, but loosely. We must include not just time for God and homeschooling, but our relationships, homemaking, organizing, and time for things that renew us. Because I’m a rebel at heart, once I get my schedule written out, I find I don’t want to use it. I want to switch things up and I have to accommodate the unexpected. That’s fine. Simply the process of creating a schedule helps to limit our focus and serves as a reality check for our time.
The Easy Way to Organize Your Time
I’ve created a system that will help homeschool moms like you organize the most important area of their lives–their time. It will allow you to organize your time with God, develop a short list of what’s most important, and schedule time for everything God has called you to do — even the fun stuff!
Do you consistently find yourself with more to-do’s than time? If you’ve tried routines and schedules and planners and you’re still not organized, you’ll want to try time boxing. I love it!
How I’ve Organized Time in My Homeschool
FLYLady wasn’t a homeschooler, but in my early homeschooling years she introduced me to the idea that I needed routines. My plan was putting out fires. I handled whichever baby screamed the loudest. I learned that I needed to do the same things in the same order every day. Sure, there were interruptions, but the basic pattern created peace in my home.
I still use routines and talked with FLYLady about the power of routines in homeschooling in an episode of The Homeschool Sanity Show. But when I added more children and more students to my homeschool, I decided I needed more than just routines; I needed a schedule. Managers of Their Homes showed me how mothers of many could homeschool and parent and have a life, too. Time had to be allotted for it. I created the perfect schedule. But I forgot that my family is far from perfect. The schedule never really worked. It felt too constraining. So I started using what I called anchor points along with my routines. There was the noon anchor point by which the majority of my teaching should be done. There was the 5:00 p.m. anchor point at which time I needed to start dinner. Then there was the 8:00 p.m. anchor time which was when I wanted to have the kids in bed. I was usually disappointed in that one.
Today I have more scheduling in my day than I did years ago. Scheduling can be very effective if you don’t resist it. But I find that the more I schedule, the more resistance I feel. I like freedom and I suspect many homeschoolers are the same. Fortunately, routines and schedules aren’t the only options when it comes to organizing your homeschool day. Time boxing is another option and it’s flexible and effective.
What Time Boxing Is
Time boxing is a list of tasks you’d like to complete in a day, together with the amount of time you plan to spend on each. Unlike a routine, a time boxing list will be different every day. The list can be arranged in order of how you would like to complete tasks, but unlike a schedule, can be easily changed as you go through your day. A list for a homeschooler may look something like this:
Bible time – 30 mins.
History – 15 mins.
Read Aloud – 15 mins.
Raking leaves – 30 mins.
Tutoring Time – 60 mins.
Break – 30 mins.
Organizing – 15 mins.
*******
You decide to do one of these tasks first and set a timer. When time is up, you can either wait to start another task or move on to the next one of your choice. When you’ve finished the list, you’re done for the day.
Tips for Using Time Boxing to Organize Your Homeschool
Use an app. The Sloth (iOS) and Do Now (Android) apps make it easy and motivating to keep track of your tasks for the day. You can easily rearrange the task order, start and stop the timer, and mark tasks complete. I love having my task list with me on my phone. I’m easily distracted!
Don’t include routines. If you already have morning time in which you do the same things in the same order, don’t put them on your time boxing list. Instead, make a list of the other things you’d like to spend time on that day.
Use generous time estimates. Most people underestimate how long things will take. The more time you anticipate, the more likely you will finish with time to spare. You’ll also be less frustrated by the day’s accomplishments.
Use it to add balance to your day. What is it that you never seem to have time for? Add things like sewing, reading, or Bible journaling to your list. Even 15 minutes of these activities matters. The more time we spend doing things that rejuvenate us, the more likely we will get less enjoyable tasks done.
Use it to create habits. Until exercise is a habit, try adding it to your time boxing list. If there is something you always forget to do, add it to your list.
Use it to organize your homeschooling life. The Organized Homeschool Life provides you with 15-minute missions that will help you get organized all year. Add a 15-minute organizing task to your time boxing list and you’ll be on your way to experiencing more peace and joy in your homeschooling and life.
Use it to organize your distracted child. I have a child with ADD who flourishes with time boxing. He learns to plan work for the day, estimate how long tasks will take, and to work quickly when timed. If you use the app on your phone, rather than your child’s, you can help remind your child to stay on track.
Don’t time box your whole day. If you have a whole day’s time allotted to tasks, you are scheduling and not time boxing. The beauty of time boxing is it allows for response to distractions, new tasks, and our need for margin. Keeping the list short is more motivating, too.
If you give time boxing a try, let me know how you like it. If you’d like even more homeschool organizing tips, check out 10 Days of Homeschool Organization Ideas at They Call Me Blessed.
I’m a Christian psychologist turned homeschooling mother of six. My life can be a little crazy, so I look for sanity-saving ideas to use and share. I hope you’ll read my About page to learn more.
Homey has you set up a family account. I added my husband to it as well. Everyone can see from their mobile device who is supposed to do what. If the chore hasn’t been completed, instead of shouting for them to please come do it, we use the family chat feature. Everyone in the family sees the message, allowing them to respond to any blame shifting.
Other Reasons I Love the Homey App and You Will Too
Homey provides you with a weekly chore list you can print for younger children and other family members not hip on using mobile devices. This print-out could be highlighted or marked with a star by the little helpers.
