The idea of homeschooling may be scary to some, certainly overwhelming to those who are unfamiliar with it. So the thought of being able to actually enjoy the homeschool life may seem foreign.

I’m writing today to tell you that homeschooling isn’t just do-able, it can be enjoyable!  It truly is about having a mindset of enjoying your children and getting to love learning. 

Embrace homeschooling and check your mindset

Creating an environment that embraces homeschooling is a large part of learning to enjoy the homeschool life.  When we work past the idea of surviving, or living for the light at the end of the tunnel, and when we decide to make the most of each day; that’s when we start taking delight in the homeschool life.  

To help you make the most of each day and get to a place where you can enjoy homeschooling, I’ve put together a list of 7 ways to enjoy the homeschool life. 

Make your home child-friendly

Rethink your home and rethink how you use the rooms in your home.  It’s not a showcase for your material possessions, it’s a place to live.  Make it live-able, function over appearance.

Childproof your home so you aren’t spending your days following the children to keep them safe or from getting into things. 

Rethink the toys in your home.  Do they encourage the imagination?  Remove the noisy toys and the toys that don’t get played with.

Make learning centers

Create a spot for science projects and nature collections.  Designate a table or room for Lego building.  Assign a table or room for writing and school book-work.  Set aside a corner or room for books and reading.  An area for arts and crafts, and a wall to create your own personal “art museum” with your children’s art.

Make a workplace in your garage, your basement, or a shed where you and your children can create larger messes.  

Living = Doing

Living involves doing, and doing makes messes.  Your family won’t be happy if they can’t do anything because they live in fear of making a mess. 

If you have trouble tolerating the mess that happens with children, then create a place in your home that is just for you.  A place where you can rest your eyes and just be without seeing the mess that comes with children’s activities.

Involve your children in your life

What is your work, community involvement, hobbies, interests?  Include your children in that work. 

Talk about your work with your children and include them in doing your work when it’s applicable.  No matter how big or small your work is, involve your children.

Take them along with you for whatever you’re doing as much as possible. A saying we’ve used at our house is: “Watching is learning.”

Involve them when they’re young to create helpers as they grow

When doing your home management work; include the children, even your youngest ones.  As they get older, give them assigned chores and teach them how-to skills.

Talk about life as you work.  Explore the ideas for what,  where, when, why, and how – with everything you do for your work.  This teaches critical thinking and might give you a few different and possibly helpful perspectives on your work.

Go outside and explore

 Learn about animals and put out bird feeders, bird baths, and bat houses. Plant flowers, trees, and bushes for wildlife.  Get books and learn about the wildlife in your area.  Take your children to classes at your local parks.

Go places and do things

Explore your local parks and nature preserves and take trips to see natural wonders.  Visit your state parks and national parks. 

Leading up to bigger trips, learn about what you’ll see before you go. Do preparatory reading, watch documentaries, and do related activities to enrich the experience.  Many times, the parks have educational materials for this purpose on their websites.

Learn by doing

These types of experiences are so much more rewarding than learning from a textbook. If you’re going to enjoy the homeschool life, learning in fun ways is key!

There is so much to learn simply from going outside and having real world experiences.  The children can run, stretch, jump, climb, and explore which is great for the body and mind.

Visit museums and historical sites

Study an era in history and then go to the location where a piece of it occurred. Explore, and walk the same steps as the people you learned about.  Explore all sides of the historical event and discuss ideas as you learn together. 

 Again, learning history this way makes it come alive in a way that isn’t possible through a textbook. 

Use books, documentaries, and historical documents to lead up to the trip.  Doing so will give background and context, then the site becomes more real as it’s explored. 

It’s so rewarding to watch imaginations light up with an experience that uses all the senses.

Ask questions

Ask questions and explore answers all the time.  Make your world bigger by thinking through ideas and having conversations.  

Each age of development has different ways of thinking and processing.  Take the time to learn about child development and communicate with each age appropriately, but don’t underestimate their ability to process and understand. 

 Your children won’t be able to converse on an adult level, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have conversations.  Don’t treat a child like they’re dumb or stupid (it can happen unintentionally, listen to yourself when you speak to them!), teach with kindness and explain gently. 

Making conversation part of your daily life with children is education.

Keep your curriculum simple

Reading, handwriting, language arts, arithmetic, history, science, art, and music.  Keep it simple and don’t be intimidated with an overwhelming or complicated curriculum for each subject area.  

• Phonics for the non-reader: 15 minutes to an hour every day.  Keep it child-dependent, paying attention to how much they can tolerate at a time. Beginning readers should read aloud for 15 minutes. [15 minutes]
• Readers: spend 30-60 minutes per day reading. Have the children narrate back what they’ve read. [30-60 minutes] 
• Handwriting workbook/copywork [15 minutes]
• Math: after 20+ years and 9 children, my favorites are Developmental Mathematics by L. George Saad, Elementary Algebra by Harold Jacobs (covers Algebra 1 and 2), Geometry by Harold Jacobs. [15-60 minutes]
• Language Arts: Abeka is very thorough but there are many good language arts workbooks that teach grammar basics. [30-60 minutes]
• History: Choose an era to study together as a family and read aloud for an hour every day. Use a globe and incorporate geography into it.  Assign a topic or issue to write about. [60-90 minutes]
• Science: Choose a topic (start with what interests you personally) and study it as a family. Read aloud and do experiments or explorations all together. You can do science on one day or spread it through the week. [30-60 minutes]
• Art: choose an artist every month to read about and copy their technique. Use online resources. Choose one or two days of the week for art. [30-60 minutes]
• Music: choose an era, genre, or artist to read about and listen to their music. Use online resources.  Read about it once a week or so at lunchtime and listen to the music during part of the day. [30-60 minutes]

With history, science, art, and music, start with what interests you personally. This will make it more interesting and easier to bring into your life. 

School doesn’t have to be all day

Little children can complete their schoolwork in less than 2-3 hours depending on the child. I’ve had elementary age children get up early and finish their schoolwork before breakfast!

  Older children who have more reading and writing assignments and longer math lessons will take a longer time.

Keep the children’s school books organized so each child has a shelf, basket, or tote for only the books they are currently using.

Game-school.

Game-schooling is keeping games in your home that teach.  Learning by playing! What better way could there be to enjoy the homeschool life than to incorporate learning into play?

Make a time of day for playing games and having fun.  Game-schooling is a relaxed way of learning and a great way to have fun with your children. 

Another fun way to game-school is to get together with other families to play games.  There are even game schooling groups on Facebook that can help you identify appropriate games for ages, subject areas, and sources for purchasing. 

Homeschooling Can Be Fun!

Homeschooling can be fun if you intentionally build it into your lifestyle.  It’s up to you to look at it that way- as a lifestyle. 

Start looking at life through the eyes of a child and seeing the world as a plethora of subjects to learn about.  For a bonus, you’ll build relationships with your children and create a more close-knit family.

Make Homeschooling fit your unique family

Each family is unique and will come up with their own home school lifestyle. Don’t get caught up by trying to model another family’s way of doing. 

Think about who you are, your goals for your family, and embrace a lifestyle of learning to suit your life and family. To truly enjoy the homeschool life, you must make it your own and tailor it to fit YOUR family.

For more great homeschooling tips and home management hacks, check out our Free Resource Library!

The post 7 Ways to Enjoy the Homeschool Life appeared first on Home Plain and Simple.

Little People: Babies

Babies are an adventure, an adorable bundle of joy, and often-times, a challenge to fit into the home life.

Create  Your Baby Routine

Babies, if you’ve had more than one you know that each one is unique.  Some babies fall right into a routine without any effort on your part and others require more effort. If you’ve read my book, you know I go into more detail about life with baby.

The bottom line is that a life of routine makes life with babies much more pleasant.  I found the best way to create a happy baby routine is the order of sleep, eat, play. Keeping a consistent schedule from one day to the next cements it in their circadian rhythm and makes their bodily functions run like a clock.  If you’re breastfeeding, it does the same for you.

Let me be clear about baby routines here

If your baby is hungry, feed your baby.  A routine is your tool, it serves you.  A routine or schedule is not your master.  Pay attention to your unique baby, watch for the cues that your baby gives you, be sensitive to your baby.  Your baby is the most vulnerable person in your home, be mindful of that priority.

Feeding Time, Reading Time

Baby feeding time is an opportune time for reading. Read books for yourself, read aloud to your children, or work on reading with a beginning reader.

Because babies need fed multiple times a day you can structure your day to do all of the above.  This is an example: 7 am read your Bible, 10 am work with your beginning reader, 1 pm read aloud to the children, 4 pm read a book for yourself. Personalize it to fit your baby’s feeding routine.

Baby Feeding Routines

With the sleep, eat, play routine give some thought to what you and your baby will do after eating.  Be consistent so that it becomes a habit.  Ideas: change laundry loads after each feeding, go to the kitchen and do some prep work for the next meal, go the bathroom and clean one thing in the bathroom.

If you are going to fold laundry then lie baby beside you on the floor for you and the children to play with while you fold.  Maybe you need to work in the kitchen, then put baby in a front carrier, in a swing, or a pack-n-play.  Think about your routine, make a plan and write it.

Plan your day for what you will do during your baby’s play time.  Some activities work fine, and others need to be reserved for your baby’s sleep time.  Be deliberate in how you plan your day in accordance with sleep time and play time.  Write it out.

Naptime Plans

Be very deliberate about naptime.  Many times, it is the only time of day when you feel “free” to do as you please.  Save it for those things that you absolutely cannot do when your baby is awake.  It seems obvious but give it deliberate thought and then plan. Write down your ideas to jog your memory when your tired brain can’t remember what you were going to do.

Baby Naptime

Some of my babies slept for 1 ½ hours at a time with no problem, others didn’t.  Some would stir at the 45-minute mark and then go back to sleep, others didn’t go back to sleep.  Be sensitive and respectful of your baby’s individuality.  Try to fit your baby to the schedule that you desire but be ready to fit your life to your baby’s unique needs.

No doubt, it can be frustrating.  Breathe, relax, have a cup of tea, put on some relaxing music, and make the best of the day.  A lot of times, a situation that you encountering this week is gone and replaced with a different challenge in a week’s time.  The most important thing is that your baby and children feel the love that you have for them.

Communicate with your baby

Each baby is different and you will discover the nuances of what each baby prefers.  Pay attention to their body language and be respectful.  Body language is how babies communicate with you.  It is a language that you need to learn with each baby.

I had one baby that was only happy in the swing during the late afternoon.  Another baby was not very cuddly and was very happy in the playpen.  Yet another one was happiest being in the front carrier for play time.  Your baby is special, unique.  Love your baby.

Little People: Toddlers

If you’ve had a routine with your babies and they are accustomed to a structured day then that lifestyle naturally progresses into the toddler years.  The sleep, eat, play routine gradually changes to fewer naps and a longer one in the afternoon.  Next there are two naps and then one.

The transitions can make for some rough days.  If you have a deliberate plan for your baby’s nap times and play times, yet are flexible with a Plan B, C, and D, then you’re golden.  If you’re not utilizing a home management book to plan your days, then use a paper and a to-do list.  You might not be a pencil and paper person but if you have little children… the brain can get mushy.  Been there, done that, #Isurvived.  Know what you are going to do during your toddler’s sleep and play time, make a plan.

Better Days with your Toddler

Create time periods in your day with your toddler.  This helps with routine and structure.  I have found with experience that happy little people occur when they have a sense of knowing their personal routine.

Your first toddlers will need to be taught how to do these things but later on your younger children will just do what the older kids are doing.  Teach the little children how to do these “Times” start with short time periods and use a timer.  If they wander take the child back to the area and tell them again that it is “Book Time”.  Be patient and gentle, it will take effort on your part at first.  If something you are trying isn’t working, stop and reevaluate.

Each child will take to these activities differently.  If the child dislikes an activity then keep it short and be very gradual about extending it. Or learn what makes it more enjoyable for the child.  Sometimes a child will love an activity and will make it longer or ask for it at an unplanned time of the day.

Take these ideas and make it fit your life.  What worked with my family may not with your unique situation, get creative and tweak these activities to suit you.

Of course, be sure that potty and drinks are done before starting one of these “Time” activities.

Toddler Time Activity Ideas

A planned activity in our day was Quiet Time, this was when their play was to be quiet with quiet activities.  Some of the children were very happy doing this in a playpen, even when they were too big for the need for a playpen.  Some years we had a designated corner of the house for Quiet Time activities for the little children.  Try putting on a classical music playlist for Quiet Time.

Exercise Time is the time to do stretching, jumping, and dancing to up-beat music and Simon Says activities to get out the energy.

Book Time was when I had the children of all ages sit in designated comfy spot and look at books.  They chose or were given a stack of ten books or so and then “read”.  Quiet, soft music is helpful to signify this time period.

Chore Time with toddlers is fun.  Hand the child a cleaning cloth and ask them to wipe.  If you make the cloth damp they will be able to see what they have wiped.  Pint-sized hand brooms to sweep with are fun for toddlers.

Homeschooling Preschoolers

There are endless ideas for preschoolers at home to keep busy with and increase their skills.  Ever since learning about the Montessori theory of education I have loved it for my younger children.  I took the ideas and made it fit my unique situation and the seasons of life that our family has gone through.

If the preschooler has older siblings, they will be interested in doing school like the big kids.  Look for activities that keep stretching their dexterity and development.  Make their “Preschool” special by only getting the “Preschool” activities at a certain time of day.  This helps give structure to the day.

Helpers for your Home Management

Preschoolers are great helpers and so willing!  They are so excited to do things with you so use that enthusiasm!  Let it make your days more joyful!  Let them do things with you, do not swish them away so that you can do it faster.  You will be so grateful that they are learning while watching and doing with you.  They will grow up to be amazing people that just do stuff because it’s in front of them.

Problem makers

Now, let’s be real for a little bit here too.  There will be messes.  You will be inconvenienced.

Preschoolers are not perfect people. They do not know what they do not know, remember that about your children. Do not expect them to be mini-adults, or to always know what they should or should not do.  They will do things that will inconvenience you or that you do not understand.  Their prefrontal cortex doesn’t stop maturing until they are 25!

Activities and locations and times

Much like the specific activity times for toddlers, continue to use those times in your days with preschoolers.  These activity times will help the child to grow their self-control and focusing.  They also help you to plan activities for yourself that would be more challenging with little children distracting your focus.

Room Time

Room Time is the same idea as Quiet Time but is a time for independent play in their specific rooms, even those that share rooms.  It brings the noise level and raucousness down (remember that I have a bunch of children and it can be loud and crazy even when they are having fun).  Sometimes they just needed split up for a half-hour to quiet themselves.

I have created a workbook for you to think through making better days with babies, toddlers and preschoolers.  It is available in the Free Resource Library.

Food for Little People

Meal Planning, a Home Management Tool

Planning your meals ahead, creating the grocery lists, and being deliberate about your shopping makes days with little children easier.  Having a plan gives you confidence and peace.  Having the lists made a route planned makes grocery shopping with little children easier.  Set yourself up for success.

Plan for health, for their ability to chew, texture aversion, and for gradually introducing new foods.  These are tricky things to consider and it is easy to default to cheese sticks and PBJs.  Have your default foods on hand but plan for healthy choices too.

Lunch menu

Think ahead to simple foods to keep on hand for snacks and lunches.  You are the person responsible for your children’s healthy eating, be mindful of your choices.

Think about school lunch menus and use that for a guide.  There are cute plates available to help plan a plate of healthy foods.  Get your little ones involved in choosing healthy foods at the grocery store.

Keep it simple, know your season, know yourself

Keep in mind that a child will often need to have multiple exposures to a food before they will accept it.  Avoid arguments about food and be gentle.  Be aware of your own food biases, preferences and habits.

If you’re in a busy time in life, acknowledge it.  Decide what you are willing to compromise on and be easy on yourself.

Take a look at the Free Resource Library, it’s full of workbooks to help you think through making your best days even better.

The post Little People and Your Home Management and Homeschooling appeared first on Home Plain and Simple.

I don’t have all the answers for you and your specific life, but I’ll offer up some ideas I’ve found helpful that might be applicable to your life.

Teach Your Children to be Independent in their Homeschooling

Let your child fail forward. No matter if your child is a two-year-old or a twelve-year-old. They will want to try things, and if you’re in their way, you’re holding them back. Yes, stop them from stepping too close to a cliff, but let the child explore and challenge their skills. By trying new things and testing their limits they learn to overcome obstacles, fear, and develop a can-do attitude.

Be the encourager. You’re the cheerleader. Listen to the words that come out of your mouth when speaking to your children and give thought to how the child hears those words and your tone. If you’re afraid that your child will fail or get hurt, they’ll catch on to that emotion.  A positive attitude will let your child know that you believe in him. Don’t be the reason your child holds back. Teach your child to embrace and press through challenges.

Imagine Independence

When your child holds back from a challenge ask him, “Why not?” Encourage him to think of the good things that will happen by overcoming the challenge, or even the worst-case scenarios and about how he would address those instances.

Ask him “What if…?” and think through scenarios and even do role-playing. What’s the worst thing that can happen? Usually it’s something to just laugh about. Teach him it’s through mistakes that we learn.

If he gets stuck with schoolwork, remind him to look back in the book to remember how to do a skill. Encourage him to “Look it up” or “Let’s look it up together.” Don’t do things for him, but give him hints and encourage him in his focusing skills. Remind him to reread the directions.

Trust Independence

Trust that your child will do his schoolwork and chores without you hanging over him. He won’t be able to develop independence if you’re hovering. He’ll let you down. Accept it. There’s learning in that. Create a consequence for not doing his work. Rebuild the trust. Don’t compare him with his siblings, each person is an individual and works differently. Allow each one to develop his own way of learning and doing things. We like to think that our personal way is the best, when it’s not necessarily so. Allow each person to have their strengths and weaknesses and help them to identify them and work from that place.

Say “Yes.” So many times it’s easier for us to automatically say no when a child asks permission to do something. Creativity, imagination, and living outside the box comes with freedom. Let your children explore, and then work together to clean the messes that inevitably occur.

The Reward of Independent Children

You can walk away from children who are independent and change the laundry loads, brown the meat, change the baby’s diaper, or pick tomatoes in the garden. Reality Check: they may or may not have been completely focused on their work while you stepped out of the room. Be prepared for that scenario and talk with them about trust, goals, respecting others, or whatever the situation calls for. You’re teaching them life-skills in these things.

How to homeschool multiple ages at once? Table Time

Homeschoolers call it a variety of things, I’ve heard Circle Time, Morning Time, we called it Table Time. Table Time for our family was when we gathered together and did certain homeschool activities as a group. Particularly Bible, history and science. Afterwards, the children did their individual schoolwork. Over the years of doing Table Time, we added activities and took some away depending on our interests and things we were studying. Different seasons of life affected how much time we took for Table Time. The beauty in it is that you get to tailor it to your unique family and situation.

Table Time is a distraction free time

Nobody is to jump up and leave because they forgot (fill in the blank), including myself. Of course… babies and toddlers. Be prepared with things they can do during Table Time. When I had babies and toddlers, I prepared specific tubs of activities that they could play with only during Table Time. We did the same thing during Read Aloud Time. By keeping specific activities for special times, they were special and enjoyable for that reason.

After Table Time, a person may leave to do the thing they remembered, do their reading in their favorite reading chair, or stay at the table to do language arts for example. After Table Time, I can leave to change laundry loads or put a chicken in the oven, or gather my bill paying supplies to take to the table and work on while the children still at the table do their schoolwork.

Some years we did science or history projects in the afternoon while the littlest ones napped.  I did home management tasks before or after these project times.  This is how you incorporate home management into homeschooling.  Tack a task on the beginning or the ending of an all-together activity.  Write down a routine for these set times.

Phonics Time in Your Homeschool Day: How to Teach a Child to Read

Assign a certain time of day to teach reading to your non-reader. Be consistent.

This is the time of day when you must sit down with a child. No options. Put a reminder in your phone. No interruptions. Plan what the other distractible children in the house are doing during this time. Commit to it. Do a certain amount of phonics or reading practice with your child. Use a timer.

Make it enjoyable. If the child doesn’t enjoy the readers you are using, find another story series. Your child may get stuck and need time for brain development, it’s OK. Instead of the child trying to read to you, you choose an easy reader and read to him. Move your finger left-to-right under the words so that he understands the direction his eyes should move when he is reading.

Again, do a home management task before and after this activity.  Keep a list of tasks you want to accomplish on a specific day and do those tasks as you move through the day.

How to Set Up Your Homeschool?

Having productive homeschool times is how we move forward efficiently effectively and can do the other activities of life. Sort your homeschool items by subject or person, whatever the situation calls for, and keep them organized in baskets, tubs, or on a shelf. Keep these baskets, tubs, or shelves near your homeschool area. Everything should be easy to grab, do, and then put away in its assigned place.  Efficient movement keeps you and your family moving smoothly.

Have a set place for Table Time, Phonics Time, and Read Aloud Time. It shouldn’t take ten minutes to prepare for a school event. Have what you need in a basket or on a shelf right at the place that you’re going to be working at. Avoid the friction that clutter causes.  You want to be able to call your people to the location and do the activity. When your family is finished, put everything back into the basket, tub, or on the shelf. Everything has a place, everything in its place.

If you have a designated place for certain activities and have the necessary supplies nearby you can move more efficiently and have a more effective homeschool. Then you can move on to the next thing, for your children it will be Chores, Free Time or Play Time and for you it will be the home management work, your hobby, or your work-at-home career.

Workbooks to help you think through your homeschool days and your home management work are located in the Free Resource Library.

Being deliberate with home management work, being prepared and getting your team together make our efforts more effective.

How to Be Deliberate in Your Home Management Work

When you do a task, just do it. Distractions will come, take care of it quickly, but let the distraction go and carry on with the original task that you were doing. You might need to go back to your To Do list or your Home Management Book to get refocused. That is the beauty of the Home Management Book.

Tell the family that at a certain time, chores are going to occur and all people are expected to participate. At the pre-arranged time, gather together, put on the music, set the timer and go.

How to Be Prepared for Home Management Work

Make an action item list for each room. Be ready with the supplies needed to clean a room. Create a chore closet or cupboard with the necessary supplies in a basket or tub for each assigned room.

Distribute the necessary room supplies to the person with the action list for the particular room. Perhaps it’s not a written list but a picture list. Take a picture of the room when it’s clean and put that with the action list and let the person know that their job is to make the room look like the picture.

How to Assign Rooms to the Home Management Team

Whether you are a team of one or two or five or eight, assign each team member an area of the house.  Each team member is responsible for that area of the house. Be appropriate for the age and ability of the team member. Be appropriate for how often a room needs cleaned at your house. A front entry may need cleaned once a week but the kitchen floor needs swept twice a day. Each house and lifestyle is different so be thoughtful about how you live in your house and assign tasks to the level of cleanliness you desire in each specific area.

Have Fun With Your Life

Don’t make a clean house your idol. I’ve been with families that looked like they didn’t truly live in their homes and the children behaved as if they didn’t truly live. It seemed that they weren’t allowed to and when they did get to have fun it was painful for the mom. I’m sad for them. I love clean and organized. I think it makes life so much more enjoyable and allows us to be creative when there is a clean slate to get inspired in. Take that clean area and have a good time in it. Then clean up your mess. It will be OK.

Playtime

This is the time of day when your children just go and be children. Be wild and free outdoors. Be creative. Go play hard, run, jump, climb. Play a game. Go with your children or set them free in you predesignated limits of space.

Free Time

Free Time is what an individual child can do when he is done with his schoolwork and chores. We have a saying at our house, “We work before we play”. If I see someone doing Free Time activities before they should be then I follow up with that person. We aren’t perfect people at my house and we all tend to want to do a fun thing before work. It takes the effort of everyone in the family to devote the first part of the day to getting the work finished. We work before we play.

Recess

This is a timed interruption we will take during the school day to burn off the physical energy. It might be planned or somebody might be told, “Go run around the house five times”. We also use the Pomodoro technique of focused work for 25 minutes and then a five-minute break. Use the break to run to the bathroom, change the laundry loads, stare out the window, get a drink and cheese stick, etc.

You can do it!  Home management and homeschooling can work together with planning and moving through the days deliberately.

Go get these two workbooks in the Free Resource Library.  They will help you think through how you’re doing things in your house and help you identify what you can do to make your best days even better.

The post How to Homeschool and Manage the Home: Homeschool, Keep the House Clean, and Still Have Fun! appeared first on Home Plain and Simple.

This is Part One of the Series How to Manage Your Home and Homeschool Simultaneously

It’s easy to get busy and get scatterbrained about our home management work.  I clearly remember chaotic days when it was all I could do to make sure that everyone had food, water, and sleep!  The basics of housekeeping were clean floors, clean bathrooms, and clean dishes—and that accomplishment was a very real challenge!

Boundaries for Home Management Tasks

Assigning days of the week to my home management work was a gamechanger for me.  It eliminated the overwhelming feeling of being surrounded by never-ending tasks.  Mentally, I could look at a pile of laundry and tell myself that I would do all the laundry on the day that I assigned to laundry.  Today, I will do one load and it will be a priority load.

That boundary that I created brought relief.  I did this for every area of home management.  On the assigned days, I set aside a block of time to work on the tasks for that day and as my children grew older we worked as a team.

Generally, my days are Laundry Day, Office Day, Kitchen Day, Town Day, Cleaning Day, Gardening Day.  Your days might look a little bit different.

There was a season when we had an assigned Sewing Day because my girls and I greatly enjoyed that.  I put Office Day with Town Day because I could drop off some kids at piano lessons and pay bills at a picnic table at the park while the rest of the kids played.

We are all unique, with different homes, one-of-a-kind families, there are different times of life that affect our homes, and we must create what works for us.  Take the idea of assigning your specific work to a day of the week, put your focus on the specified tasks for that day and then let it go for until next week.

Don’t do other home management tasks on the assigned day

When I assigned a day for a specific work, such as grocery shopping or cleaning, then I did my best to not do the work from other assigned days.  These boundaries meant that I could focus and do better work in the area that I was focusing on.  I wasn’t scatter-brained trying to do many things at once and not doing anything well.

By assigning the work to specific days I knew that the work would get done eventually.  The house cleaning had a day and I could let things go in the meantime, knowing that the work would get done on its specific assigned day.  On Cleaning Day we give the house a reset point.

When we try to do a little bit of everything throughout the day we act in a disjointed manner and nothing truly gets to a “done” place.  Of course, nothing in the home ever stays “done”.

But we can:

• give it a new starting place
• get a sense of accomplishment
• mentally let go of it until the next time

Stop Working

Boundaries are stopping places.  By doing a work to a certain place and stopping we gain freedom.  Freedom from the pressure of undone work.  Freedom from mental overwhelm.  Freedom from guilty pressure.

We gain freedom to take time to play with our children, to do hobbies, to have a side-job.  Fact: the work of home never stops. You must choose to start and stop the assigned work for the day and do a fun thing.

People wear clothes that get dirty, eat food that needs made, dishes that need washed, floors get dirty because people walk on them, children never stop learning their gross-motor skills and they will make messes along the way… make a boundary for yourself and your family so that you can stop working and have fun times.

Assign a time of the day for the home management work

I am not going to tell you to plan every half-hour of your day for each person but it certainly helps to have some routines and hard-stops during the day.  I created routines for myself, for my babies, for my preschoolers, and for my school-age children.  These times gave everyone direction for getting their work accomplished and when they had free time.

Create a strong evening routine to set up a great morning.  A morning routine that gives everyone in the house a good start to the day sets up a productive morning of schoolwork.  Meals at set times help create circadian rhythms for the family’s sleep schedules, this helps for bedtime and naptime routines.

Assigning a time of day, or times during the day, for the home management work means that we get focused time on work and we don’t have to live in a mess.

What about laundry?!

I have a large family and we live on a farm.  With livestock.  That’s a lot of very dirty clothes, to state the obvious.  For a lot of years, I assigned a certain number of loads per day and on my assigned Laundry Day I played catch-up and cleaned the laundry room.

Because I had babies that got me up early, I got an early start to my days.  My laundry mantra was “4 loads by Noon”.  In later years, it became “4 loads by 4”.  These days, a lot of my family does their own laundry on their personal time-frame and I put my personal focus on the Laundry Room one day a week.

Assigning home management tasks to the days of the week will look different for your family depending on your situation.  Create a system that works for you.

I created a workbook to help you think about your home management work and how to plan the tasks into your week. It’s located in the Free Resource Library.

This is Part One of the Series How to Manage Your Home and Homeschool Simultaneously

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