Feeding Giants

I originally wrote this post about 18 months ago and didn’t publish it because I didn’t have pictures to go with it…however, I still want to share some of the things that helped us through our homeschooling years in the hopes that it may be useful to someone else (even without pictures!). And who knows…maybe I will need it again someday, too 😉 

If you are one of those people who feel all warm and fuzzy shopping for containers, who think a label maker is a super romantic gift, and possibly even delight in making new job charts for your kids, you are my people. So today I have a special little treat for my organization-loving people…

We are going to talk about… SCHEDULING! Hurray!

Do any of you (like me) find that your calendar or planner becomes a dream plan of all the things you WISH you could do (and when you wish you could do them) rather than a flexible framework to keep you on task? Do you (like me) feel completely de-railed when something unexpected comes up and throws off your carefully micro-managed schedule?

Enter time-blocking! For a list-making, over-scheduling, too-many-tabs-open-in-my-brain girl like me, this simple approach has been a game-changer. Basically, it just means concentrating on one major task category for pre-planned blocks of time (see below). I draw big squares around each time block in my planner and write my to-do list for that category on a post-it stuck in the square. If I have a time-sensitive task/appointment, I write that in – but nothing else gets assigned a specific hour anymore.  I work through the list until my time block is up, then move it to the next day’s square. My kids follow the same schedule as I do, so we are coordinated throughout the day.

Right now our time blocks look like this:

Wake up – 9:00 am: Body care, Soul care, Zone Care — I got the Body/Soul/Zone Care idea from a mom of many on a FB page and I. LOVE. IT.

Body care refers to getting dressed, brushing teeth and hair, washing face, etc.

Soul care means prayers and scriptures for everyone plus art journaling, gratitude journals, seminary homework, etc. for some.

Zone Care are the chores – every kid has a “zone” in the house they are responsible for.

This totally simplifies all the things we need to do every morning without having to make long to-do lists. It is so much easier for me to to ask, “Have you done your soul care yet? Have you taken care of your zone?” instead of, “Have you said your prayers? Read your scriptures? Taken out the trash? Made your bed? Fed the pets? Put your dishes in the sink?” And get this…I don’t even have to remember whose job is whose anymore before I remind anybody! “Take care of your zone!” covers it!

9:00 am – 12:00pm: School (and a snack and lunch)-– My big breakthrough here has been: *I* don’t do anything during these three hours except help kids with school or feed them snacks and lunch. They have my total attention and I am totally available to them for these three hours. No dishes, no paying bills, no phone calls, no errands, no making stuff, no nothing. I don’t try to do all the things at once like I did last year — just school. So far, this has cut our school time by at least 1/3 because the kids are staying on task and I feel a whole lot less frazzled.

12:00-3:00pm: Taking Care of Business — I take a “working lunch” at the computer at noon to take care of all my internet tasks (balance accounts, check emails, download pictures off my phone, etc.) while I eat. The rest of this block is for errands, working on my business, finishing projects, meal prep, etc. I try to keep phone calls, appointments, scheduled repairs, etc. to this period of time as well. Schoolwork during this block is 90% independent work, plus P.E. time and personal projects.

3:00-6:00: The Big Family Shuffle — This is  when everybody is coming and going: sports, dinner, clean up, friends, church activities, etc.  It is a busy, crazy time but goes much more smoothly when I’m focusing on the task at hand rather than also trying to call the doctor, write an email, do the laundry, and paint the bathroom! AND, this time block ends with dinner! Yay!

6:00-8:00: Winding down — We get the dishes done and house cleaned up, finish up the laundry, chill (this usually involved lots of Legos and/or Studio C), and get ready for bed.

8:00-10:00 – Bedtime – We say family prayers and read scriptures, then people start going to bed. With such a large age spread, the bedtimes are spread out a little, but we all get there eventually 😉 This is when I work on personal projects like reading a book or sewing.

And there you have it! 6 blocks of time with contained, moveable to-do lists rather than 35 tasks scheduled individually throughout the day. So much more manageable!

What are your favorite ways to schedule your household? Have you tried time-blocking?