Use the theory behind interval training to maximize your planning effectiveness. Just as runners train and gain strength and endurance by running in short, intense bursts and then going at a slower pace for awhile, so we can follow the same pattern in our day-to-day lives. Breaking up your year into intervals, with rest periods…
Often when we plan out our goals, we think in year-long chunks of time, either personal goals in January or academic goals in August. If you’ve ever done this, perhaps you’ve noticed that it’s really difficult to keep those goals. A cycle I’m familiar with goes like this: Commit to a huge life-overhaul, personal transformation…
The problem with much of the productivity and planning advice out there is that it begins with a vision for a 5-year outcome. When we as mothers at home try to do that, we are rather at a loss. We might not even know how many children we’ll have in 5 years. If your oldest…
I’m a proponent of making short-term plans and goals – ones that can be tracked and kept top-of-mind easily. I call it ‘interval planning’ because I think it’s like interval training: Go all out for a short amount of time, then take a rest period, and you’ll progress more than if you just slog through…
Breaking up your year into intervals is a simple way to sharpen your focus and stay engaged with projects and the things that need to be done to keep life at home rolling along. Instead of looking ahead over an entire year and making goals, try looking only at the next six weeks. What has…
We have used a year-round homeschool schedule for over twelve years – for all of our homeschooling years to date. I believe it makes both planning and living a homeschool lifestyle easier and better. Here’s the scoop on the why and the how of homeschooling year-round. Yes, we are those sorts of homeschoolers who school year-round. It seems like…
Now is the time when we all start organizing our stuff, buying new supplies, and preparing for another fresh start: a new school year. I always get ambitious about how much better this new, upcoming season will be. This time will be different, I tell myself. Turns out big overhaul projects never stick and usually…
One of our goals as homeschool parents is not only to teach our kids to read, but also help them love to read. Some are on board with this goal and therefore conclude we shouldn’t make our kids read, because that will kill the joy. They tend to suggest fun and easy books because how…
True confessions: I am a bad journaller. Yet in 2018 I started jotting down things I learned worth sharing, and sometimes even attaching a picture. The archives are collected here. Entries from the current calendar year can be found sprinkled throughout the blog. February 2020 – recovery, clutter, loneliness, Evernote, theology Every so often it’s…
When I was a young wife and mother, I read all the organization books, the productivity books, the godly family living books. I learned a lot, and a lot of it was good. But it took me about 10 years of trying to put it into practice that I finally realized I was never going…