Video: Finding Encouragement Through Prioritizing

by | Aug 29, 2019

 

I was recently asked to write a guest post on Kathie Morrisey’s Character Corner blog about encouragement. (You can read that article here on the blog!) When I sat out to write encouraging words, I came back to what I always come back to–prioritizing leads to encouragement. I can encourage myself by setting my priorities and following through on them. It’s true….it has happened to me countless times during my thirty-two years of homeschooling and continues to happen to me now as an entrepreneur and online teacher. So I wrote my article for Character Corner–and decided to make a video to follow it up. I hope that this prioritizing help encourages you as much as it has me throughout my parenting years.

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Putting My Productivity Trainings in an Order to Help You the Most!

by | Aug 5, 2019

Hello Busy Friend,

I’m sure you are busy, busy, busy….

School starting is just around the corner for most of us, and some have already begun! (Cheers to you!)

In my Sunday Snippets this summer, I have been sharing productivity and organization links with you to help you make this your best school year ever! (My best years were always my most organized years!)

But someone commented that they wished they were all in one place and in order so they would know which things to focus on first, etc.

So…..that is what this Tuesday Tips is going to do!

I’m going to put the videos and articles that I think will help you the most to have an organized, productive year in order, so you can have your own little “mini conference”! And you can do it at your own pace as you implement each step.

I’m passionate about productivity and organization because I know they made all the difference for me in my 32 years of homeschooling–and they continue to serve me every single day in all of my entrepreneur journey!

Blessings to you for an amazing, organized, productive school year….I want so much wonderfulness for you!

Love and hope,

Donna

 

Step 1: Create Your Daily Lists and Do Nothing But These!

I created a video about my experience in creating dailies–and how I had to give up the grandiose in order to do the dailies…and how those dailies made me a successful homeschooler and confident parent! Watch this first! 🙂

Step 2: Learn to Delight in the Dailies

Dailies can be a drag. There’s nothing grandiose. Nothing exciting. Nothing remarkable happening right away as a result of them. So it can be hard to delight in them. I wrote two articles about this (part I and part II) that will help anyone who gets bored with the dailies. (Please believe me when I say the dailies are everything at first!)

Step 3: Follow Through on the Dailies

It’s one thing to create a dailies list. It’s another thing to follow through on them. Since I know how hard it is to follow through on them, I created a video about that!

Step 4: Systematize Everything

After you get the dailies down pat (or during possibly), you will be amazed at your productivity when you systematize everything you can! This is so important in homeschooling. You want some things in your day to just run “like a well-oiled machine”! Systematizing will help you!

Step 5: Use 1 to 2% of Your Day to Make the Other 98% Run Smoothly

Each day has its own happenings. Some times we have enough time for the Dailies only. Other times we can do some weeklies. Some times we can even do “extras.” Use my 14 Minute Productivity Hack to look at the day and see what all you can put in it. This realistic look at your day will leave you way less frustrated!

Step 6: Each Day Plan Your First Five and Fast Five

During my 14 Minute Productivity Hack, if I look at my calendar and I have time to do more than the Dailies, I put in my First Five tasks (the first five things I will do after my Dailies) and my Fast Five (five quick tasks I can do while coffee is brewing or toddler is not pottying but is sitting on the potty! lol). On extra busy days, I don’t get to the First Five or Fast Five…but I always know what they are each day.

EXTRAS

There are other habits and productivity considerations when creating your ideal day….so I am putting these here.

a. Diligence—

We talk all the time about how to help our kids become more diligent. But I found out long ago that I have to do everything myself before I can teach things to my kids. Wowsie…was that ever hard. So I taught myself to be diligent first…then teaching them was much easier! This video details how I evaluated my diligence and improved it.

b. Prioritizing

So how do you know what you should do after your Dailies? How can you determine which things are the most important things to focus on? I have some thoughts about prioritizing on this video!

c. Taming the To-Do List

It’s one thing to create a to do list; it’s another thing to have systems in place to do the tasks on the to-do list. This video helps with the taming of that all-elusive to-do list!

d. Procrastination

Procrastination is a real issue for any of us who are our own bosses—homeschoolers, entrepreneurs, parents of littles, small business owners, etc. I love giving tips—and I have several in this video to beat procrastination!

Break It Down…Get It Done

by | Aug 25, 2018

 

 

How’s your “back to school” productivity, scheduling, and prioritizing going? Mine is full on crazy with all of our new fall endeavors—but thanks to the many mechanisms and tricks that I learned from three decades of homeschooling and two decades of curriculum writing, I’m still afloat! 😜

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More Often Than Not—The Secret to Consistency Without Defeat

by | May 31, 2018

More Often Than Not: The Secret to Consistency Without Defeat

Earlier I introduced Gregg Harris’ “attachment” principle for doing the many things that are important in our kids’ Christian upbringing. (Read Attaching Important Things To Your Schedule here.)

Today I want to introduce another paradigm that has kept us going in all of the myriad Christian training endeavors: If something is important to you, you will do it more often than you do not.

Simple, really. But it has kept us going when we felt defeated, overwhelmed, or unsuccessful in our parenting. No matter what was happening, we tried to follow that principle. When one of us got discouraged, the other would remind the first that we were, indeed, doing what we were supposed to be doing.

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A Change a Week—or a Change a Month

by | May 8, 2018

 

Thirty years ago, Ray’s mentor said, “Sit down with Donna every week and ask her, ‘What change do you think we need to make? What do you need for me to do?'”

He continued, “After you do this for a long time, it will give Donna peace, and she will feel secure that you really care about your family and how to improve it.

He said, “Then one day, you will ask her ‘What do you need for me to do for you?’ and she will say ‘Nothing at all. What can I do for you?'”

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Finding Encouragement Through Prioritizing

by | Apr 30, 2018

 

 

The scene was a common one for this “young mama” (then!) of five children ten and under (so far!): I worked my tail off all day long and still felt like a complete failure. My husband came home from a typical twelve hour day to my cries of “I didn’t get anything done today that I needed to do” and “I just don’t understand why I can’t get more done as long as the day is and as hard as I work.”

 

And once again, he answered with sweet words that pointed me to prioritizing, something that I was still in the process of learning: “Did you rock and feed the baby?” I nodded yes.

 

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