While big goals are important, it gives you more momentum and more success in the long run if you start working on the dailies first. Be successful in these, and you can succeed in anything!

Get this planner FREE (during the month of January) by signing up for our blog or newsletter!  It will arrive with your Freebie Friday download 🙂

The Simplified Planner (Or any planner you lay out in a simplified manner that works for you!)

A. Daily Duties—create this by categories for more efficiency and ease of use
B. Weekly Worksheets Using the ABC Approach to Prioritizing (also by categories)
C. Monthly Memos—big picture notes for that month
D. Using Your Monthly Calendar
E. The Terrible Task List

Other Planning Tools
A. Kids’ Daily Chore Charts
B. Kids’ Daily Independent Work (for homeschoolers)
C. Your Block (or moment-by-moment) School Schedule/To Do List

LINKS to Other Podcast Episodes and Blog Posts:

 
Podcast: Overcoming Parenting Obstacles
Podcast: Tips for Efficiency
Podcast: 5 Tips To Be More Efficient In The Kitchen
Podcast: Becoming An Efficiency Expert in Your Home
Podcast: How Do I Get My Children To See Work At Home In A Positive Light?
Podcast: Simplified Meal Planning
Podcast: From Chaos to Control, From Rowdy to Routine
Podcast: Children and Chores

Blog Posts: Independent Work Lists
Blog Posts: Chore Schedules
Blog Post: The Terrible Task List
Blog Post: Dishes, Laundry, and Trash—Twice A Day!

Listen to the podcast here!

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The post Podcast Notes for “Using Your Calendar/Planner to Get More Done” appeared first on Character Ink.

My world has changed so much in the past few years, but especially in the past two years. I went from homeschooling mom to full time self-employed mom.

I have worked at least half time for fifteen years. We put in the super (and I mean super) hard work of doing practically nothing but parenting for fifteen years. Then I was able to start writing curriculum for one publisher, speaking, etc., some while we finished homeschooling/raising our seven children. (Squeezed it in here and there like all working homeschooling mamas do!)

But the past two years (including this, my last official year of homeschooling), I only had one in school—and he was either taught by his brother, sister, or dad or taking college classes. (This year it is all college classes except for Geometry on his own.)

But that isn’t all that has changed. With full time working, my to do list has drastically changed as well. So weird. So different. Some days I just say out loud (over and over), “My life is weird.”

It was somewhat of a seamless change since I had been writing, speaking, etc., part time for over a dozen years, but occasionally, I will look around and realize just how different my life is now. It is fun (most of the time!). But I still long for the days of six kids in school…seriously….long for those days.

Back to my to do list. We always had what we “affectionately” called BIG WORK DAYS. They were days (often Saturdays) that we would set aside for a household project that everybody would work on—planting garden, harvesting produce, mega cooking, garage cleaning. Things we all do all the time.

But now my BIG WORK DAYS are based on my writing, speaking, and curriculum projects. And it sometimes isn’t quite so clear as to what do to first, which things to put off til the next work time, etc.

For these reasons, I go back to my block scheduling that I used with homeschooling. (I never did the 8:15-8:45 math approach. I broke the day into blocks of time (early morning, late morning, noon hours, early afternoon, late afternoon, dinner hours, evening), and I planned what would go into each block.)

It also works for any big work day that you might be having (school-related or work-related). Here is how I set mine up.

When I get a *big* work day (as in nobody needs anything; non teaching day; just get to work), I like to divide my day into blocks (based on how much time I have–two hour blocks, three hours blocks, etc.).

1. Decide on the number of different blocks I am going to have (three four-hour ones for a twelve hour; four three-hour ones for a twelve; three three-hour ones for a nine, etc.) based on the number of areas I want to work in. Today I chose four three-hour blocks: (1) Blog posts/blog in general; (2) Podcasts/podcast handouts; (3) Meaningful Composition re-writes/new lessons; (4) Recipe sorting and typing for the blog (of recipes I have been trying and tweaking.

2. Make my “sure would love to get all of this done” list for each block. (It can be totally nutso, unrealistic, etc., at this point…which mine always is!).

3. Place an A, B, or C before each task. A means I really want to do this/need to do this today, and I will do these things first. B is I would like to, but A’s come first. C’s will go on another work day’s list! 🙂  (See my article “As Easy As ABC’s, 123, Do-Re-Mi.”)

4. Set timer for first block of work time. (Three hours for me today.) And start on the A’s from that block’s list.

5. When timer goes off, give myself five to ten minutes to wrap up and move on to the next block. (I will transfer undone things to my other lists later…otherwise I get bogged down in list making rather than doing.)

That’s it!

How do you handle big work days? Or even work periods…to be the most efficient/effective? I would love some tips! )

The post Using a Block Time Approach to Big Work Days appeared first on Character Ink.

I wanted to do a separate post on this particular blitz (read about my other blitz ideas here) because it has a lot of other points to consider than just the actual blitz, including how ready you want or need to be for Dad’s arrival home, what types of activities you and your husband want/need for Dad to do in the evenings, and the idea of “getting it all done.”

If you have been a parent for long, you’re probably already learned that you never truly “get it all done.” If you haven’t learned that yet, I hope you will learn that soon. It is extremely frustrating to go through your parenting years thinking that you can get it all done. Since nobody really can.

One of the blitzes that we used as our kids were growing up in order to be a little bit more ready for when Dad got home was that of the “Dad’s in the driveway” blitz. At the time we started this blitz, we lived down a long way – probably about an eighth of a mile long. Ray worked long hours – always eleven to thirteen hours a day at that time. While I never truly got it all done, I tried to stress to the children the importance of having things picked up when Dad got home. Ray was the kind of husband and father who never minded if it wasn’t all done – and he always rolled up his sleeves and got started helping us as soon as he walked in the door. However, I wanted to free up as much of his time in the evenings as I could since it was so short.

Thus, we developed the “dad’s in the driveway” blitz. That one eighth of a mile long driveway trip became another way that my children learned how quickly they could get things done. While we didn’t set the timer for the blitz, it was a blitz nonetheless. Someone would shout out, “Dad is in the driveway!” And everybody would jump into action. In the three to five minutes it took him to drive down the lane, get out of the car, gather his things, and come in the door, the four, five, or six of us could have a lot picked up. And we were ready for our evening with dad.

Maybe your children are too young for this kind of blitz. Maybe you need for your husband to come in, roll up his sleeves, and help get things in order. If that is the case, no guilt here. You need to do what you need to do. For our family, since we usually only had from seven to nine or so together in the evenings, this blitz helped shape our evenings and gave us more time for a nice family dinner, family worship, and family playtime.

Of course, another spin on this blitz is the “company’s in the driveway” blitz. Isn’t it amazing how fast you can get things done when you are expecting company? If only we could work that fast all the time!  🙂

The post Ten Ways to Help Your Family Get Things Done FAST: “Dad’s in the Driveway” Blitz appeared first on Character Ink.

We have a saying in our family that goes something like this: Don’t clean anything. Don’t scrub anything. Don’t mop anything. Just focus on horizontal surfaces.

My husband is not a stickler when it comes to cleaning. As a matter of fact, he would seldom notice if something is dusted, vacuumed, or scrubbed. However, he is very sensitive to clutter (which was very unfortunate for him when we had nine people living in fourteen hundred square feet for twelve years!).

It is for this reason that during any cleaning blitz or cleaning time at all, he is often found shouting out the command to focus on horizontal surfaces.

As women, we have a tendency to want to “clean” everything! We want things to sparkle. We want things to shine. However, what really sticks out to most people if they come to our home is stuff lying around – clutter.

It is for this reason that my second tip to help your family get things done fast is to focus on horizontal surfaces. That is, what is out on the floor, the desk, the dining room table, the bar, end tables, coffee tables, dresser tops, and yes, even treadmills.

While this tip is not necessarily one just for speed, it does make things look better fast, which will in turn make us more efficient.

Here are some ways we use the focus on horizontal services method:

1) When calling a blitz, call out a five-minute surface blitz. That is, tell everybody to not do anything except pick up and put away objects that are lying around. This keeps people from vacuuming or trying to wipe something down when things are still lying around.

2)  Call for a horizontal surface session for a cleaning time. This can either be for everybody to get their own things up around the house before somebody cleans or just to pick up in general. When our older kids were little, before each chore session, we had what we called our “room-to-room time.” This was a version of horizontal surface time. We called for this two, three, or five-minute room-to-room blitz in order to give everybody a chance to pick up all of their clutter before chore time. That way, during chore time, the cleaner didn’t have to clean around everybody’s things. It was also a break in the day in which things got picked up rather than left out for the whole day. Since we had chore time three times a day, before each meal for twenty minutes, this room to room/horizontal surface time helped keep things picked up.

3) If you feel like your house is in great disarray, tell everybody that you are not going to clean as far as shining and scrubbing (except for daily kitchen work, etc.) until you have some horizontal surface times in which junk is taken care of. This can work for the whole house or just for individual rooms. Sometimes this is a good idea for children’s rooms. They have a tendency to get overwhelmed when there is too much junk lying around and if you tell them to clean the room, they might go in with a vacuum and a dust rag when they really just need to focus on the horizontal surfaces. (And going in with them and telling them that you are going to help them for a five minute blitz—or that the whole family is going to help them for five minutes really fast can go a long way in helping them dig in to big messes.)

As I mentioned earlier, focusing on horizontal surfaces won’t necessarily make you faster, but it will make you feel better about your house. Implementing it on an ongoing basis will help keep clutter at bay. It will help your children learn to prioritize household tasks. And it might even make your husband happy.

The post Ten Ways to Help Your Family Get Things Done FAST: Focus on Horizontal Surfaces appeared first on Character Ink.