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So now that you are convinced that “delighting in the dailies” will help you accomplish your goals, how do you get them started (and keep them going) during the initial stages—when there isn’t a lot of fruit to show for your efforts, and you are convinced some day that you should just forget making dinner and go play solitaire or buy some sort of farm equipment (on the computer…lol)?

Here are some tips for learning to truly “delight in the dailies” and make those dailies a long-term reality in your home:

1. Start out with a few of the very most important dailies—and make these things happen every day for a couple of weeks.

(See “Delighting in the Dailies—Part I of II” here.)

Don’t make a huge dailies list and wake up on Monday morning assuming that the magic list will all happen on that day. At times, my “dailies” (not including the children’s daily chores) could be thirty tasks long. If you are not used to doing certain things every day, this can be very overwhelming.

There are two ways to start tackling your dailies (which will eventually lead to your delighting in them):

a. Start with the four or five most important dailies for yourself and one or two per child and tackle these. Attach them to something that you already do every day (get up in the morning, eat breakfast, eat lunch, etc.). And start carrying them out over and over again. Once this is going well, add more. See my post about making a change a week or a change a month here.

b. Start with the first thing in the morning—and do your morning dailies only (for everyone in the family). (You might do others, but focus on making sure the morning ones are done consistently.) I often give the advice that when you want to change the way your days are going, start with the first hour of the day. Get this hour looking exactly like you want it to look (constantly!). Then move on to the next hour, etc. I personally like this approach because I love to make my day great by getting my morning started right.

2. Find someone who “delights in her dailies” and get a vision for this way of life from her.

Believe it or not, I actually knew several moms (either in person or through seminars/conventions) who were “delighting in their dailies” as many as thirty years ago! And this prompted me to make this a way of life. I could see the fruit of their daily disciplines, and I wanted that in my home as well. A well-run home is a beautiful thing, and we older moms need to teach and help younger moms learn these vital skills.

3. Believe in the daily approach to life.

Additionally, as an incremental type of teacher, I knew that “precept upon precept” and “line upon line” was the way that my children would master their subjects—and that incremental learning comes through dailies. I also knew from past experience that skipping things that needed done all the time in favor of things that either didn’t HAVE to be done or things that needed done less frequently didn’t work.

I had to believe in this approach in order to really carry it out. If you are waning in your ability to carry this out, make a list of all of the benefits to doing the dailies on your list (i.e. new reader will blossom through daily reading aloud to Mom, no more five o’clock scrambles for dinner, etc.). Pull this list out to help you “believe” when your faith is weak (and, once again, Farmville is calling!).

4. Notice the fruit (the real fruit!).

After a very short while, you will notice that something (or more than one thing) you have developed as a daily in your life is REALLY benefiting your family. Note this! If your struggling mathematician suddenly knows his x8’s because math drill became a daily for him, you have some juicy fruit! If your husband happily puts on his clean dress shirts in the morning (instead of the former morning clothing scramble!), then you have fruit. If you don’t dread four o’clock any more but actually sit down and read online articles for a while until sweet angels wake up from their naps, you have an entire fruit bowl! Notice it. Enjoy it. And realize that this fruit is there because you learned to delight in your dailies.

5. Believe that these dailies are truly the most important parts of your ministry to your family right now.

Anybody can swoop in and be a hero once or do something big here and there—and those have the potential to be ministries to your family too. However, when we understand and truly believe that what we do when we get up first thing in the morning is truly a ministry to our family, we will look at our dalies differently.

I know there are entire books written about the ministry of magic of motherhood. And they are right. But we have to do more than believe it in theory. We have to have it deep within us that when we consistently cook with our ten year old every day for lunch, we are doing God’s work. We have to breathe it in, take it in, and know it at that moment. When we lie down at the end of the day, we have to feel, believe, and KNOW that we have fulfilled an amazing calling on our life that day—because we did our dailies, God’s task list for us at this time in our lives.

6. Realize that you have accomplished a great thing.

Have you ever heard about the research for mastery in life? Some studies show that it takes repeating an action ten thousand times to become accomplished in it. Just look at each time that you do something (plan the next meal, do a reading lesson with a child, reach out to your preteen’s heart) as a step towards mastery. It really works. You will become so good at the things that you do over and over and over again!

It is rare to find a “work-at-home” mom who can juggle really well. How many times have you personally heard someone say that she could never do what you are doing—that she couldn’t spend all day with her kids or that she wouldn’t have the motivation that you have or that she can’t get organized without the structure of employment? What we are trying to do here—manage a home well, educate our children, and spend all day every day with kids—is not easy to do. If you continue to improve yourself as a home manager and a homeschooler, year after year, you will get more and more accomplished—and you will soon realize that you have done something very rare and very great.

7. But don’t get smug! 🙂

After delighting in your dailies for a while, and continuing to add more and more important dailies into your life, you will be amazed at the skills you have. Bask in that. It is such a great feeling to delight in your dailies. Such an awesome peace that comes with knowing that you are doing—day in and day out—what you are supposed to be doing. Actually, this feeling alone is enough to keep you going. (While I don’t advocate in living on feelings, there is a calm and peace that comes with doing what you are supposed to be doing—and THAT is a great feeling!) So enjoy it…but don’t be smug! Soon there will be someone else who wants you to help her learn to “delight in her dailies”—and you will be just the gal to do it!

In the meantime, here are some places to learn more about my beloved “Dailies”:

1) Short blog post: Dishes, Trash, Laundry Twice a Day

2) Short blog post on “after the Dailies”: Timely Tasks & ABC Weeklies

3) Video With Outline: Following Through on the Dailies

4) Video With Outline–How I Found My Dailies

Hope these help! Blessings to you as you seek to prioritize your life, school, and home!

The post Delighting in the Dailies—Part II of II appeared first on Character Ink.

One thing that makes it much easier for children to learn chores and household upkeep is for the children to work with you on developing systems. We as moms have a tendency to create the systems that we like in freezers, refrigerators, pantries, toy shelves, bookcases, kitchen cupboards, and more. And then when somebody comes in to do a chore or unload groceries or put something away, it is not done correctly. And we wonder why people keep messing up our systems!

In reality, rather than simply telling children where things go or how you would like things done, a lot of stress is eliminated when you include the children in developing the system. When I was about to reorganize the pantry, I would have at least one child working with me, if not more. As we organized the pantry, sometimes using ideas from the child, whoever was helping me was learning the system from the ground up. When it was time for the child to help put away groceries, it was easier to handle that job correctly. Also, the child learns valuable organizational skills including prioritizing space, utilizing areas to their fullest, considering sizes and stack- ability of products, and more.

When it was time to work on toy shelves, the entire crew and I would sit down and get busy. We would label the shelves together. We would discuss how the Legos will be stored. We made tubs of things together. And the next thing we knew, we had a workable system that the children could maintain. Thus, whenever the chore to “organize the toy shelves” was given, all of the children knew how to do that.

The systems can extend to the kitchen as well. If you always make biscuits and gravy or you always make pancakes, initiate a system for doing those jobs. Type the recipes up clearly. Always have ingredients on hand. Teach the children from start to finish how to handle those jobs thoroughly, and by involving the child in the system, is ready to take it on himself.

We have a tendency to think in the here and now. It would be easier for me to make the pancakes—and much faster—than for me to have a child help me. Or it would take more time to do it with the kids. However, we are not thinking long term when we think like this. We are not thinking of how much family unity and family efficiency we could have by chore training. We are not thinking of our children’s futures—and how we can equip them right here and now, beginning with three year olds putting their room time toys away.

I believed in this from day one with my kids (thanks to thorough training from Dr. Raymond Moore and Gregg Harris), and my kids are all reaping the benefits of this approach today as they (seventeen through thirty-three) excel in their jobs, homes, marriages, and school. Skill-building, and life-skill-building specifically, is a huge part of parenting—and one that we should take seriously as we teach our kids to become diligent workers in home and school.

The post Children & Chores: Create Systems Together appeared first on Character Ink.

Once the training of the chore is completed, the fun part of actually having someone consistently and correctly do the job begins. This will work out much better if you have set up a certain protocol that is followed to be sure that the chores that you have taught are actually completed and completed when needed.

We personally had three chore sessions a day before each meal for twenty minutes or so. We learned this approach from Greg Harris in his early Christian Homeschool Workshop (twenty-five years ago!) where he taught us to attach important things in our day to something that is already in the schedule. It felt natural to add a chore session before each meal.

This worked well for us because we had one person, Mom in the beginning, fixing meals during that time. When we added a chore session to that, it meant that everybody was working at the same time on various areas. It also meant there was a a starting point and an ending point.

Some families prefer to simply have a chore chart in which all the chores are assigned and they just need to be done by a certain time of day. That is another approach. I liked all together because it allowed everything to be done at the same time. It was also easier than trying to track down everybody at 3 o’clock and asked if this was done or that was done. Of course, this can be overcome by creating a chore chart in which the child marks off or moves something after he does it. (Assuming the checking is in place—don’t expect what you won’t inspect!)

Whatever approach you decide to take for your chore schedule, be sure that the chores are done regularly. Check out my blog post about three times a day – laundry, dishes, trash. For us personally, we like to give the daily work to younger children. Daily jobs give the child the opportunity to practice that chore over and over again each day. In this way, the child gets better and better at the jobs. They are also very visible as in you can see if the dishes are done or the trash is taken out. Also, they are needed every day, and generally speaking, younger children are around every day whereas older children might go out to a job or sports or extra classes.

If you have not had a true routine set up previously, the first place to start is definitely the dailies. There is no reason to have the coffee tables all dusted when you can’t walk through the living room. Likewise, it is very difficult to dust the room with clutter everywhere. In that way, I would begin training children on daily chores first and foremost. If each child just learned one daily task every couple of weeks, the daily tasks could be passed out, taught, and completed every day within a month’s time. This would make the school day run much more smoothly and give the children a sense of accomplishment and pride to have completed such important jobs.

→For a complete list of all ages and appropriate chores (including Working With Someone Else lists), see our Age-Appropriate Chores Poster Pack.

The post How to Build Chores Into Your Daily Schedule appeared first on Character Ink.

We would love to come to your area with our Homeschooling With Character parenting seminar. This seminar is flexible to meet the needs of homeschool groups everywhere. Here are some details for you:

1. The seminar can be sponsored by a church, Sunday school, small group, community, homeschool group, support group, field trip group, state homeschool organization, etc. It is for any group of homeschoolers who want to learn about character-focused parenting from birth to tweens—with a special emphasis on the homeschooling lifestyle. (See our tween and teen workshop list here.)

Note: We also offer our Raising Kids With Character seminar, which has many of the same sessions but does not focus on homeschooling families only. It addresses Christian parenting regardless of schooling scenarios. Many homeschooling groups sponsor that seminar so that they can invite their non-homeschooling friends as well. (Another option is to offer the Raising Kids With Character seminar but Friday during the day (or Thursday evening) have us present homeschooling workshops only (such as writing or managing your homeschool day or any of our sixty-plus homeschooling workshops.)

2. It is flexible. We can accommodate most schedules, including a shorter seminar (Friday night and Saturday morning) or a longer one (Friday night and all day Saturday) or even an extended one if Moms would like to do some efficiency, organizing, or “baby/toddler” things or other homeschooling topics during the day on Friday (my personal favorite because in this arrangement I get to talk to more moms!).

3. It is inexpensive. This is our ministry. Our book sales and cottage classes are for-profit, but these seminars are our “mission field.” We don’t need to make money—we just need to be able to pay our expenses and sell some of our products on tables. Easy peasy. That means that parents will not have to pay a lot to attend (though we do recommend charging something so parents commit to it).

4. The registrations can be set up in multiple ways: (1) Your group can handle the registrations and pay our expenses with your “per person” charge; (2) We can handle the registrations fully on our end; (3) Your group can handle the registrations but scholarship your people and have your group pay our expenses.

5. We are always asked about a minimum number of attendees. We love to speak to hundreds at homeschool conventions, and we would love to get our parenting messages out there to hundreds as well. However, we can usually hold a seminar for as few as thirty attendees.

Click below to see lists of topics that we speak on at our seminars, and contact us here to set one up!

The post Schedule a Homeschooling With Character Seminar 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 have been juggling a lot of balls around here lately—as I know many of you are doing as well once school starts.

The funny thing is that when I had all littles, and I didn’t have a lot of kids “in homeschooling,” I was swamped. When I had six kids in homeschool at one time, I was swamped. And now that my youngest only does college his senior year of high school, I am swamped (with writing and teaching cottage classes).

I am chasing my tail on some Meaningful Composition deadlines in order to have the fourth through tenth grade books for both semesters done for the spring sales—and to get into some new catalogs and be ready for the convention season next year.

We are all busy…always. Seriously, when one thing gets taken out of the schedule, something else goes in it. ALWAYS.

People often ask me for the bottom line: How can I get organized? How can I get thing done? How can I be more productive?

I could say a lot about this (and I do…just search the blog for organization as easy as ABC, home management, dailies, terrible tasks, efficiency {podcasts}, and more!), but there is one thing that I consistently do to stay on track: I act like a student and do what is “due” next!

I can be so overcome with my to do list. I can be incredibly overwhelmed and feel like I cannot turn around. I can truly have so many things screaming at me that I can’t process how to order them. And in each and every situation, I do the exact same thing: whatever is due next.

I stop, take a deep breath, and look at the rest of that day first—what is it that has to be done. These are non-optionals—I could tell everybody to fend for themselves for dinner or pull a casserole out of the freezer if needed; I could skip the laundry today (though I don’t); I could trade dish days with one of the boys (I do!). But what is coming up?

Kids coming for games later tonight? My “office table” has to be cleared by then. (And if I don’t want somebody else stacking my stuff in disorganized piles everywhere, I want to be the one to do it!) Okay, that is what I will do first.

The next thing that is due is a podcast episode that my tech girl will run tomorrow. Okay, after the table is cleared, I will go make the podcast episode.

Next thing….I leave for classes at 7:15 tomorrow. I still need copies. The supply tubs need refilled. A parent needs answered. And a small stack of student papers has to be edited. Those things will be next.

I try not to do something that is coming for Wednesday. I try not to get on the computer and do something else (answer messages that are not “due” or post some FB statutes or read about Disney World! 🙂 ).

Whatever is DUE next is what I do.

Once I get ahead to where I am not chasing the things that are due in the next twenty-four hours, then I can breathe and do regular things and not stress so much….and I go back to my normal way of getting things done (all the other posts at the blog!).

I even verbalize this to my husband. He will say, “What do you absolutely have to do before you can go to bed tonight?” And I tell him what I just told you. (He can help me stay on track if I need it!)

My dream is to not always be doing whatever is “due” the next day. To get ahead of the game and be working a few days out. And that often happens in the summer when I am not teaching—and it is a great feeling.

But when I am not in that place, I just do whatever is NEXT!

Pin this post!

Thanks to Scrappy, Sticky, Inky, Mess for the free library card download that I used in the picture above!  Check them out here 🙂

The post One Thing That Makes All of the Difference in Productivity appeared first on Character Ink.

“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” Galatians 6:9

This verse is a common parenting verse—one that I am sure many a mamas has posted on her refrigerator, bathroom mirror, and nursery wall for decades. And it is a good one—reminding us that there is an end reward in what we are doing, that it is worth doing well and not giving up.

I love verses and inspirational quotes as much as the next person, but I also like practical application—so here you go! Five Ways to Not Grow Weary in Well Doing!  🙂

1. Surround yourself with like-minded people—so that when you feel like giving up, you have people around you who do not feel that way at that moment.

One of the most discouraging things to do in parenting is to be with others who also feel like giving up—continually. We all have those days. We all have times when we need someone to come alongside us and tell us it is worth it, you can do it, don’t give up. But if we surround ourselves with Debbie Downers who always see the negative and always feed our times of discouragement, it will be hard to get back up when we get down. The good thing about having a few people in our lives who believe in what they/we are doing is that hopefully we are not all weary at the same time!

2. Have written goals some place that you can refer to often.

Whether they are goals to homeschool for thirty-five years (I didn’t start out with that one!) or goals to raise your children for God and not just decide it is too hard, so I just need to do what everybody else is doing, having those written out and referring to them can remind us of what we were feeling and thinking at the time we decided to have seven kids and go the long haul with homeschooling. Sometimes we just need taken back to the place where we were called to do what it is we are doing. (If you have a like-minded husband, review these goals from time-to-time—or ask him to continually remind you when you are weak what you two decided in the first place. This has been invaluable to me!)

3. Don’t take on too much outside of your goals.

We become especially weary when we are trying to do too much (so we can’t do what we need to do really well) or when we are rushed. Go through your schedule, your days, your activities, and strip away the things that do not help you meet your parenting goals. When you have less to do, you can focus on your relationships, the good times, the teaching moments, and the final goal much better. Every single time we cut out, reduced, evaluated, and stripped excess away, I was a better mom, and our home ran more smoothly.

4. Likewise, don’t confuse homemaking, busy-ness of living, and extra work that we often make for ourselves as meeting our goals.

What really helps you meet your goals? Is it more home cooking? Is it more crafting? Is it more garage sale shopping? What of those things are necessary to live and what things do you do because you feel like you should or have to? So many times I became too busy with the craziness of living—of making a home, of planning and cooking and sorting and…you get the idea…that it actually got in the way of my parenting. And then did I grow weary. I didn’t understand why if I was doing all of this to run my home, it was so exhausting and didn’t seem to yield fruit in my children. Determine what you really NEED to do…and do those things.

5. Get some end goal snapshots in your head.

Whether these snapshots are in the form of what you want in your home with your own kids in ten, twenty, or thirty years or in the form of other families who have done what you want to do successfully, these pictures are like goals in art form! Even thirty years ago, I knew what I wanted—I saw families with teens who were doing what I wanted to do in my home down the road. I kept their pictures before me—not as idols but as reminders that my goals could be met. I could parent in a character-training, heart-reaching way.

6. Enjoy your family.

Don’t get so caught up in goals and in big pictures that you miss what is right before you at this moment. I used to have this habit of breathing in the situation. When I was in the midst of family happiness, I would close my eyes, breathe in, and ask God to help me remember this moment. I know it sounds silly, but I can actually remember specific instances of doing that and where I was and what I was so happy about at that moment. (One of them is when my fifth baby smiled for the first time!) If we have children, we have so much to be thankful for and enjoy right there. Don’t let weariness steal that joy of family.

Don’t grow weary! It is worth it! You can do it!  🙂

The post Six Ways to Not Grow Weary in Well Doing appeared first on Character Ink.

I have probably said this a thousand times in the past twenty years of speaking to and writing for homeschooling moms: do your dailies! I learned this the hard way (by not doing my dailies!), and once I learned this TRICK (and it does work like magic, so I guess you can call it a trick!), my days were amazingly better.

Because I have spoken about it and written about it so much in the past, I won’t re-invent the wheel here. But I did want to jump in to tell you to trust this fifty-something year old, homeschooling veteran of thirty-one years. When I say that this is the first, albeit simple, answer to a homeschooling mamas problems of not getting things done or feeling overwhelmed, I know what I’m talking about! 🙂

There are two specific posts in which I teach about this—one for learning to do your dailies and one for learning to delight in them….so check them out below!

Delighting in the Dailies Part I

Delighting in the Dailies Part II

The post Getting Ready for School 2015: Delight in the Dailies 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.