Earlier I shared how I have to have at least one day (preferably two) at home during the week. Nothing gets scheduled on those days, unless I have absolutely no other choice. This is a sanity thing. There are just too many worthwhile activites that pull at our attention, but it all sucks time and more importantly, energy.
A few years ago, when I first decided that we just had to have days at home with no outside obligations, I kept accidentally over-scheduling. With 4 homeschooled kids, a business, and numerous pets, it’s very easy to do. I had to come up with a better way.
Now, a few times a year, when it’s time to plan for the next school year or term, or sign up for activities, I use a weekly schedule spreadsheet like this to help me SEE where our time commitments are.
In Excel, I’ve created a weekly schedule spreadsheet (which you can download below), that I use as a template. Using color coding (one color per child, plus grey for drive time and whole family activities) I can very easily see where our time is commited. My goal is to create at least one to two days during school week (Monday-Friday) with NOTHING in it.
To start, I put in all the activities the kids and I wanted to do that term, then seeing the conflicts, I start whittling away (talking to the kids about it as I have to cut things.) Sometimes, if an activity (like Ballet) has an alternate time slot I’ll insert it on the calendar like this: (see the pink slots for Ballet)
That allows me to take a closer look at really what is possible. My goal is to create activity days, where if I’m going to consume energy running about, let’s just make it that type of day and if we can schedule whatever activities we can into it.
But sometimes it just doesn’t work out. For example, my nearly 7 year old’s speech therapy is offered through the public school system, and they only offer it to homeschoolers at one time during the week. That’s just the way it is. So we work around that.
I’m also looking for conflicts – where schedules overlap. I can’t be in two place at once and I refuse to run around with my head chopped off trying to get one child to one place and another child to another place. It’s not a productive, healthy mind-set for any of us. Using the chart, I can show the kids where there’s a conflict and we can discuss possible courses of action.
For example, my sons really wanted to take fencing this year. But fencing was only offered on Monday and Friday nights. My 9 year old son had to choose – fencing or cub scouts. He chose cub scouts. But having the visual helped him see what his choices were and how he wanted to spend his time.
Once I’ve figured out what the activity schedule is, I note each day as to whether it’s a Full schoolwork day or a Light schoolwork day. And then in the bottom part of my spreadsheet, I mark what subjects will be covered (in an ideal world) on each of those days.
Obviously I’m looking for balance and reasonable work load. It’s not fair to the kids to ask them to do 3 hours of book work on a day where we are only home for 30 minutes. Those are light schoolwork days – which for us means they must read something, write something, and do some sort of math. Most of the time that’s all done through act of being out and about and in the car.
This system has been great for saving my sanity and keeping the HOME in our homeschool.
If you are interested in trying this out for yourself, feel free to download and use the forms that I use. I’ve included a sample for you to get a better look at what this looks like.
Download the Excel file with both the template and the sample (two worksheet tabs in the workbook)
Note: You need a PDF reader to use the PDF file. You can get one free here. To use the Excel file, you’ll need Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice, or will need to upload the file into a web-based spreadsheet tool like Google Docs in order to work with it fully.
Sometimes I have to FIGHT to keep the home in homeschooling. I have to plan and preciously guard that home time.
If you’ve homeschooled for more than 6 months, you may understand what I’m talking about here. If you don’t homeschool, this is is the biggest fallacy about homeschooling… Homeschoolers don’t spend all their time at home!
In fact, there are so many opportunities that pull at our attention and time. In our house, just this year, we have speech therapy, cub scouts, sports, violin lessons, orchestra, tween girls, preschool group, art lessons, and Latin. And that doesn’t count all the errands, field trips, and everything we have to turn down that we might really want to do, but I have to say No to preserve my sanity.
I realized a few years ago that I must have at least one, preferably two days where we just don’t go anywhere, where we have no outside commitments. I adore summer months where we school, but don’t have activities…oh those days are great, because we get to stay home. There’s no drain from going from here to there.
But I digress… the point is sometimes, we just have to scheduleour days at home. And guard them. A few years ago, I came up with this system of making sure when I’m planning out the kids’ activities schedule that at least one day a week is at home, with no commitments. When you have a few minutes, check out part 2 for the details and free downloadable tools and samples
Eariler I shared that every December I spend a few weeks, reflecting about the previous year and where I want to go in the new year. Part of that process is looking at what I’m commited to for the new year, and clearly understanding what time I have available and what time is completely full.
This has become critical for me, because I tend to overcommit. Large, complex projects and say, baseball or soccer season, are usually not good mixes. I get stressed out and end up working a lot of nights. So, I’ve re-employed a technique I used to use when I was a training manager and coordinating software implementations, and that I used when I was coordinating communications projects – a Production Calendar.
Once upon a time I used to use a monthly calendar with big squares, so then I could just write events on a post-it note and move it around as projects moved around. Now I use a large, laminated, yearly calendar like this:
Using a color-coding system, I write with Vis-a-Vis markers any work commitments I have, any conferences I’m speaking at or attending, and any vacation time. So then I can see, from my desk, just by glancing up, what is going on when. The process also helps me see how my work is balanced through out the year (or not…)
Personally, I like to have alternating periods of intense work followed by really light work. One of my clients is a technical trade magazine that I help edit and coordinate the production cycle on. Every two months there is an intense burst of activity – a flurry to get things pulled together and out the door. After which, I really like taking some time off to just spend with the kids and do small projects. By looking at the production calendar, I can see where my ups are and where my down cycles are. And then I can plan accordingly.
It also helps me set expectations with my family. For example, last April looked like this:
I was away for a week, speaking at a conference, then came back to two very large projects overlapping each other. Not great planning on my part, but both timelines were set and needed my attention. By looking the calendar ahead of time, I could tell my kids and husband what to expect that month, and point to the next month and show them where the down time would be.
I usually set this up at the beginning of every year, and then update it as needed through out the year. My large projects are usually booked out months in advance, so that is helpful, but it also allows me to see where I might need to do some extra marketing work or what I call “stirring of the pot” to see if there’s any work coming down the line, or conversely block off time for known, upcoming projects and be able to say “I’m sorry my calendar is booked until…” if things are really busy.
This has been a great tool for me. It doesn’t replace my monthly/weekly/daily planning that I do, but it gives me a year at a glance to know what is coming and where I have some flexibility.
Now, I have to confess, most of the time I’m not doing some big ole process here. This is usually done in my journal or in my planner. This year I’m using an organizer, and I’ve found that I have the need to add new sections for goals that I’ve set that I keep coming back to, to refine the action plan. But last year, this was just done in my journal book.
I don’t do this on the computer usually. Mostly because I think differently on the computer than I do in writing. I’m not a linear thinker and I really just like to map things out visually and write in the margins. And I like being able to tweak and plan anywhere I happen to be.
Basically what I do is focus on one goal at a time (and remember, I limit the number of goals I have at any one time so I can really get them done), and map out what it takes to achieve the goal.
Sometimes it’s really simple. For example, during a rough patch in my marriage I was dealing with a lot of negative self-talk about my husband. Not productive. And definitely not helping me reach my vision as a wife.
With prayer and reminders that I need to work on myself instead of being critical of my husband, I set a goal to make sure I came up with at least one positive thing that my hubby did each day and thank him for it.
As an action plan, all I needed was to make a conscious effort to every day 1) recognize one positive thing that he did or said and 2) make a conscious effort to thank him for it (either via email or in person), and 3) when something negative comes into my head, to make a conscious decision to replace it with a positive.
That’s it. that’s all I needed to do to meet my goal. It was actionable, measureable, and it worked.
Sometimes my action plans are bigger. For example, we have a really big goal to pay off all of our debt by the end of 2010. To get to this goal, I’ve had to map out a much, much larger action plan.
I need small, measureable action steps, with points for victory. It’s just too overwhelming to look at that debt number. But when I mapped out the action plan, and saw how once certain small points were met things would move so much faster, it was much easier to wrap my mind around the fact that we could really achieve the goal.
It’s easier for me to claim victory at the small points, knowing that each small step achieved is helping achieve the larger, greater goal, and ultimately moving me closer to that vision.
So, the point of casting a vision for me is to understand where I want to be, for if I know where I want to be, I can work with God’s help to get there. But if I don’t know where I’m going, then I can’t complain that I’m not where I want to be.
Hope this series resonates with you in some way. If you are up to the task, I encourage you to cast your own vision, on paper (that’s key), for the different roles you have in your life. You don’t have to share them with anyone (this is the first time I’ve ever shared mine).
By the very nature of thinking through, praying about, and writing down who you want to be in these different roles you have, setting goals, creating actions plans, and working those plans, you have much better chance of growing into that person.
In this series, I’ve been sharing this concept of casting a vision. This isn’t a new concept, in fact you may have already done this for aspects of your life, I know I had, especially in the professional areas. Even the bible specially gives instruction to write down a vision (Habakkuk 2:2).
But the difference here is to cast your vision for all the different roles you have in your life, not just one aspect. If you haven’t already read how I’ve done this, here are the previous articles in the series:
Previously, I shared, as an example, my vision for myself. In some of the roles, I’m further along than in others. My house is still cluttered and often messy. But it’s improved over four years ago. As a professional, I’ve been blessed to be continually working, and my clients keep coming back.As a person I’m still working on being healthy, but I’m making progress. As a wife, I’m doing a much better job now than I was four years ago.
I’m still growing and I still need to look at this vision every year and pray asking for guidance. I pick out areas that I need to work on and make them my focus.
For me, I have to choose small, manageable, measureable goals. I can’t just say I want to be healthy or I want a clean, presentable house. I have to create measurable, achievable goals, and work toward them.
For example, last year, my health goals were to move every day and to eat breakfast every day.Did I do that? Not every day, but those goals were constantly in my mind. I measured myself against them.
What I’ve learned is that I need to break things up into small pieces, to allow for celebration of small victories, at achievable milestones. If I don’t, it’s too easy to let the goal slip away, to give up, or have to spend more energy filtering self-talk junk. None of which is productive.
I’ve also learned that I’m not super-human, super-mom, or super-anything. I just can’t do all things. I have to say “no” to things that I might really want to do, but don’t fall into the scope of my reality at this time. I also have to only choose one or two areas where I am going to focus my attention, and set goals there. Too many goals in too many areas is, for me, a recipe for failure.
Tomorrow I’ll share how I take the vision and goals and turn them into action plans.
Until then, if you haven’t already done so, cast your vision. Then I encourage you to take a look at your existing goals and see how they map against your vision. If you haven’t set goals for the new year yet, I encourage you to do so. Keep them simple, specific, and measurable. And write them down!! You’ll improve your chances of achieving your goals and your vision if you do so.
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