How To Get It All Done As A Homeschool Mom

“How do you get it all done as a homeschool mom?”, I get asked this question often. And I feel the need to set the record straight for any of you who may think that I “get it all done.” Far from it!

I do what I can. Let’s be real…no one can do it all.

Everything is a give and take or push and pull. Inevitably we give up something in order to accomplish another thing.

The key is to know what to let go and what to pursue.

Just like so many of you, I homeschool three children, run my home, and have some outside obligations. My outside of the home obligations through the years have ranged from Bible studies, running my local homeschool group, and working from home.

One thing is for sure; I can have a lot going on at times. But I always make it a point to slow myself down when I feel like things are getting too intense.

I also have a few go-to organizational resources that help me to manage all I need to do. Since you may want some extra help when it comes to managing your homeschooling household, I will share with you how to get it all done. Or how I get more done, because ultimately you want to get more done your way.

What Do I Pursue and What Should I Let Go?

• Prioritize. It’s important to know what you should be doing and what you can let go of. I like to list out my priorities and see them on paper occasionally. It’s always a humbling reminder to see time with God at the top of my list, especially when I feel like I haven’t been prioritizing that.
• Listen to your instincts. When I realize I have been yelling at my kids for days, no one in the house is getting along, or I have spent way to much time focusing on something that isn’t benefitting my family – I know it’s time to realign some of my responsibilities.
• Pray. What is God calling me to do versus what I think I need to do? I have found myself pursuing projects that God probably didn’t give me clarification on, but I pursued them anyway and suffered the consequences. So praying and allowing God to lead you before you take the plunge into something new is always beneficial.

How To Get It All Done With Practical Trade-Offs

Here are some fantastic examples of what you can give up and what you gain in return for using various resources that can help you get more done at home.

By using a few convenience services, I can gain more time to plan for our homeschool, work from home, and plan better meals. We can maintain our daily routine better and thus homeschool more consistently with a few of these “helpers” in place in the seasons we need them.

Meal Services

Wait just a minute! If you struggle in the area of putting tasty homecooked meals on the table, this type of service can help tremendously. Maybe you don’t enjoy cooking, or perhaps you don’t have enough time each day. Either way, there are so many options now that can help you put quality meals in front of your family. And feel good about what they are eating. There is nothing to be ashamed about either! I would rather feed my family something nutritious than feel guilty for eating too much fast food.

Try out a company like Sun Basket for healthy family meals delivered to your door.

House Cleaning

I recently began outsourcing this task. But I made a choice for my own sanity. I want a clean home all-the-time. It helps me feel better to sit down each day in a clean home, and I can’t function at my personal best if my house is out of order. We do an excellent job of keeping our home clean in-between cleaning services, so we only use someone monthly or quarterly. But it is extremely helpful for us to have our baseboards, blinds, bathrooms, and floors deep cleaned occasionally. Because I need more time to work from home and homeschool, this one is a huge time saver for me.

Grocery Delivery or Pick Up 

When I had two babies at home, it was torture to go grocery shopping for a family of five with two kids under two. Even arranging someone to come sit with my children for an hour so that I could go grocery shopping felt like such a hassle. I would rather spend the extra efforts on meal planning, budgeting and grocery lists than shopping for them. When I found out that there was a grocery delivery service in my area, I was thrilled. I could focus on better meal plans and keep away from buying impulse items at the grocery store.

Try Out Shipt Grocery Delivery or Wal-Mart Grocery Pick Up

Shopping

Much like grocery delivery, shopping in general is time-consuming. I prefer the ease of ordering a book online, rather than spending an hour of my day to go pick it up. That hour can be used for something more valuable. Of course, if I am out and about and the bookstore is nearby, I will grab it. But, often, I order things from Amazon that I can get in a couple of days and it saves me hours of shopping. Clothing, books, movies are all ordered from the comfort of my home – no dragging three kids all over town to shop.

Try Out A FREE Trial With Amazon Prime

 

Don’t Judge Your Fellow Mommas For How They Get It All Done

Some of these resources are good for a season and some of them for extended periods of time. I don’t use all of the services at consecutive times. I used what I needed in each season. Each family and their lifestyles are different. Please don’t judge another mom for using services like this; not all of us have a mom or mother-in-law offering to babysit to help us get more done or help clean our homes.

If you are a mom in the trenches right now and you get offered help, take it! One of the biggest mistakes I made when I had my third baby was not taking help when it was offered. I didn’t realize how quickly I would burn out. And honestly, we can burn out at any stage of motherhood. So if we need to use a convenience service to help us multiply time or save our sanity, it’s ok.

All of our families just want a whole happy mom.

Secret Time-Saving Weapons To Help Get It All Done

Planning

One of my most critical time-saving tools is the ability to plan and stay organized.

• I keep ongoing lists for all types of things; books I want to buy, movies I plan to watch, and things I am keeping a lookout for to buy on sale. I use a set of list printables to customize everything I want to keep track of. And I like that they all match! Yep. I am weird like that.
• I cheat a little on some of my homeschool planning by purchasing quality homeschool plans that are already done for me so that I can save time. Here is an example of the curriculum we use for 9th Grade and Preschool/Kinder.
• I set aside time each week to plan for the next. For me, planning is crucial to keeping everything running smoothly in my home, homeschool, and life. I even plan out one-on-one time with my kids!

Get Off Social Media

• If there is one thing I can stress in this post…get off social media if you want to get more done. For moms, it can suck away time that we are better to spend elsewhere. Sure, we all scroll our social media feeds, but if you aren’t super diligent about protecting your time – it will suck away the minutes and hours of your day.
• Keep your self accountable by setting a timer when you get onto social media. Or plan to only scroll through once a day for 30 minutes. I took a significant hiatus from social media and realized how much more productive I was when I wasn’t looking at Facebook or Instagram each day. Try it; you will probably find out that you didn’t miss a thing.

Personal Growth

• I love to read, and my personal growth and spiritual growth are both extremely important to me. So I listen to many of my books on audio while I put on my makeup each morning. It’s multitasking, and it works. Usually, I have 20-30 minutes that I can “get ready” for the day, and I listen to the Bible on audio or whatever book I am into at the moment. Audible helps me to squeeze in more time to read.
• Work or read at the park. I love my kids, but as a homeschool mom – we are together 24 hours a day. So yeah, I am the mom who may read a book while my kids play safely right in view. I might even take my laptop to the park and let them run out some energy while I catch up on emails or projects.

Try Out A FREE Trial With Audible 

 

 

Grace

One of the biggest lessons I have learned as a mom and homeschool mom is to give myself grace. Not every day is going to be a home run in every department. I have to maintain balance in homemaking, homeschooling, work, motherhood, friendships, marriage, and more. But as long as I have made progress each day somewhere, that is essentially what counts in my book.

I may have to toss the plans out the window to coach a child all day with a heart issue or skip the work I wanted to do that night to spend extra time with my kids or husband because the relationship needed it that day. Whatever it is that I give up to pursue something else, I give myself a little grace by not beating my perfectionist self up! Tomorrow is another day, and I will make progress again wherever it is needed.

I hope that I have given you some practical tips and ideas for how to get it all done YOUR way!