Productivity is about getting done all the things that YOU want to get done. If you’re constantly ending your day wondering where the time went and you’re never making progress towards your goals, you need to focus on increasing your productivity. And in this blog post, I’m sharing my top tips on how to be more productive as a homeschool mom. As a working homeschool mom of 3 who runs a consulting business, blogs on a regular basis and still manages to have hobbies while also cooking and keeping a tidy home, I swear by these productivity principles.
Hot Coffee
Before I even start this blog post, I’m going to give away my first tip: for the love of caffeine, stop complaining about never getting to drink your coffee while it’s still hot. Pour your morning coffee in an insulated to-go mug and drink out of that. It stays warm until you have a chance to enjoy it all and it has the added bonus of a lid to avoid spills. You’re welcome. Moving on.
Less Mess is Less Stress
I’ve already said this on the blog before, but if you’re trying to improve your productivity and your space is always a mess, that’s the first place to start. If you can’t keep your environment clean, you have too much stuff. Full stop. Are kids messy? Absolutely. But that isn’t justification for living in a mess all of the time. If you and your kids can’t clean up your home after playtime in 15 minutes, they have too many toys. Either start donating or start using the rotation method. (Only allow so many toys out and available to be played with at a time. And rotate these on a regular basis depending on what your children’s interests are.) Also, have designated times to reset and tidy up. For us, that’s when dad is on his way home from work and again right before bed. Dad gets to walk into a clean space when he gets home and we all get to wake up to a clean space.
Take Inspiration from Elite Performers
If you study the habits of top performers, like competitive athletes or CEOs, you’ll start to notice some patterns. One thing they all have in common is that they prioritise their health. They exercise regularly and they eat healthy. This is not a vanity issue – this is an essential part of operating at peak efficiency. In order to do everything you want to do in a day, you have to have energy. And the only way to have energy is to take care of your body. Exercise and eat healthy. You know you know what you should be doing. And now you know that I know that you know it. No excuses. This homeschool mom life is intense. You have got to make your health a top priority.
Time Block Your Week
You’re probably familiar with the expression “A place for everything and everything in its place”. Time blocking is basically “A time for everything and everything in its time”. It’s the open secret to getting everything done and having time to relax. And you can fully relax because you know that you have thought through your responsibilities and you have a time allotted to taking care of them all. Just don’t forget Parkinson’s Law when time blocking. For example, if you give yourself all day Saturday to clean your house, it’s going to take you all day. Schedule house cleaning in a two-hour block and you’ll be amazed at just how fast you can get it done.
Schedule Your To Do List
Having a to-do list is a great starting point, but if you never make any headway on that list, you’re wasting your time. Stop copy/pasting your to-do list every day and when a task gets added to your plate, schedule it. Either that day or sometime later that week. If it’s not urgent, schedule a time to come back to it and take it off today’s list. There’s no sense having an “open tab” in your brain for something when you can just schedule a time to think about it later.
Early Wake Up
I know everyone talks about this, but just in case you’re tempted to think it isn’t necessary, think again. If you’re not getting up early and you don’t have a plan for the week, let alone your day, then you’ve already lost. What is early? Now that’s up to you. It doesn’t have to be 4 or 5. It could be 6 or 7 depending on your family and how old your kids are. As long as it’s early enough that you can get yourself together – accomplish the things you need quiet for – and not react to your day as it unfolds.
Organization is not Optional
Being organized isn’t just a personality type. If you want to be productive, you have to be organized. When I have time to work on my business, or this blog, I know exactly where to start and what needs attention. Your laundry should have a system. You should have a meal plan in place, even if you don’t follow it exactly. If you want to accomplish a lot during the day, you have to have things streamlined. You must be organized. You cannot live in a tidy home, know what’s for dinner and be able to knock out some work for a client when you have a spare half hour if you are not organized.
Don’t Gratitude Journal – Track Everything Instead
These days, everyone is waxing eloquent about the benefits of gratitude journaling. I say give this a hard pass. Not because I’m not thankful to God every day for the life that I have, but because taking the time to grab a notebook and write this down does not seem like the best use of my time. Instead, I grab my phone (because it’s always on hand) and I track my goals. I track those things that are not where I want them to be – like my water intake. And I keep track of every litre. You can’t improve what you don’t track. The book The 12 Week Year talks all about this and it’s amazing. Listen to the audiobook and you won’t regret it.
“The greatest prediction of your future is your daily actions. Scorekeeping – knowing your stats – your measurements – is critical.” ~ Brian P. Moran (The 12 Week Year)
Incremental Stacking
If you’re trying these tips and it still seems like you’re not able to accomplish everything you want to do, keep in mind the concept of incremental stacking. It’s the key to increasing your capacity for hard things. Add on one hard thing at a time. Get it down until it feels easy and then add something else. Repeat until you feel like you’re doing what you want to be doing and aren’t overwhelmed.
For example, if you want to start exercising, you want to start a business and you want to add a new school subject to your homeschool schedule, that’s awesome. But don’t add them all at once. That’s a recipe for burnout. Try incrementally stacking them instead. First, add a workout to your daily routine. Just that. Do it every single day until it’s officially a habit. Then start on your business. Get a routine down and keep at it until your routine feels easy. Then add that other subject to your school calendar. It’s going to be hard at first. But keep at it until it feels easy because it eventually will.
Back to the Coffee
When it comes to productivity, you have to always be on the lookout for ways to improve your efficiency. So let’s go back to the coffee example. The first day you go to drink your coffee and it’s cold, you think “that sucks” and let it go. The second time you go to have a sip of your coffee and it’s cold, you think “not again!” The third time you try to finish your coffee and it’s ice cold, you should be saying to yourself, this is a pattern and I don’t like it. Instead of complaining about it, what can I do to avoid this outcome? Make a conscious effort to start noticing patterns when things don’t go the way you want. Then reflect on the cause and start tweaking your routines to fix the situation.
Have you tried any of these tips? Do you consider yourself a productive homeschool mom? What tips would you add?
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