Hey, homeschoolers! I recently read Mark Forster’s book How to Get Everything Done and Still Have Time to Play and I absolutely loved it. It’s been another of his books that has been life-changing for me. In this episode, I want to share principles from the book that can help you accomplish your homeschool and other goals this year and have plenty of free time too.

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How can we possibly get everything done? We can’t. Mr. Forster is very clear that by everything, he means everything we have decided we can and must do. Most of us are trying to do way too much–too many curricula, too many activities, even too many fun things. Until we limit the number of tasks and projects and commitments we take on, we will continue to struggle.

With that caveat out of the way, let’s talk about the struggle to get everything done. I would say that all my life I have had the same issue: I do a good job accomplishing a few top priorities, but everything else seems to get put on the back burner until it becomes a crisis. For example, when I create a task plan for the week, quarter, or year, writing curriculum like Training Aliens or preparing for a Great Homeschool Convention is the top priority. Publishing this podcast is the next highest priority. But what about social media? That gets pushed aside along with website changes and home projects and I don’t even want to talk about taxes! I have a feeling you can relate.

For you, maybe it’s math and English that are prioritized, meaning that science experiments, foreign language, or art get put off.

I’ve shared before about loop scheduling being a great option for this. You have a day or a time block that you assign two or more activities to. Then you loop or rotate through them in order. If last time you did a science experiment, then today you’d do foreign language.

Theme days are another way of dealing with these lower priorities. If you never get around to decluttering your art supplies, you might dedicate Saturdays to decluttering. Or you dedicate the last day of the month to deep cleaning.

These approaches have worked for me for a time. But when I missed enough of my looping or theme days, I would usually determine that I needed to give up the activity altogether and focus on my top priorities. The negative cycle would begin again.

Enter Mark’s book, which sets the stage with a fairy tale. Story-based inspiration? I’m here for it. This fairy tale has the hero, Hans, seeking wisdom for getting things done so he can focus on his top priority–winning the princess’s hand in marriage. I found myself relating to Hans as he tried many recommended approaches to getting things done. They worked for a while and then led to the same problem of lower priority tasks becoming a crisis. Poor Hans struggled to be successful AND win the princess.

Enter Mark Forster as our wise guide. He suggests an approach that reminds me of what I had recommended years ago in a blog post I called How to Homeschool in an Hour a Day.

The idea is that you make a list of the top projects or life areas that you want to give attention to. This should not exceed 10 areas or projects. Homeschoolers can include the subject areas you want to cover in your day. But you would also include a home category with things like organizing, and hobbies you want to make take time for. Those of you who want to start a business would list a project for it as well.

My initial list included Writing Training Aliens Curriculum, Podcast publishing, Business Administration, Other Work Projects, and Social Media. I had a home and family category and a personal one. Before beginning to use your list for the day, Mark recommends having a task or checklist that you want to accomplish for each project or area. I missed that recommendation when I began using the approach, however.

Once you have your list of areas or projects written, you will write the number 5 next to each. You will then set a timer for 5 minutes and dedicate that time to the first area on your list. Mark mentions that you may be using that first 5 minutes to clarify your plan for that project. I set a timer and looked over my notes for writing a Training Aliens lesson. When the timer goes off, you cross off the number 5 and write the number 10 next to it. You will then reset the timer and proceed to work for 5 minutes on the next area on your list.

When you have dedicated 5 minutes to each area on your list, you will go back to the top and will work for 10 minutes on each area. When you have finished what you want to do for that area, Mark recommends writing a 5 next to that area. If you still have work to accomplish, you will increase the time by 5 minutes for each pass you make until you hit 40 minutes. After working for 30 minutes total (and not after finishing a task), Mark tells us to stop what we’re doing and take a 5 minute break.

This may sound confusing, but the bottom line is that we do a short burst of work on multiple areas throughout the day, adding 5 minutes to the time we work on each pass through.

One of the things that makes this approach so powerful is its adaptability. Mark gives many variations of the approach, using a smaller number of areas and different timing options. There isn’t a wrong way to do it.

As you consider trying this, think about using it for skill practice for you or your kids. Practice piano or foreign language for 5 minutes and then 10 minutes until you’ve met the daily goal. This approach would also work beautifully for exercise. I am not using it for that purpose because it’s already a scheduled habit for me. But it would be a relatively painless way of building the habit.

How to Get Everything Done & Still Have Time to Play is a quick and engaging read. I highly recommend it and giving it a try. It would be an engaging experiment for kids and teens, and may be especially useful for those with ADD. I wrote about many approaches like this in my book A Year of Living Productively. Thanks again to Now Programs for sponsoring the podcast.

Have a happy homeschool week!

The post How To Get Everything Done And Still Have Time To Play appeared first on Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.