One Bite At A Time

I'm sure many of you have heard the old saying, "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!" Well that old saying can apply to so many areas of our life in terms of priority and organization. Today, for example, I had about thirty things on my "to-do" list and almost half of them were home school related. I'm determined to stay on top of school with the boys during this first semester so we will have a great start under our belts by Christmas. As I sat in the waiting room at my doctor's office this morning, time was ticking by and I realized I would normally be sweating bullets by that point because of all the valuable time I was wasting just SITTING waiting for my turn to be seen. Luckily, I thought ahead and brought my household notebook (including my lesson plans) and one of the books I'm currently reading. The book happens to be "Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit" by Terri Maxwell. One of the chapters was on...of all things...Organization! The chapter was full of great information, but one thing stood out to me above everything else. That is the concept of moving on to a new thing every thirty minutes. This is especially helpful, not only for your household projects, but with children in general. Most people function better on a schedule, and when you're changing your activity every thirty minutes, you never really have the opportunity to get bored or burnt out on any single activity. My boys have certainly responded well to this concept and I've found that I've been much more productive this way as well! Our kitchen timer was set for 30 minutes today and I was amazed at how much I got accomplished during those thirty minute segments (when they weren't committed to helping the boys with school). For example, in the first thirty minutes after lunch this is what I did:
washed lunch dishes by hand
put three loads of laundry away (that was a miracle in itself!)
cleared off and reorganized my "junk table" in our office
swept the kitchen
made more sweet tea (that's my fuel!)

When all was said and done, I was at the doctor's office for two hours. However, by the time I left I had finished my book and double checked all of my lesson plans as well as the rest of my to-do list. By the time I got home, I felt rejuvinated and completely prepared for the rest of my day.
~audrey