Let Your Schedule Guide You, Not Enslave You
People plan in a variety of ways.  Some people like lists, some like to check things off, some scribble on sticky notes all over their desks. Regardless of the way you like to plan or schedule things, most would agree that in order to homeschool successfully, you will need some sort of plan. The main thing all of us need to start with is a general layout, an overview schedule to guide us through our day, week, month, and year. Once that is taken care of, each of us can then choose a more tailored, detailed plan from there.
Avoiding Chaos in Your Schedule
When we don’t have a plan at all, things tend to get more scattered and chaotic. We may be able to keep things going smoothly for a short time but eventually we lose control. Lack of a plan makes it that much harder to get back on track.
Just the thought of coming up with a plan completely overwhelms some people. It feels like a huge, daunting task, especially when you have multiple children and yourself to plan for!
That’s why I suggest coming up with a generalized schedule to keep you in line. It helps avoid the chaos of no schedule but doesn’t require extensive planning that you feel like you would need a planner just to get started on planning!
Creating a Generalized Schedule with Homeschool Planet
I love using Homeschool Planet to develop my generalized schedule. I can go in and set my calendar to repeat something that I want to make sure to do every Tuesday, or I can schedule every detail of my entire school year for each child in every subject. I can stay as broad or become as specific as I want to because there are options, and because I am the one that gets to choose which options to use and when I want to use them.
Remember in all aspects of your homeschooling adventure that you are the one in control. You get to decide how you want to run things. That means if you decide you want to change things, you can do that as well. Allow yourself flexibility. When you have a general schedule that you follow with just broad guidelines, you can adjust it as you need to in order to make it to doctor appointments, redo an assignment, skip an assignment, or take care of anything else that comes up. You don’t want to put yourself in a position that you have no room for changing things up. This can cause a lot of pressure and stress and make things a lot less enjoyable for you and your children. Don’t forget that you’re homeschooling to better your children, not to emulate brick and mortar schools with a rigid, unchangeable schedule.
Adjusting Your Schedule Quickly for Change
Homeschool Planet allows for adjustments in the schedule in many different ways. There are probably ways to change things around that I haven’t even discovered yet. You can move things forward, backward, you can repeat things daily that you know you will want to be assigned each day that don’t have different pages or instructions from day to day such as multiplication cards or devotion time. Discover all the features Homeschool Planet has to offer and their tutorials here.
The most important thing to remember is to just start somewhere with something, even if it is as basic as assigning yourself to do schoolwork from 8am-noon each day. Once you get a start, and get to know your family’s ways, you will be able to fill in your blanks with more specifics. You may end up realizing that your family does better in the afternoon or that they like to start at 6 am. Whatever the case is for you, just try to keep yourself on some kind of schedule to avoid losing the control that you have been allowed by being placed over your children’s lives and education. This is the first and greatest ministry you have. That’s definitely worth keeping in order!
Meet Special Guest Author: Cindy Rose
