How to Time Block To Get the Most Out of Your Homeschool Days

About: How to time block to help conquer chaos and achieve the peaceful and joyful-filled days you and your family crave.

Discipline and self-control are two gifts Erik and I aim to instill into our children as they grow. That’s why, even though I’ll always be a work in progress, I’ll continue striving to cut through the mental and physical clutter in life to get to the heart of the things that matter most.

I’ve found that there are three key areas I need to be super intentional with so that they don’t spiral out of control. Thos are our time, money and health.

Today’s topic is, you guessed it! Time. Through much trial & error, we’ve fine-tuned a tried and true process transforming our days for the better and eliminating our battle with time.

This process has also helped us to gain massive momentum in our homeschool days.

Enter: The Time Block.

Much like financial budgeting, time blocking can get a bad rap because it seems like it would be uncomfortable and restricting. However, telling your time (or money) where to go can be one of the most liberating habits you can instill in yourself and your family.

Here’s why:

When you get intentional about your time and determine beforehand how you will use it, you give yourself clear direction and, better yet, permission to let all other things go. Suddenly, your list of 45 “to-do’s” becomes a solid and doable list of 4-5 must-do’s.

Inevitably, things will pop up during these times. But the great news? Unless it’s something that is important and urgent, you have already decided that you’ll put anything that isn’t in your top 5 aside for another designated time.

If it doesn’t fit the time block, it will still be managed. Just not right this moment.

By time blocking, you effectively exit the reactive state and enter a proactive one.

Sound great but wondering where to start?

1. Complete a time assessment

To best appreciate how time blocking will serve you, you’ll need to understand how you’re spending your time each day.

To do this, download and print an hourly planner to log how you spend your time, down to the minute, each day. You can get mine here.

Over the next week, write down what you’re doing, down to the minute every minute of the day. Be especially mindful of your time spent on your phone and social media. One way to check yourself on this is with the Screentime feature on your phone.

2. Create a list of priorities

This can be done simultaneously with your time assessment.

In a journal-like format, or by using the guide in my time block assessment, walk through what an ideal day looks like to you. Get into the details here. What are three words you would use to describe the overall tone of your days? How do you feel? How do you interact with your kids and husband?

Make a list of 3-4 key areas you’d like to focus on. Mine, for example, are family time, household responsibilities, homeschool time, office hours, and me-time. (Okay, that’s five. 😃)

Another way you can create your time blocks is by the many hats you wear:

• I am a teacher
• I am a wife and mom
• I am a homemaker
• I am a writer
• I am a child of God.

The video below perfectly explains how those priorities should fall on our schedule. It aligns nicely with a book called First things First by Stephen Covey.

3. Establish Your Top Priorities

4. Subtract, Subtract, Subtract

Life is a series of choices. Every yes is a thousand no’s.

John Mark Comer, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

The next important task is to eliminate the non-essentials in your life. If you were honest and thorough in your time-blocking assessment, I’m sure you noticed at least one eye-opening trend with how your time is being spent that doesn’t align with your priorities.

The big ones for most of us tend to correlate with our smartphones: social media, email, and text marathons. If this is you too, I have some great news. This is the perfect place to begin taking back your time by removing them from your phone entirely!

Or maybe it’s the overpacked social schedule of your family that’s running you ragged and stretching you too thin?

Become ruthlessly picky about what you spend your time on.

Now’s the time to take out your weekly time assessment and unapologetically (and excitedly!) slash those non-essential items with a red marker.

5. Determine What Can Be Delegated

As moms, we’ve become conditioned to think that everything falls on us. That, somehow, we’re the only ones capable of doing what it takes to manage the household.

Not only is this untrue, but thinking that way is actually hurting your family.

Research indicates that those children who do chores have higher self-esteem, are more responsible, and are better able to deal with frustration and delayed gratification, all of which contribute to greater success in school (and life!). As quoted from The Center for Parenting Education.

In our home, chores and tidy living are part of our home-school philosophy.

Train a child up in the way he should go. And when he is old, he will not depart from it. -Proverbs 22:6

What from your weekly time assessment can be assigned to your kids as chores? Here’s a list of kid-appropriate chores by age.

6. Putting the Plan into Action

After you’ve identified your most important items and eliminated the time wasters of your day, your time blocks are halfway there!

Here are a few more pointers:

• Your top priorities will become your time blocks
• Your daily to-do’s should fit nicely into these blocks of time
• Plot your time blocks on a paper scheduler or a digital one. My planner of choice is Google Calendar paired with Google tasks.
• Watch my tutorial on How I Use my Google Calendar to Time Block.
• Wake up each day feeling excited and empowered!

Congratulations on taking an important step to taking control of your days. With practice and diligence, time blocking will be a key component that helps you conquer chaos and achieve the peaceful days you’re craving for yourself and your family.