If you’re anything like me, you find dozens of great ideas you could use to get and stay organized in your homeschooling and life. The problem is overwhelm! Where do you start? It often feels like you aren’t organized enough to get organized.
I’ve been there. In fact, when I gave homeschooling a try by teaching preschool 14 years ago, I was convinced I had to quit because I was so disorganized.
- I was constantly forgetting appointments
- I couldn’t find anything
- The laundry piled up
- I didn’t follow through with my curriculum
- The stress made me short-tempered with the kids
Little did I know that homeschooling was the perfect remedy for a disorganized mom like me. I saw how incapable I was of doing what God had called me to do. It didn’t happen overnight, but today people consider me an organized person.
I’ve come a long way, but I still seek ways to make our homeschooling, home life, and work function as efficiently as possible. I’ve noticed that there aren’t a lot of organizing missions tailored to families who homeschool, and that’s too bad. We have specific organizing needs.
If you can relate, I invite you to join me for a year’s worth of challenges that will help us get organized enough to do all God has called us to do.
Find all the challenges at the Organize Your Homeschool page.
On Mondays, you can read the post, then do one 15-minute mission each remaining weekday, do an hour session over the weekend, or anything in between. One thing I forbid you to do is beat yourself up for not doing every mission. I’m telling you right now that I’m not going to do every single mission as scheduled! There are more important things in life than organization.
But if we do even a few of these missions this year, we will have a better homeschool than we had last year! That’s something to be excited about.
Please also follow the Organized Homeschool board on Pinterest for up-to-date great ideas for each challenge. Be sure to tell your friends about the challenge, too. Getting organized is always more fun with friends. If you haven’t already heard it, I invite you to listen to the Easy Way to Get Organized podcast on The Homeschool Sanity Show. I share ideas for how to get the most out of this challenge and share my fellow homeschoolers’ and podcasters’ best organizing tips.
I’m looking forward to getting organized with you this year!
Please share your organizing progress, tips, or related blog posts in the comments or on Facebook.
Linked with Happy and Blessed Home
“Little did I know that homeschooling was the perfect remedy for a disorganized mom like me.” I love this! So many people tell me they could never homeschool because they are too disorganized or not patient enough. But when you look at it this way, you realize that you don’t have to be organized or have the patience of a saint to homeschool – you just have to be willing to let God work in your life. He certainly has given me much more strength than I ever knew possible, because of homeschooling.
I’m in for your challenge!
Sarah, that’s great. I’ve been checking out your flash Christmas challenge. What a wonderful concept! Most things that actually happen in my life are “flashes.” That’s ok. Whatever works, right? I’m with you on hearing that people aren’t organized enough to homeschool. That makes me laugh, if by that they mean I was so organized when I started. My disorganization made me feel more insecure than anything. I’ve really grown in that area, though I will never be perfect. That’s ok. I’d have no friends if I were perfect. 🙂
I didn’t think I could possibly love your blog(s) more, and now this! Thanks for dedicating the time to come up with this organization challenge. Can’t wait to start!
What an encouragement you are to me. Thanks so much! I’m looking forward to it, too.
We’ve been homeschooling going on our 3rd year…and every single bullet you listed above describes me to a T. So much so that my mom recently told me maybe I should pray to see if I’m not meant to homeschool my children. In my opinion, THAT is not an option so it is a blessing to have come across your blog, this challenge and the encouragement I need to keep going. There are more days than not I want to give up but I know this is my calling from the Lord. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and experience with those of us just starting out. (even though it’s 3 years, I still feel like a newbie)
Carisa, I hope you’ll keep tracking with us, even if you feel like you’re not doing everything right. That’s the key. No one is going to do every single one of these challenges to the letter or they wouldn’t be disorganized! God created us in a certain wonderful way. Our greatest strengths may not be in the area of organized living, but we can absolutely be organized enough to fulfill the Lord’s callings. I’m so glad you commented. It wasn’t like I started homeschooling and poof! I was organized. It’s been a process. It STILL is! But every year it’s getting better. I refuse to believe the lie that you and I can’t do it. Sending you a homeschool friend hug.
Looking forward to the challenge. 🙂
So excited you’ll join us! I’m interested to see how you like the daily missions.
Ok, I’m forwarding this to my wife since she’s the keeper of our homeschool calendar. Thanks for the resource.
That’s wonderful, Caleb. My guess is she will have many of these missions down. 🙂 But everyone can tweak, right? Have a merry Christmas!
I tried to download the January calendar and it said “not a PDF or corrupted”. Just wanted to let you know…would love to have the calendar. KJD
Kelly, it’s working for me. Try this direct link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mgqnant0uh7hzcj/January%202014.pdf
Wow.
I don’t even practice asking God for a “word” for the year, but I was thinking He gave me a word, anyway, and it was “organize”. There is so MUCH I need to organize, because, you see:
I’m a retired home educator.
This means my kids are grown and gone and everything that gets done is my job, alone, now. Whew!
I used to be so organize, knew how to turn my six children into great helpers and to keep them motivated and producing.
Now, I need to figure out how to do that to myself.
So I’m in! 🙂
Katharine, I love that you feel this is your encouragement from the Lord. I hope these challenges inspire you. Some of them will no longer apply to you. If you want just decluttering challenges, I highly recommend http://home-storage-solutions-101.com.
No. More than decluttering, but more like a new reason to be self-disciplined, since my precious charges are no longer watching their mom set examples.
I need to work as hard as I did when it was imperative that I set a good example. Because the angels are watching. 🙂
What goals do you have, Katharine, that will motivate you?
Motivate me to organize? Hmm. Maybe none. Maybe just to be all I can be for the Lord.
My days are filled with being a pastor’s wife, tutoring, trying to finish the Bible study I started writing, teaching the women at church. I think all my goals pull me away from organizing the house. I’m organizing the church library, for instance, or donating time to the local public librarian who recently had a stroke and needs a bit of help getting caught up.
I do a lot and am motivated to do the things I do, but my personal organizing? I was just thinking a list would help. A bit of accountability would be what I need. Does this answer your question?
You sound like you know what you need. I think you’re going to have a very organized year. 🙂
I could so relate to this post that it brought tears to my eyes! Excited to read more!
That’s great! They are all there for you whenever you’re ready.
So excited for this! I love organization and am looking forward to refining our homeschool 🙂
Great! Summer is a wonderful time to start. Best wishes with the process.
Hi! I downloaded your Home Org book and am excited to try the 52 weeks of challenges this year (or some of them!).
Do you have a blog post written where you go over how you work Flylady into your life, specifically? Like what your home routines are? I’m looking for big picture help in getting this altogether. I’ve done Flylady before, and I’ve tried the Home Routines app. Looking for the best way to keep it all going. (I am also a homeschooling mom of 6 – 5 boys and 1 girl! One of our boys is adopted and has learning and behavioral challenges.)
Deborah, so nice to meet you! We have a lot in common. My routine is always changing with my family’s needs. Here is one post from several years ago where I discuss it. https://psychowith6.com/how-to-schedule-your-homeschool
We do daily chores as a family in the morning. That’s when I typically do my decluttering and organizing. The kids have afternoon chores (vacuuming, dusting) that help a lot. I typically do my own laundry and deeper cleaning in my own room on Saturdays. I try to schedule doctor appointments on Monday afternoons and grocery shopping on Friday afternoons. Everything else is done by having the kids help do chores morning and evening. Here’s more on that: https://psychowith6.com/an-easy-free-chores-for-kids-checklist-that-works/ I hope that helps some. 🙂
God Bless you! You certainly have your hands full! I am ashamed to say that I feel incredibly overwhelmed on a daily basis and I only have 3 children, one of which is almost 18 (the other 2 are 6-almost 7 and 9-almost 10). I know organization is one of my biggest downfalls and accounts for a lot of my failures. I truly believe that if I could get organized, it would help, not only with homeschooling, but also with my weight, stress level, pain level and many other things (including depression). I pray that these challenges can help me. Thank you Deborah and Dr. Mel for sharing your stories and words of wisdom!
Jen
Jen, I had a friend who tried to excuse my disorganization on account of my then three children. I told her I was just as disorganized BEFORE I had kids. I pray that you will say WHEN you get organized, because if I can be, you can be. Commit to spending 15 minutes a day or an hour a week on the challenges and you will experience a big change.