daily to do list Archives

A Homeschooler’s Daily To-Do List

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To-Do List Please!When you’re a new homeschooler or even when you’re experienced, you can become overwhelmed by everything you think you should be doing in your homeschool on a daily basis. The good news is there’s nothing wrong with you! You may have just overloaded your to-do list. To save our sanity when we’re trying to add too many things to our days, I created a simple to-do list with six tasks that we can accomplish most days.

#1 Pray

As a Christian homeschooling family, this is foundational. I shared in the video below that we pray about what we’re thankful for, sorry for, and what we need help with. It never fails that when I’m feeling stressed, prayer will calm me down. We also pray for family and friends by selecting a few of the Christmas cards that are sent to us each year. Want to read more about establishing a family devotional time? Check out this post.

#2 Read

Reading is our favorite homeschooling activity. If it’s not your child’s favorite, check out these tips for reluctant readers. We enjoy reading individually, but love reading books out loud that correspond to our Mystery of History volume. One of our favorite books this year was Raiders from the Sea (a Christian fiction series about the Vikings). Reading is also a critical skill for our kids’ academic and life success, so it’s going to be high on our to-do list. I hope it is on yours, too.

#3 Solve

Math skills are also very important for life success. Avoid the college remedial math courses by making sure your kids are practicing their math facts, playing math games, and regularly learning math principles. We love Life of Fred math for this because it’s reading based and just plain fun. Check out my Homeschool Math board on Pinterest for some great activities to try.

#4 Create

I’ve written before about my angst about art, but I’ve found programs I really liked such as Atelier. But creating time (which is so important to our children’s happiness and future accomplishment) can be writing time, Lego time, robotics time, Minecraft time, or music time. Time to create and some basic materials are all you need.

#5 Test

Science is becoming more important to future careers than ever before. Doing experiments with a science curriculum you love (click to see a list of the best!) is a great way to give kids the opportunity to test their hypotheses, but nature walks are too. Cindy West has created an amazing curriculum for this purpose that you can use on the fly. There’s no reason not to put a little science into your day!

#6 Play

When the day becomes so crowded with seat work and classes and activities that there’s no time for play, there’s a problem. It’s even a problem when we don’t get time to play as homeschool moms. We all need a little margin in our day and dare I say it, a little boredom, to help us unwind and find our own fun. I think it’s really important not to dictate what the play time is used for, because then it isn’t really play. I do, however, believe in setting some screen time limits. I encourage you to pick up your free homeschool daily to-do list if you haven’t already! To-Do List Please!>If you already subscribe to Psychowith6, you’ll find the link to the Subscriber Freebies folder in your welcome email.

Is there anything else you think is important to do daily (if possible)? Let’s chat about it at Homeschool Sanity on Facebook.

Watch the Video on Homeschool Daily To-Do’s

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A Better Daily Weekly Monthly To Do List

One of my most popular posts is Can a Daily Weekly Monthly To Do List Help You Get More Done? Many people are looking for a to-do list that keeps their monthly and weekly goals in sight. There was just one problem with the form I linked to in my post: I didn’t like it.

I needed more room for my goals. So I embarked on a search! And I believe I have found two great options–one paper and one digital.

Before I tell you about them, I want to explain that a daily, weekly, monthly to-do list has made a world of difference in my weekly reviews. David Allen and many other productivity experts recommend a time of reviewing the past week and planning for the upcoming one. It’s advice that just makes sense. The problem is I wasn’t doing it. It seemed so dreary and time-consuming to look over all my tasks. Goals, on the other hand, are what I get excited about. If I can review my tasks for the purpose of setting weekly goals, the review doesn’t feel like drudgery. Then if you give me a beautiful form on which to record said goals, I’m in business!

A Better Paper Daily Weekly Monthly To Do List

I found a beautiful free form available in teal from Jana Laurene. But I paid a few dollars to get the forms in a number of different colors. I printed mine in gray so it wouldn’t look obnoxious on my refrigerator. I wanted it there as a constant reminder for me and also so my family could see what I was up to. The forms are two to a page, but I felt I didn’t have enough room to write that way, so I expanded mine to a full 8.5×11 in Word.

When completing the form, I found it helpful to note my appointments on various days, too. It’s much easier to plan a doable task load that way.

A Better Digital Daily Weekly Monthly To Do List

I found out about DayMap for iOS on Mark Forster’s forum. I watched the video explaining the rationale behind DayMap and loved the plain-spoken developer’s story. Then I downloaded the free version of DayMap to my Mac and HELLO! It was exactly what I’d been looking for and I didn’t even know it. (That’s kind of how it was when I met my husband, too, but I digress…).

Here’s how I use DayMap as my daily, weekly, monthly to-do list.

I listed all the main areas of my life across the top using the same titles and colors as I use in ToDoist.
I chose any tasks listed under each life area in ToDoist that I wanted to accomplish this month and added them to DayMap.
I upgraded to DayMap from DayMap Lite so that I could pull in Apple Calendar (which is synced to my Google calendar). That allowed me to see my commitments so I could plan my tasks accordingly.
I pulled monthly task goals from the upper life area to the day I wanted to achieve them.

There isn’t a weekly goal section per se, but seeing the entire week at a time gives me the same effect. It’s big and it’s beautiful. What’s more is there is a syncing iPhone app, so I can check tasks off as I go. And unlike paper, it’s easy to move tasks to a different day. I do this if I have a goal that requires daily work. I don’t check it off, but move it to do the next day as well.

Planned tasks are italicized in the area list above. Completed tasks are crossed out. It’s very possible to use DayMap as your only to-do list. But because I have so many email-associated tasks and one-offs, I will continue to use ToDoist as my catch-all list and DayMap for planning and goals.

My apologies to those without Macs, because I love this app! However, I have found that my readers prefer paper. So check out Jana’s to-do list and give it a whirl!