Mommy Homework: What are Your Secrets to Productivity???

Know God - with out this first step you may think and feel you are being productive - but it will only be as filthy rags!!

Know yourself - evaluate your strengths and weaknesses - then you can use them or deal with them.

Know your situation - don’t try to do things the way someone else does remember that your family and situation are unique. Make what you do to fit. You can indeed get ideas from others and put them into practice but remember to customize them to fit.

After getting to grips with these three steps this is what I came up with -

I took (and continue to take) it all to God in prayer. I realised that if something is not on a time table I tend not to get it done.

So I built a timetable which includes all of the things our family needs to get done and fits in round my husbands working hours. This includes quiet times, shopping, house keeping, homeschooling, meals, bath times, times to get up and go to bed, church and outside meetings. There are also times blocked off just for family time and time with my husband. This is not so much a minute by minute timetable - but there are certain things which will happen at a certain time - such as my husband leaving for work so I started with these and then filled in the blocks of time in between. Also I have not filled in every space to allow margin for the unexpected.

The other thing I use is note books which I have designed for different purposes. I have:-

A Virtuous Woman One with sections for A) Calendars and schedules. B)Housekeeping - chores lists and zones the house is divided up into C) Meal making - Menus, shopping lists, inventories and weekly meal plan with clip off shopping list. D) Child training with details of what we are currently working on. E) Devotions - at the moment this is Create in me a clean heart ( a devotion available on the internet) F) Bible - Life verse and ones for the year and Lists of verses such as once which show “who I am in Christ” - also bible reading plans and a list of all the studies I have available to do - I have a space to fill in start and finish dates. A list of the symbols I use for marking my bible and a list of study tapes I have available to use. G) Inspiration - 30 day husband encouragement challenge and inspiring quotes and stories. H) Goals - long and short term. I) Plans - for ideas I want to try out. J) Fellowship - with contact details and notes on anything people need help with. I also keep a couple of plastic wallets in there to hold my colour coding pens and some prayer cards.
A Homeschooling One - This is where I keep my lesson plans for future use as well as scope and sequence details and notes of how to teach and lists of recourses.
I have one for prayer with the details of all the things I feel lead to pray about and one to make notes in about different kinds of prayer and methods of prayer.
I usually keep diary pages in the Virtuous Woman one but have found it was getting to fat to use so this year I am having a separate diary instead I opted for 2009 Stormie Omartian Daily Planner for Women. I have put it in a floral needlepoint bible cover together with my ESV Compact wild rose floral design bible which I think is the prettiest bible I have ever seen and for me that adds a little something extra to my bible reading moments.
I have my mobile phone in the bible cover’s outside pocket so that I can set the alarm to ring to remind me to do the things.

But most of all what helps me is knowing that I don’t have to do it alone - I always have Jesus to lean on.