photo credit: www.123rf.com
This week we had a ‘family project day’ – that is where I have things that have to be done and the kids need to help out. Our project was cooking – the girls were on Mainly Music morning tea, the family is on the morning tea roster after Church, and we have billets coming to stay with us for a week and I wanted a few things in the freezer for that. So our number one priority was cooking.
The other set of priorities were our lessons – this week we wanted to get back to our study routines and be diligent with our lessons. Each child has a priority driven list for their independent study time.
How can both these priorities fit in the same time slot?
This is how I explained it to my children: I want at least one person to be cooking in the kitchen at a time, while you clean up you let the next person know they can move in- we will play tag in the kitchen today. Cooking is our priority. For the time you can’t work on that priority – you have your other priority to work on – your lessons.
This is a hard thing to balance but we must be able to know what is more important at any given time. This is the act of thoroughness and it will stop us from
- being in overdrive – trying to do it all or
- procrastinating because we can’t do it all
Another way to say it is to have plan A and plan B. When plan A (cooking) is not happening we go automatically to plan B (lessons). This is a key mindset for discipleship homeschooling – there will always be interruptions, distractions and other opportunities. We have to balance it all and have a clear plan for our days (well, as clear as we can!)
