Time Management for the Busy Homemaker

• “I can't get it all done!”

• “There's too much to do in too little time!”

• “I feel overwhelmed!”

Do you ever feel that way? Then you will definitely want to get in on this brand new course: Time Management for the Busy Homemaker

Since we don't want to further overwhelm you, the course will only run for 5 days, and each day's lesson will be short.  However, the lessons will present you with steps you can take immediately to turn your life from feeling overwhelmed to having a manageable, stress-free routine that allows you to keep all the balls in the air.

Sound good?

Then sign up below to receive this 5 day course right in your inbox! (Psst…it's currently FREE!)

The Most Important Clutter To Remove From Your Life

Clutter.

It steals so much from us.

The more things we have, the more time it takes to maintain them. The more things we have to maintain and clean up, the less time we have for truly important things – our relationships with God and with others.

Over the past couple months we've been laser-focused in our home on removing clutter…and when we've removed a bunch, we go back through and remove some more.

But even more than removing clutter from my home, there is another, more important type of clutter that I must remove.

I must remove the clutter from my mind, heart, and schedule.

• I need to seek quiet from all the noise of the world around me so I can hear the spirit's still, small voice.
• I need to say no to unnecessary activities so I can spend a morning cuddled in bed reading books to my kids.
• I need to rest my mind from all the books, blogs, podcasts, Facebook posts, and Instagram photos that are constantly dangling themselves in front of my face so I can think clearly about what really matters.
• I need more space in my mind for memorizing and meditating upon God's Word.
• I need more time in my day for gentle hugs, story book reading, back rubs, bubble blowing, and whispered secrets followed by giggles.
• I need to feel unrushed and unfrazzled when my husband comes through the door at the end of the day so that I can fold myself into his arms with a long, lingering kiss instead of greeting him an appeal for help in conquering the unfinished business of the day.

I need the treasure of time.

Time to love God
Time to love my husband
Time to love my children

HOW CAN I FIND THIS TREASURE?

When I ruthlessly purge unnecessary junk from my attic, I find forgotten treasures buried there.  And when I ruthlessly purge clutter from my heart, my mind, and my schedule, I will find the treasure for which I long: TIME for the things that truly matter.

• • When I still the swirling thoughts of all the things I simply “must” do
  • When I say no to the activities that are merely filling up my time rather than intentionally building up my family
  • When I remove the clutter from my mind and heart…then I find
  • The treasure of looking deep into the eyes of a child as a I listen, really listen, to what he is saying. My mind is thinking only of what he is saying, not of all the reasons I must hurry away
  • I receive the treasure of spending intimate time with God, learning from his Word, and having a mind clear enough to listen as he speaks.
  • I can linger in prayer, where once I felt an urgent need to rush through what I had to say so I could plunge myself into the busyness of the day.
  • I receive the treasure of looking into my husband's twinkling eyes as we share an inside joke.  I can enjoy being swept into his arms in a playful hug and actually stopping to savor the moment instead of asking him to stop so I can get back to work.

MAINTAINING MY TREASURE

Once I've completed the initial purging, I must make regular decluttering a consistent habit, lest slowly and subtly I realize my treasure is once again buried in the recesses of the attic.

Friend, is your treasure in the attic?
It's time to dig it out. Haul out all the unnecessary items that are hiding the most valuable box you have. Get them out of your life! Find your treasure. Enjoy it. And when those gizmos and gadgets that look so appealing try to weasel their way through your front door, lock it! Don't let them in!

De-clutter your time. De-clutter your mind. De-clutter your heart.

Don't leave your treasure in the attic, unused and buried under piles of useless junk.

A New Year’s Word for My Worn Out Body

I have spent the past couple weeks mulling over the goals I'd like to reach this year.  And honestly it's been overwhelming just to try to plan what I'd like to accomplish, much less to try to actually accomplish it.

You see, I have some genetic mutations that often throw a kink in my day-to-day plans.  I never know when I'll be doing well and when I'll be doing…not so well.  When I feel good, I get all excited and make all sorts of plans and run like superwoman and do all the things.  But then, I get reminded that this body I live in is a little bit messed up.  I crash, and I do none of the things.  I drag myself around, trying to hold things together as best as I can until I have another upward swing.

Although I will never be “normal” and I will most likely always struggle with having bad days, I really would like for those to be as infrequent as possible!  But that's not going to happen if I lie around feeling sorry for myself.  Hiding under my covers and snacking on cookies is only going to make me worse off than I already am.
So as I've pondered what needs to happen to see some more improvement and hopefully see fewer bad days, I know deep down that my body needs some major TLC this year.  Don't get me wrong, I've been working on this for around, oh, maybe 5 or 6 years.  You would cringe to look at our grocery bill.  We buy organic fruits and veggies, pastured meat, raw milk, etc. – everything as high quality as we can get without being ridiculous.  Junk food and sugar is kept to a bare minimum.  But…I need more.

I NEED MORE:

1. Food

It becomes such a chore sometimes to make sure I'm NOT eating the bad stuff, that I just don't eat enough, period.  (Or else, I grab the “organic junk food” for a snack because let's be honest, it's easier to grab a bag of chips out of the pantry than to cut up vegetables and mix up some homemade yogurt dip.)

But I'm giving my body zero nutrition when I do that, and I need to quit making that a habit.  It's fine and dandy for a treat, but not for a regular part of my diet.

2. Exercise

Exercise is so hard for me.  With the problems I have, my muscles are very weak, my heart races, and I get out of breath very easily.  (As in, it hurts for me to brush my hair sometimes and I get so winded I can barely speak.)  However, I really feel that if I can push through some of that (in a very gentle way) to get regular exercise, it will end up helping me feel better.  Part of what keeps me sick is that my body is unable to process toxins on its own, so I stay full of junk, which makes me feel terrible.  But exercising regularly will actually help me get rid of some of those toxins and it will also send more oxygen to my cells, which will help to rejuvenate them.  It's going to take some pain and really hard work, but I need to do this if I'm going to have more good days and fewer bad ones.

3. Water

I'm doing pretty well with this already.  I got a huge water bottle that contains all the water I need to drink for the day.  Now I don't have to keep refilling something and trying to remember how much I drank.  I just make sure I drink one bottle full each day and I'm good.  I need to keep this up because letting up even just a little makes a big difference in how I feel.

All of these things are critical to my being the best version of myself I can be, yet they all to often get pushed to the back burner to make way for other, “more important” things.

I'd love to share with you all of the things I am determined to do in regard to caring for my body – things like eating the proper balance of protein, fats, and carbs; eating all of my meals at the same time each day; moving my body; doing regular detoxing regimens – but that would take entirely too long.

Besides, that is not entirely the point of this post.

Along with giving my body some major TLC, I need to do a better job of taking care of my family's health as well.  Too often I am struggling to drag myself through the day, which means they end up with peanut butter sandwiches for supper or whatever they can find in the fridge.  (Shout out to my mom who has cooked countless meals for us over the past couple years.  She has taken care of my family when I couldn't, even though she doesn't always feel the best herself.)

I want to focus heavily on preparing good food this year – for my own health and for the health of my family.  Some days I will probably not be up to it, but on the days when I am able, I want to put more time and effort into preparing good food.  I'll be honest and say that I have never enjoyed cooking and preparing food.  I really only do it because everybody needs to be fed.  Consequently, meal preparation gets treated like a dreaded chore – I put it off and do it half-heartedly when I finally get to it.  And the result is most often a less-than-stellar meal in the nutritional department (and not always big on taste since I'm being honest here.)

Side note: I think the real reason I dread cooking is because I am so messy!  I know I'm going to have a lot to clean up when I'm done, so I try to ignore the fact that it needs to be done and hope it will go away.  Only it doesn't.  So I might as well just choose to enjoy it!

Anyway, I feel like I'm starting to ramble, so I'll get to the big point of this post.

You know how it's popular to choose one word to define your year?  Sometimes I do it and sometimes I don't.  It just depends on how the Lord leads as I pray about and plan my goals.  I wasn't planning on choosing one this year, but last night as I stood at the sink washing carrots for supper (yay me!) a word came to mind that I realized was the perfect summary of my hopes and dreams for this coming year.

That word is:

NOURISH

I feel like focusing on this one little word will bring big changes in lots of areas without overwhelming me.  All I need to do is ask myself in each situation, “How can I NOURISH ____? (my body, my family, my spiritual life, my marriage, etc.)”

• I've started by rearranging our homeschool schedule to intentionally include cooking and baking time.  This will give me an extra hour each day to prepare food that will NOURISH our bodies.
• I will remember that word when I'm tempted to stay up too late at night, knowing that a good night's sleep is what will NOURISH my body best, and an early morning spent with the Lord will NOURISH my relationship with Him.
• I will remember it when it hurts to exercise, thinking of movement as nutrients and a lack of movement as junk food.  And I will NOURISH my body with the correct nutrition.
• I will NOURISH my relationships with my kids by choosing one-on-one time with them instead of indulging in too much “me time”.
• I will NOURISH my mind by picking up a good book before I go to bed instead of mindlessly scrolling through my Facebook feed.

I am thankful that the Lord brought this word to my mind because I believe it is exactly what my family and I need this year.

I will be sharing updates as I am able.

I'm looking forward to what this year holds!

Did you choose a word this year?  I'd love to know what it is!

Free Menu Planning Printables

Do you need help staying on top of menu planning?  I've created a set of free menu planning lists and shopping lists for you!  Pretty things always make these tasks more fun!

To receive the printables, just enter your information in the form below.

Yay!  Click here to download the menu and shopping list. Plus, check your inbox for another gift from me! 

The Crazy Easy Way I Plan My Menus With Trello

Have you all ever used Trello?  It's an app that can be used on your desktop, phone, or tablet, and I use it to organize pretty much everything! (It's also free!)  I can share boards with my husband, and they will sync to his phone or sync to the desktop.  So, for example since I make my menu and shopping list on Trello, I can have him stop by the store if he's out, and I don't have to give him a big list of stuff because it's already on his phone.

There is so much you can do with it, but I'm just going to show you how I use it to plan my menus and shopping lists.

Step One:

First, I created a board called “Menus”.  Here's what it looks like:

Step Two:

Now, on that board I can add as many lists as I want.  So you can see that my list on the left is called “Dinner Menu Ideas”, and then I make a new list each time I create a menu.

Step Three:

Once I create a list, I can create what are called cards.  I can also add as many cards as I want.  So I created a bunch of cards, each with a dinner idea. I added family favorites, and I also add recipes I come across that I'd like to try.  I name the card whatever the meal is, and then I can click on the card to add comments to it.  So I add things like the link to where the recipe is or tweaks I made to the recipe that we liked.

Now I have a good list from which to draw whenever I make my menu for the week, and I don't have to start from scratch.

Step Four:

Each time I'm ready to make my weekly menu, I create a new list. (I actually have been making a 2-week menu and shopping only twice a month.  It's working out great!)

I make a card for each day of the week, and then I click on it and add the meal I potentially want to have that day.  I try to think about what is going on that day and whether I'll need something quick and easy or a crockpot meal or whatever.  But I don't spend a ton of time thinking about it because I know things will end up getting switched around.  The important thing is that I know what groceries I need to buy so I have them on hand for whatever day I end up using them.

Step Five:

Once I have enough meals decided on, I go through and add all the ingredients to my master shopping list.  When things are busy and I don't have time to create a brand new menu, I just choose one that is already made, and I already have the week's shopping list made out for me.

I add every ingredient to the list even if I already have it on hand because if I ever use that list in the future I may not have that item on hand then.

Step Six:

If you're the type who wants to cross items off your list as you go, but you don't want to end up deleting all the items off your master shopping list, here's a way around that.  Click the card and select “copy”.  It will create an exact copy of your shopping list, and you can use that list when you shop.  Just open it up on your phone and delete the items as they go into your cart.

I am loving this system and how quick and easy it is!  And the great part is that it gets easier over time because there are more and more menus from which I can choose if I ever want to skip planning a new one.

If you feel cross-eyed opening up Trello, you could do this same system just using a notebook and pen.

Dedicate a page to your dinner ideas, and then dedicate a page to each week's menu and shopping list.  Save your notebook, and over time you'll end up with a nice collection of ready-made menus that you can pull out and use.

If that still sounds like too much work, there is always the option to use Build a Menu's “Done 4 You” menu plans.  Each week they email you a pre-made menu and shopping list.  And if you have special dietary needs, they have lots of options such as gluten free menus, paleo menus, Trim Healthy Mama menus, etc.

Meal Planning Made Easy (Free 5 Day Challenge)

Are you constantly overwhelmed and behind when it comes to meal times?

Do you find yourself resorting once again to cooking food from a box or can because you just don't know what else to make?

Do you feel guilty that you're not doing a better job feeding your family?

Does it seem impossible to cook healthy meals and still find time to fit in all of the cleaning, kid's activities, and some time for yourself?

You don't have to feel overwhelmed, guilty, or stuck any more!

Join the 5 day meal planning challenge, and learn how to:

• Plan meals quickly
• Feed your family balanced meals
• Cook extra to save for busy days
• Save money on your grocery bill
• Be prepared for meal times day after day

This challenge is available inside the free resource library. Sign up below to get this challenge and other great downloads for homemakers!