Art of Homeschooling course: https://simplyconvivial.com/art-of-homeschooling

Mystie Winckler, a seasoned homeschool mom and author, addresses how to keep kids accountable during homeschool days. She offers three practical tips to create accountability, reduce nagging, and ensure students know their responsibilities. The strategies include using checklists, designating a place for work submission, and enforcing daily deadlines with consequences. 

Mystie emphasizes clear communication and consistent enforcement to teach responsibility. She also highlights the importance of parents holding themselves accountable. Join her course 'The Art of Homeschooling' for further guidance.

00:00 Introduction to Homeschool Accountability
01:44 The Importance of Checklists
04:27 Creating a Turn-In System
09:28 Setting Daily Deadlines
12:30 Accountability for Homeschool Moms
13:03 Join the Art of Homeschooling

Mystie Winckler encourages moms to organize their attitudes and get traction at home so we are no longer overwhelmed or frustrated with homemaking. We are a community of Christian women striving to be competent, cheerful homemakers so we are fruitful, faithful, and hospitable. Subscribe for regular encouragement!

📖 Get my latest book - Simplified Organization: Learn to Love What Must Be Done
https://www.simplifiedorganization.com

🏆 Enroll in Convivial Circle and get practical homemaking mentorship so you don't have to be overwhelmed anymore: 
https://www.simplyconvivial.com/stop-overwhelm

Take Art of Homeschooling: https://simplyconvivial.com/art-of-homeschooling

Mystie Winckler, a homeschool mom of five and author of 'The Convivial Homeschool,' shares her three favorite practices to ensure a smooth start to the homeschool day. Mystie emphasizes the importance of self-preparation, choosing a consistent starting place, and using a motivating motto or verse. She breaks down how these steps can set the right tone for a productive day. Mystie invites viewers to join her in further exploring these ideas through her course, The Art of Homeschooling, and follow her podcast for more insights.

00:00 Introduction and Personal Background
01:36 TIP 1: The Importance of a Self-Preparation Routine
06:27 TIP 2: Choose a Homeschool Day Starting Space
08:59 TIP 3: Using a Motto or Verse for Focus
11:40 Get Homeschool Accountability!

Mystie Winckler encourages moms to organize their attitudes and get traction at home so we are no longer overwhelmed or frustrated with homemaking. We are a community of Christian women striving to be competent, cheerful homemakers so we are fruitful, faithful, and hospitable. Subscribe for regular encouragement!

📖 Get my latest book - Simplified Organization: Learn to Love What Must Be Done
https://www.simplifiedorganization.com

🏆 Enroll in Convivial Circle and get practical homemaking mentorship so you don't have to be overwhelmed anymore: 
https://www.simplyconvivial.com/stop-overwhelm

Assess your homeschool sitch with this free guide: https://simplyconvivial.com/audit

Discover why we decided to stop homeschooling year-round in this video. There is no perfect one-size-fits-all homeschool schedule - or even one-size-always-fits-you schedule! We have to be flexible and adapt to our changing family needs - which is one reason that we homeschool in the first place! Learn about the benefits of taking breaks and avoiding burnout as a homeschool mom.

Mystie Winckler encourages moms to organize their attitudes and get traction at home so we are no longer overwhelmed or frustrated with homemaking. We are a community of Christian women striving to be competent, cheerful homemakers so we are fruitful, faithful, and hospitable. Subscribe for regular encouragement!

📖 Get my latest book - Simplified Organization: Learn to Love What Must Be Done
https://www.simplifiedorganization.com

🏆 Enroll in Convivial Circle and get practical homemaking mentorship so you don't have to be overwhelmed anymore: 
https://www.simplyconvivial.com/stop-overwhelm

Planners can easily be time-wasting rather than time-managing. How do we make sure our attempts at getting life together are going to be helpful and useful? I have three keys that will ensure they are.

Take the "Get Organized" Quiz - https://www.simplyconvivial.com/quiz - it will tell you what you should work on next to make the most progress, quickly.

Is life about getting more done? Are we too busy or are we too lazy? Perhaps we're careening between the two ditches.

What's a mom to do? Think true things. Listen up.

Free download: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/mindset

Your mindset as a mom matters and it's within your power to change.

Get organized quiz - https://www.simplyconvivial.com/quiz

Your mom tells you to make your bed.

The internet tells you to make your bed.

The productivity gurus tell you to make your bed.

But why???

Camaraderie-style accountability can help us spur one another on to any sort of good work: homemaking, homeschooling, holiness.

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works – Hebrews 10:24

Camaraderie-based accountability doesn’t have to be official, with rules and agreed-upon terms. If rules float your boat, lay some out; remember, however, that our lives demand flexibility. Hold the rules loosely, as guidelines, not as whips. If rules scare you, you don’t need them! This is really just a friendship-maker. Make a regular and routine topic of conversation what you’re up to and encourage each other to dig in and do the work with a cheerful heart. It can be very natural and informal.

Really, friendship-based, informal accountability is a way to do life together. In this way we keep track of what’s going on in each other’s lives and we can pray specifically and also encourage meaningfully and practically – perhaps even by lending a hand or an ear. It doesn’t have to look or sound spiritual or deep – yet it is. It is sharing the burden, even the mental burden, in an everyday, practical way.

The truth is that we care more when someone we care about cares.

Care is at the heart of motivation, and care is something we can give one another.

That is, when we have a friend who cares about our eating plan, our home routines, or our Bible reading habits, it helps us care more, too. That little extra nudge might be all we need to make it over the momentary emotional (i.e. motivational) blips.

Who can you walk alongside with camaraderie and care, and how will you regularly keep open the lines of communication?

Free guide to make your own housework system: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/2016/personalized-housecleaning-plan/

And our housework needs a framework just as much as anything else we do or use. We need to have an underlying structure that gives shape to our days and support to our sanity.

Without a framework, we’re sloppy, floppy, and choppy. We do this and that, here and there, and never feel like we’re getting anywhere – because we’re not.

So push pause.

Take some time out of the random peppering of chores and give yourself a framework that will make consistency possible.

Hang your habits on hooks.

 Your habits will be more successful and stick sooner if you hang them on hooks already in your day.

Think in threes.

So make it easier to get started by narrowing down your focus to three things.

Move into maintenance mode.

Maintenance and “getting ahead” are two entirely different modes. Catching up and getting ahead is extra. Maintenance is daily, without fail, repetition.

Be ready for hospitality with my free tidy house guide: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/ehap
Read the article here: www.simplyconvivial.com/hospitality/

So, we know that our home is for hospitality, but it seems so hard – it’s extra, and we have no room for extra. We want to know how to be hospitable, but it doesn’t come naturally.

The one thing that makes hospitality so difficult is that we are out of practice.

It is easy to slip into selfish patterns: doing what needs to be done on our own agendas, taking a break, keeping to ourselves and our own thoughts. Instead, we need to practice the habit of hospitality.

The being hospitable includes but is much broader than having people over for dinner. It means inviting people into our lives – even the people that live in our houses.

It is not enough to simply share a roof with people. We need to share a life – a full life, a conversational life – with them.

Get a tidy house: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/ehap --free guide

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a homeschool mom in possession of a large family must be in want of a housekeeper.

That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?

Some families can actually swing it, but most of us are on our own when it comes to keeping up with both school and home.

Of course we can bring the kids on board, and sometimes husbands can lend a hand, but there’s still a lot to do.

Our homeschool year is over, but this is the perfect time for a home routines audit as well as a homeschool audit – look at what worked and what didn’t, and figure out what to do this summer to set ourselves up for a better year next year.

I often hear from women who say they were organized when they worked in an office, but they just can’t manage to be – or at least feel – organized at home.

What makes it so hard to stay on top of basic tasks? Why is organization so hard to maintain?

I think it’s due to both the open-ended and repetitive nature of the job.

There are no bosses, no managers, no teachers. There are no paychecks, no grades, no due dates.

The tasks, once done, need to be done again, so there’s never the accomplished feeling of finishing.

We have to not only make our own plan, but also be the one to follow through on the plan without oversight.

Some of us are good at making the plan, but bad at follow-through. Some can follow a task list, but are less comfortable making that list themselves.

So homemaking ends up being a challenging position.

However, like entrepreneurship, it also offers a unique opportunity to shine, to grow in capacity, and to find fulfillment and satisfaction.

My book - The Convivial Homeschool: https://amzn.to/3rhFLBA

We homeschool to avoid the factory model and give our children an effective learning environment rather than an efficient one. Thus, our home life and our various ages working alongside one another is actually a perk, not a problem.

So what do you need to classically homeschool multiple kids? You need good books, time to read and talk about them, thoughtful and engaged brain work, encounters with the real world, and discipleship into living well alongside others. All of these things the home and family come fully equipped to provide.

We can’t homeschool well without confidence and independence – freedom – of mind. Classical education should bring both confidence and freedom by its very nature. If it doesn’t, it’s probably not actually classical. 

In The Liberal Arts Tradition, Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain use this definition: 

“The ancients believed education was fundamentally about shaping loves….It is for this goal of passing along a culture that the curriculum existed.” Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain, The Liberal Arts Tradition

While particular practices and day school techniques might not be feasible in the home, giving our kids an education with a classical goal, classical content, and for classical reasons is possible.

Free homeschool audit: https://simplyconvivial.com/audit

When I started homeschooling year round, I tried to prepare everything in advance for a seamless year. It was unrealistic planning due to the unpredictable nature of children's learning and development. The real success in homeschooling comes from flexibility and regularly assessing and adjusting plans. Avoid burnout by regularly connecting to your why and adjusting as needed for the children in front of you. Take advantage not only of the homeschool lifestyle, but of the year-round homeschool schedule!

00:00 Introduction to Year-Round Homeschooling
01:19 Early Homeschooling Challenges
02:40 The Mistake of Over-Planning
04:24 Adapting to Reality
06:35 The Importance of Regular Assessments
11:34 Conclusion and Next Steps

How to homeschool year round: https://simplyconvivial.com/2020/year-round-homeschooling/
My favorite curriculum resources: https://simplyconvivial.com/2020/kindergarten-homeschool-curriculum/Art of Homeschool eCourse: https://simplyconvivial.com/art-of-homeschooling/
My best homeschool checklist tips: https://simplyconvivial.com/2018/homeschool-checklist-routine/

Mystie Winckler encourages moms to organize their attitudes and get traction at home so we are no longer overwhelmed or frustrated with homemaking. We are a community of Christian women striving to be competent, cheerful homemakers so we are fruitful, faithful, and hospitable. Subscribe for regular encouragement!

📖 Get my latest book - Simplified Organization: Learn to Love What Must Be Done
https://www.simplifiedorganization.com

🏆 Enroll in Convivial Circle and get practical homemaking mentorship so you don't have to be overwhelmed anymore: 
https://www.simplyconvivial.com/stop-overwhelm

Why habits are hard workshop: https://youtu.be/dge2oieqJys

I would stare and shake my head.

My roommate in college made her bed - on the top bunk - every single morning.

Over 100 miles away from her mom, she made her bed because *she* wanted to.

I did not relate. I did not make my bed.

The difference was in our habits - AND our habits formed our tastes and desires.

Good home habits give peace of mind.

“The way you keep your house, the way you organize your time, the care you take in your personal appearance, the things you spend your money on all speak loudly about what you believe. “The beauty of Thy peace,” shines forth in an ordered life. A disordered life speaks loudly of disorder in the soul” - Elisabeth Elliot

The more I do work on establishing order, the more I realize what a peace-giving thing it is.

Organization is a SNAP Quiz: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/quiz

Daily Card Workshop: https://youtu.be/XQ81AJz5_ZM

Example planning pages: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/2021/planners-for-moms/

#1 - Look at your planner multiple times a day.

#2 - Do something from your planner after you look at it; let it guide your choices.

#3 - Keep your planner clear and simple.

It’s so tempting to think that the only thing keeping us from being organized is the layout of the planner page. If we just had that planner, then we’d finally have it all put together.

We spend time setting up or even creating from scratch what we hope will be our perfect planner that will finally work for us, but then it doesn’t.

No matter what planner you have, it won’t make your plans happen automatically. That will always take effort, time, attention, and intention – every day.

We need to not only have a plan, we need to look at it multiple times a day and we need to then do what it says. 

Take the Get Organized quiz: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/quiz

Daily Card Workshop: https://youtu.be/XQ81AJz5_ZM

Free Brain Dump Guide: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/braindump

Youtube version:
https://youtu.be/osTM2j8dCLw

We have so many tasks, thoughts, ideas, and appointments we need to keep track of, but sometimes the more we try to get the perfect system in place, the harder it seems to be to stay on top of things. Let's do a working but messy planner and actually accomplish the most important things without getting distracted and overwhelmed.

Get the free EHAP guide: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/ehap and discover how to keep your house mostly tidy most of the time, even with kids.

We think of our spaces when we think of getting organized, but we try to make our spaces and lives into things they are not rather than try to make the spaces facilitate more life, more living - not more expression of personal style. 

Watch the episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/RpRprsEUhLo

Don't forget to listen to part 1 and subscribe so you don't miss a single episode in the series!

Watch the YouTube version with slides: https://youtu.be/0LutEE_zI14

Take the quiz: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/quiz

Share this episode and get the workbook for the series for free! Tell us how and where you shared at support@simplifiedorganization.com and we'll reply with the download link.

We must remember that the point of organizing is not so everything is neat and tidy and clear all the time. The point is that we are ready to do the right next thing; that we are maintaining an atmosphere of love and order in our home; and that our environment supports not only our work, but also the work of our children – the work of learning and growing and thriving.

That work is messy.

Enter: the island of sanity.

To help maintain your calm equilibrium in the midst of the chaotic, messy day-to-day, designate one small area as your own personal island of sanity.

When you don’t know where to start, start here.

So often, there’s so much out and so much clutter and so much to do that we don’t even know where to start.

When you have chosen an island of sanity, you always know where to start. And starting is always the hardest part.

Knowing where to start helps you get going and build momentum. Knowing where to start helps you build your habits and appreciate a clear space – even one clear space in the midst of chaotic clutter.

Build the habit of keeping it clear.

When I was learning to care about cleanliness and neatness, choosing one island of sanity and appreciating this one small spot in a sea of “need to do” around the house helped me so much.

Education as a program, even classically, did not traditionally begin until the child was reasoning. Talk to a 9 or 10 year old child for a time and observe the difference between his thinking process and conversational ability and your 5 or 6 year old. When the oldest is 5 or 6, and he’s followed by younger siblings, he seems so smart, so capable. He is. But he is also still quite young.

Whatever you do, don’t try to start Latin with your 5 or 6 year old. Rather, read fairy tales, Aesop’s fables, and begin working your way through the 1000 Good Books list.

Don’t construct science experiments. Have him spend hours outside each day, and go to different sorts of outdoor environments to play. In Teaching Science So Students Learn Science, classical school teacher John Mays says that outdoor experience is the best foundation for later science learning, and it comes at a premium in this tech-driven age.

Start Morning Time, but not full-blown mimics of those who have older kids and have been doing it for years. Start with 15-20 minutes, including the reading of poetry and nursery rhymes. Pick a hymn and a Psalm to learn, add a new one every couple of months, and in ten years the amount you’ve filled your heart and mind with will astonish you. But it starts with one, not with a full binder.

Do not despise the days of small beginnings.

Free homeschool audit: https://simplyconvivial.com/audit

When I started homeschooling year round, I tried to prepare everything in advance for a seamless year. It was unrealistic planning due to the unpredictable nature of children's learning and development. The real success in homeschooling comes from flexibility and regularly assessing and adjusting plans. Avoid burnout by regularly connecting to your why and adjusting as needed for the children in front of you. Take advantage not only of the homeschool lifestyle, but of the year-round homeschool schedule!

00:00 Introduction to Year-Round Homeschooling

01:19 Early Homeschooling Challenges

02:40 The Mistake of Over-Planning

04:24 Adapting to Reality

06:35 The Importance of Regular Assessments

11:34 Conclusion and Next Steps

How to homeschool year round: https://simplyconvivial.com/2020/year-round-homeschooling/

My favorite curriculum resources: https://simplyconvivial.com/2020/kindergarten-homeschool-curriculum/Art of Homeschool eCourse: https://simplyconvivial.com/art-of-homeschooling/

My best homeschool checklist tips: https://simplyconvivial.com/2018/homeschool-checklist-routine/

Mystie Winckler encourages moms to organize their attitudes and get traction at home so we are no longer overwhelmed or frustrated with homemaking. We are a community of Christian women striving to be competent, cheerful homemakers so we are fruitful, faithful, and hospitable. Subscribe for regular encouragement!

📖 Get my latest book - Simplified Organization: Learn to Love What Must Be Done

https://www.simplifiedorganization.com

🏆 Enroll in Convivial Circle and get practical homemaking mentorship so you don't have to be overwhelmed anymore: 

https://www.simplyconvivial.com/stop-overwhelm

Time Budget Resources: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/time

Just like Dave Ramsey has you use cash envelopes for your spending budgets, we can reserve envelopes of time for our various responsibilities across the week.

Rather than scheduling 20 minutes for folding laundry, 10 minutes for sweeping, and so forth for every task we have on our list, we can look at our days and weeks as a whole and reserve chunks of time for types of tasks. Then when that chunk of time begins, we can assess the current state of things and decide what comes first and what’s next.

A week is never going to play out the way we budget our time, but it’s still a valuable exercise because as we mark out the time commitments we have, we start to see where we have margin, where we need to create margin, and perhaps why things like grocery shopping or phone calls are so stressful – there’s no place for them in the flow of our week!

As we start filling in the overview of our weeks with our commitments and responsibilities, we also need to keep an eye on whether or not we have healthy amounts of rest built into our weeks. We can’t function in go-go-go mode all day, every day.

Time budgeting help: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/time

Most of our overwhelm as moms comes from feeling like we don't have enough time to do all the things we need to do.

We don't have enough time to do all the things, but we do have enough time to do what we must. 

We have to be sure we're telling ourselves the truth and choose a right response rather than overwhelm. 

When time is short, prioritize your family and your vocations without concern for appearances. Humbly serve your family, whether it meets your personal standards or not. 

We do have the time to do all God's called us to do.

Time budgeting help: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/time

Get started: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/stop-overwhelm

Most of us began our lives as wives and mothers not only without any training or instruction in running a home, but also without any real examples in our own history and life to follow. We want to identify as a homemaker, but still feel uncomfortable doing so.

We so desperately want to do a good job, and we jump in with both feet and suddenly find we’re drowning.

Modern society conditioned us to think that the job of a homemaker and mom was mundane, simple, outsource-able, unfulfilling work. “So,” we unwittingly think, “I should totally be able to manage this and do a good job.”

Then, to our surprise, we find that it’s a lot of work and that we’re wholly unprepared for all it demands of us.

​

We’ve had no training in how to be homemakers.

​

Our society is set up to believe that education is meant to prepare you for your work. We go into debt, spend 4 or more years of life, and plan to come out of that ready for a fulfilling career.

On the one hand, then, we buy the argument that homemaking is fulfilling and meaningful work, yet on the other hand, we don’t think it takes any real training or education to do it. In what other meaningful work is that the case?

Past societies didn’t have the university system. Instead, they relied on apprenticeships and relational training. Children learned how to survive and work from their parents. Tradesmen learned their craft from an experienced master. Knowledge and skill were past on through relationship over time.

But mom is home alone with her small children, no one there helping her see what the next thing she ought to do really is. Who will help sort out the details and make it all fit into a manageable whole? We can blame our mothers, but even our mothers, at this point, didn’t have mothers who taught them either.

​

I designed Simplified Organization Community Coaching to be the mentorship most of us never had, the encouraging cheerleading squad many of us can't find, with the gospel-centered base all of us need.

​

Starting now and continuing together all year long, we are going to take baby step after baby step and finally find our feet as homemakers.

​

With Simplified Organization Community Coaching, you'll get the personal development and mentorship you've been seeking, but that Google and Facebook just can never give you.

​Enroll today.

Get my new book! https://amzn.to/31nKs2A

It’s one thing to start the school year strong, but quite another to keep at it after the weeks start blurring together. Motivation to homeschool ebbs away, and we can’t wait for some natural, overwhelming incoming tide to return.

Instead of being tossed about on the waves of our emotions and hormones (which turn into tropical storms when they crash into the emotions and hormones of our children), we need to treat motivation like a garden and cultivate it. A garden has variety; it’s not made up of one thing. It’s the same with motivation. There are a number of things we can plant in our motivation garden that will keep it blooming and growing.

We need homeschool motivation because it’s our responsibility as the parent-teacher to educate our children. It’s not optional and we set the tone for the day and the standard for the behavior. If we can’t muster up the motivation to start the homeschool day, how can we expect our children to have the motivation to do their work? We must model ourselves what we expect from them.

Much of the time, what we call a lack of motivation is simply inertia. It’s hard to get started. It’s hard to get up and get moving. It’s hard to focus our attention and summon the energy.

Overcome inertia by making it easy to get started with an energetic, upbeat attitude.

These ten practices will increase your motivation for average homeschool days.

Have a morning routine.
Start with a song.
Use a checklist.
Keep several favorite quotes in view.
Smile at your kids.
Listen to encouraging podcasts.
Get everything ready to go the night before.
Share learning with your kids.
Ask what they learned or read at dinner.
Live life alongside your kids.

Share your favorite homeschool quote, podcast, or tip in the comments!

Get The Convivial Homeschool book: https://amzn.to/3reVoug

When homeschool days go bad, we wonder if we are missing something or if there are better ways out there we’re missing. We want a lovely homeschool lifestyle, full of laughter and joy and definitely lots of learning – without tears. How’s a homeschool mom to make that happen?

These techniques are how I work toward a better homeschool every day.

Best Homeschool Technique #1 – Manage Expectations
Best Homeschool Technique #2 – Pay Attention
Best Homeschool Technique #3 – Repent Always

See how your homeschool is doing with the REAL homeschool quiz: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/homeschool

I don’t know about you, but I always start off the year thinking that this year will be more awesome than last because this year I’m committed to really being, well, awesome.

This school year will be different because I will be different.

So, a decade into homeschooling and having rounded the bend of my thirties, maybe that idealism and optimism is tempered a bit, but I still feel it even if I try to suppress it.

Maybe we won’t wake up whole new people on Monday morning, transformed into mothers who do the right thing every time, yet each year – depending on the year – we should try to take the next step in growing, maturing, and increasing.

Rather than start the school year with strong but unrealistic goals to be 100% consistent, to never yell, or to always follow the plan, we should go into the year with concrete strategies for exactly how we will improve our teaching and leading skills this year.

Be a better homeschool teacher by controlling our tone
Having taught classes to homeschool kids before teaching my own, it didn’t take me long into teaching my own to notice that for a class of other children, my tone immediately changes and I go into “teacher mode.” With my own children, I just stay in “me mode” which seems like it should be better, but isn’t. Maybe it’s “authentic” but it isn’t as helpful.

I admit that one reason I still teach classes with other students mixed in with my own is to make it easier for me to enter “teacher zone” and give my kids the benefit of more conscious, purposeful, self-controlled teaching style.

Mom’s tone matters. We don’t want our children to feel alone in their troubles and challenges even while they’re sitting next to us. To accomplish that, we can take a positive step and a negative step.
Be a better homeschool teacher by controlling our words
This could be counted as controlling our tone, but I’m thinking of a more specific situation. In a homeschool day, we have to communicate many things to several people. Have you ever felt frustratingly incapable of that? Have you ever blamed the child for your lack of ability to communicate with him? I know I have (and do).

Maybe I’m right and maybe I’m blame-shifting, but what I need is a strategy of communication that lets me cut through the blame and move our day forward.

Classical education to the rescue. There’s this thing called Socratic teaching, and it applies in helping with math as much as it applies in literary discussions.

Steven Covey made it a principle, a habit, of highly effective people, and highly effective people is exactly what we’re trying to be. He wrote:

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Usually I’m seeking to be finished. That’s where the trouble arises.

Be a better homeschool teacher by controlling our thoughts
Our words and our tone are merely overflows of our heart, and we are commanded to take every thought captive. That means it’s possible.

We might need to understand and direct our kids’ thought-trains, but we also need to be aware of our own and redirect our own as needed as well.

Our thoughts are not inevitable, but our words and tone will flow inevitably from them.

So if we want to control our tone and control our words, we need to also control our thoughts.

SNAP into organization QUIZ: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/quiz

I had put dinner on the table.

Wasn’t that enough for one day?

To get up and then face the collection of plates, cups, pans, utensils, pots – not to mention the counters themselves.

Ugh.

Soaking seemed to be the best solution.

If the dishes wait, no harm is done.

Really, I was being a better housekeeper for putting it all off until the morning.

It would take me so much less time, I told myself, to wait until the morning. The dishes would have soaked. I would have coffee. I could knock it out in no time – in the morning.

For now, I’ll just go read and forget about this room. I’ve always been good at justifying my procrastination.

And so for quite some time I always spent the first part of my day cleaning up from the day before. I refused to feel bad about it. I had made it my deliberate choice and strategy. It wasn’t the worst choice I’ve made in my life, but it didn’t help me, despite my protestations that it did.

The idea that helped me break out of this procrastination rut was “clearing to neutral.”

If the dishes wait, procrastination wins. Here's one cleaning strategy to beat procrastination.
What’s the point?
I used to think like this:

“What is the point of making my bed? I’ll only sleep in it again.”
“What is the point of cleaning the island? I’ll only cook on it again.”
“What is the point of washing the dishes? We’ll only use them again.”
The dishes can wait because we don’t need them again this instant. Why do them now?

But the change started with the dishes. Then I realized it applied to the island. Finally, I even started making my bed due to the same reasoning.

We wash the dishes because we’ll use them again.

I need to clean the island so that it’s ready to cook on again.

Actually, the reason I need to make my bed is so that we can sleep in it again, welcomed to our rest like decent and orderly people rather than collapsing in a mess like slobs.

The story we tell ourselves matters.

Clearing to neutral is a concept to save us both from perfectionism on the one hand and sloppiness on the other.

Perfectionism thinks the point of a kitchen is to be a pristine showpiece. If it is anything other than perfect, it is not acceptable. This can make us either strive ceaselessly to make our kitchen look like no one lives in the house or, on the other hand, give up all attempts to make it look nice because we will never reach our too-high expectations.

Sloppiness thinks the point of a kitchen is merely to hold things and to perform certain tasks in. Its state does not matter.

Elisabeth Elliot once wrote:

The way you keep your house, the way you organize your time, the care you take in your personal appearance, the things you spend your money on, all speak loudly about what you believe. The beauty of Thy peace shines forth in an ordered life. A disordered life speaks loudly of disorder in the soul.

Our homes are tools to be used for the building up of people. Tools must be cared for, or they aren’t going to last long or be as effective. But the point is never to have a perfectly organized wall of tools that are never used. The use is the important part, but caring for them is essential to their being able to be used.

Year Round Homeschooling for the win!Free homeschool audit: https://simplyconvivial.com/audit

There are 3 different ways to homeschool year round. Let me tell you how they each work, and why we chose the year-round homeschool we did - and stuck with it for fifteen years.

Watch the whole series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPkowQCQW4x8se43eCJoXU_aZbdO7ECK4
How to homeschool year round: https://simplyconvivial.com/2020/year-round-homeschooling/
My favorite curriculum resources: https://simplyconvivial.com/2020/kindergarten-homeschool-curriculum/Art of Homeschool eCourse: https://simplyconvivial.com/art-of-homeschooling/
My best homeschool checklist tips: https://simplyconvivial.com/2018/homeschool-checklist-routine/

Mystie Winckler encourages moms to organize their attitudes and get traction at home so we are no longer overwhelmed or frustrated with homemaking. We are a community of Christian women striving to be competent, cheerful homemakers so we are fruitful, faithful, and hospitable. Subscribe for regular encouragement!

📖 Get my latest book - Simplified Organization: Learn to Love What Must Be Done
https://www.simplifiedorganization.com

🏆 Enroll in Convivial Circle and get practical homemaking mentorship so you don't have to be overwhelmed anymore: 
https://www.simplyconvivial.com/stop-overwhelm

Are you a perfectionist? Is the reason for your chaos actually perfectionism?

Show notes: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/blog/slob-perfectionist/

Those who want all or nothing generally get nothing. 

I used to think I was not a perfectionist, because nothing I did was perfect. I was a slob, so how could I be a perfectionist?

If all-or-nothing perfectionism is our tendency, then we shouldn’t be surprised when we can’t get up off the couch. Why start when we know we won’t accomplish what we’d like?

Such perfectionism is debilitating, and it’s that debilitation that causes us to end up in chaos and discouragement that we can’t pull up out of.

So how do we, then, pull up out of it? How can we pull up out of ourselves?

Recover from perfectionism by practicing baby steps.
Perfectionism is the mother of boom and bust cycles: a spurt of energy and enthusiasm propels us forward, but goals give way to reality and, because we didn’t meet the unrealistic goals, we sputter to a halt and give up.

Baby steps are not glamorous, they don’t seem significant, but they lead to real, noticeable, tangible progress when we are content to stick with them.

When we feel resistance to doing what needs to be done, instead of either trying to grit our teeth and power through, we can make it simpler to start by reducing what we’re expecting from ourselves.

Perfectionism is false expectation. We envision the end we want, and if we know it won’t happen, we don’t begin. The best way out is to change what we envision, to take a humbler view of ourselves and our efforts, and submit to imperfect yet faithful next steps.

Find out about our community: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/membership

Hear from a number of women about personalizing and customizing a planner to make it work for your life and needs.

Planners don't have to be one-size-fits-all and they don't have to be confining or busy work.

Keeping a weekly dashboard - in any format - will help you keep your plates spinning when life is hectic and busy.

Take the "get organized" quiz: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/quiz

How to set up and organize any planner so that it works for you. Planner organization can seem complicated, but it really doesn't need to be.

We can waste a lot of time setting up our planners. Here's the brass tacks of planner set-up:
List current projects.
Update your calendar so it's complete and correct, with the next 3 months visible.
Have a set of lists for your week
Have a list of your daily top 3
Have a space for taking notes and keeping running lists and thoughts.

Work Your Plan: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/stop-overwhelm 

A functional planner depends more on the user than the page templates and formats. You are the secret to your own functional planner, no matter what system you use. 

Three Rules to a Working Planner:
 It has a place for projects, notes, and a daily top three 
You carry it around with you and look at it throughout the day 
You update it every day, every week, and every quarter

 It's not the pages, but the process that makes a planner effective and functional.

Stop getting distracted and find the motivation you need to get momentum, find focus, make progress.

Moms need to know how to stop getting distracted, because it's too easy to lose track of what's important and what needs to be done. We don't want to waste our time.

To stop wasting time, we need better time management skills. Those skills include the simple practice of writing things down.

We wonder how to stay focused, but it's as simple as writing things down, as brain dumping, to know what's actually on our plate.

SHOW LESS

Download the free guide: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/braindump

We all know the feeling. You can't focus, you can't think straight. You can't get a handle on life.

The truth is that your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.

Clear the clutter to free up your creative energy.

Three steps:
Spend 10-15 minutes everyday writing down the 

1. thoughts that make you anxious, 
2. the thoughts that repeat themselves, 
3. the nagging questions and tasks

When your mind is uncluttered, you come up with out of the box solutions you'd never have been able to think about when your mind was full of junk.

Find my free brain dump guide here: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/braindump

When you're feeling unmotivated, it's hard to get things done. We want to be more productive, but when we're feeling that lack of motivation we drag and dawdle. 

This one practice is the golden key to overcoming a lack of motivation and kicking your productivity motor into gear.

You might wonder how to be more productive when you're feeling unmotivated, and the answer often comes down to acting in the way you want to feel. 

Whether you're working from home or working at home or both, you want to feel motivated and productive, but it's easy to feel stuck instead.

Get help ending overwhelm & stress: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/braindump

My quick hack for busy moms will save your sanity when you have so much to juggle. When you're looking for hacks, you usually want a secret you're missing - and I have that for you today.

Too often busy moms are go go go and get confused and overwhelmed about what's next. We risk missing life because we were so busy juggling details.

My quick and unexpected hack today - a brain dump - is the key process to stopping the cycle and getting clear about what needs to happen next and what is truly important. 

Your situation is probably not as bad as your imagination is spinning it; brain dump and see reality instead of drama.

#busymoms #momlife

More tips here: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/2019/how-to-grocery-shop/

Improve your grocery shopping skill! These 3 grocery store tips will save you time and money and make grocery shopping simple.

Scared of homeschool burnout? It's a real thing, but might not be caused by what you think. Tune in to hear my #1 method for beating homeschool burnout!

Make your next homeschool year better. Take the free homeschool audit - https://simplyconvivial.com/audit

My pro tip to prevent homeschool mom burnout is to use a homeschool year-round schedule. Catch all the videos on how to do that here: 
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPkowQCQW4x8se43eCJoXU_aZbdO7ECK4

 Mystie Winckler encourages moms to organize their attitudes and get traction at home so we are no longer overwhelmed or frustrated with homemaking. We are a community of Christian women striving to be competent, cheerful homemakers so we are fruitful, faithful, and hospitable. Subscribe for regular encouragement!

📖 Get my latest book - Simplified Organization: Learn to Love What Must Be Done
https://www.simplifiedorganization.com

🏆 Enroll in Convivial Circle and get practical homemaking mentorship so you don't have to be overwhelmed anymore: 
https://www.simplyconvivial.com/stop-overwhelm

Watch the "Save Time in the Kitchen" Workshop! https://www.simplyconvivial.info/pantry

I know it seems overwhelming.

I know even just planning dinner sometimes seems overwhelming.

But, seriously, who wants to wake up and decide in the pre-coffee fog what to feed the troops for breakfast?

It has to be decided ahead of time.

Everyone talks about how much planning out dinners saves you from mental effort and decision fatigue, but that’s only 1/3 of the meals you feed people! Imagine if all the meals were planned – how much mental effort and decision fatigue would that reduce?

Personally, I think the reason we balk at planning all the meals is that we build dinner menu planning into this herculean effort. Do we want to do that 2 more times over? No way! But if we simplify not only the two lighter meals, but also the dinner effort, we can have our plan and our peace of mind as well.

Make an Easier Dinner Plan
You don’t need to have elaborate dinners every night to have a complete, healthy meal. Try thinking in threes and keeping easy to prepare vegetables always on hand. Rather than browse Pinterest or magazines to come up with dinner ideas, keep a list of your family’s go-to meals. Or, use Simplified Dinners, which is your list and guideline already put together.

Make an Easier Lunch Plan
Lunch, whether you have to pack it or pause the other business of the day to prepare it, it always seems to get in the way. While taking a lunch break is refreshing, taking the time to prepare it is not.

Make an Easier Breakfast Plan
Breakfast hits us out of the blue, first thing in the morning. Rather than rolling out of bed without a clue about what to feed the troops, you need a plan in order to get things moving without feeling out of control.

A solid breakfast starts the day off on the right foot, so planning it is essential.

Watch the "Save Time in the Kitchen" Workshop! https://www.simplyconvivial.info/pantry

Does menu planning seem impossibly hard? It really can be. 

So today let's talk about a simple way to make it easier. We will talk about building your own meal templates that will take the thinking out of menu planning.

Do the Daily Card Challenge: https://www.simplyconvivial.info/daily-card/

What if you made a plan, you picked your real top three priorities for the day, and then you did none of them and you have no excuses. There is no good reason why you didn't do what you ought to do. 

Are we just bad planners or are we just hopeless? No. Neither.

How do we make progress without giving up and without making the same mistakes, again, figuring out the mistakes we made so that we can learn from them. That's the important lesson that we need to talk about and need to figure out.

What if you just didn't do the right thing? What then you are not worthless or helpless or hopeless. You are just normal human, maybe tired, maybe worn out, maybe burnt out. Maybe there's some kind of roadblock preventing you from getting those things done that you haven't identified. There all kinds of reasons that the top priority things don't happen. 

Sometimes we just don't have the energy or attention that we need to make them happen. Sometimes the high priority task actually has to take a back seat to catching up on sleep or maybe doing an exercise program. I know, I know don't shoot the messenger, but the reality is that we need to be sure that the fundamentals, the foundation of our productivity is taken care of before we can have that productivity to work in before we can get some of those big things done, we need to have sleep. 

We need to have energy. We need to have the time available. And sometimes we just don't have those foundational pieces. And so we have to scale back our expectations and focus on building the building blocks of managing life. Before we do the things that give us progress. Sometimes we don't really have any excuse at all, though. 

It happens. It happens to me. And I know it just happens to all of us. We just don't do what we ought to do. No good reason, no excuses. And that just needs to be confessed repented of before God who has given us the time he's given us the responsibility is he has given us the resources. And when we don't use them, when we just get stuck in self-indulgence or a lethargy or acedia, we can turn to repentance, which is not beating ourselves up and feeling bad. 

It's confessing and turning from the sin and asking God for the forgiveness and the grace and the motivation to move forward to obey. And he gives us the ability and the strength when we don't have it ourselves. And sometimes that's the lesson that we need to learn. Sometimes we need to recognize that we were trying to move forward and work in our own strength. 

Sometimes just making decisions or purchasing materials, just little steps that actually have to happen before the big project can move forward before the actual task can get done.

Turn what you think is one task into a project and list out every single step and then identify what is the one next thing that needs to happen out of these various steps. Pick one that's next and break that bigger overwhelming task down into just a getting started task. And a lot of times that is all we need to start seeing traction and getting some momentum. We just haven't broken things down into small enough pieces to actually manage and move forward. 

The daily card is a great way to make that happen because we can just flip it over and use the backside to brain dump, to figure out where you're stuck and why write down a prayer, write down the next, the real next step so that you can figure make a better choice. Tomorrow. The daily card really is the planner that we all need to see some progress in our day to day life.