Planning: Let’s Follow Up!
This post began as an announcement for a live web chat on the topic of planning with Mystie, Dawn and myself. The 2-part planning series was a huge hit and we all enjoyed visiting so much! You can still….
Sign up with your email address and listen to the chats!
THEY’RE FREE!
I collected all the different questions you asked after our first planning chat as well as those that the second chat generated and I have them organized and indexed below. This post will now serve as an index for follow-up posts with thoughts, ideas, links, resources and printables.
If you have another question to add – something you’d like to see covered or uncovered – drop me a note in the comment box below. This will be an ongoing project, so check back!
GENERAL PLANNING & PLANNER
- Planning. I love the thought of it and I love it when I do it properly, but I am so bad lately at maintaining any kind of planning rhythm. I need help with planning the planning time!
- How do you go about determining what is intuitive for your personal planning “style”?
- Where/how often do the ladies do their planning? Get away for a little bit on their own periodically?
- Do you plan entire year or only 6 weeks at a time?
- How do you stay focused? Especially on the day to day plan.
- I’m spending too much time planning. Do you have any suggestions for time savers when it comes to planning?
PLANNING SPECIFICS
- What are the specific things you put on your planner?
- How do you prioritize what needs to get done each day?
- How do you decide what to let go, what to reschedule, when to press on, etc.
PLANNING AND VIRTUE
- Any tips on practicing the virtue of patience?
- Have you ever struggled with putting the list first over people?
- Jen talks a lot about hospitality. I wonder if in the future she could elaborate more on that.
- How do you deal with interruptions to your plan?
SEASONAL PLANNING
- Dawn does a lot of seasonal menu planning. Do you have a master list of menus?
- For those who plan in seasons, how much are the kids aware of the season they are in? Or is it just something that the moms use for their own planning?
PLANNING AS A TOOL FOR OLDER KIDS
- Something I’d love to hear Jen and Dawn talk about is introducing planning with their older kids (in their personal projects, not necessarily their school work)
THE LIFE PLAN AND THE LESSON PLAN
- Do you ladies never feel behind when the lesson plan doesn’t happen?
MOMMY COMPARISON
- How do you deal with other homeschooling mommy friends who find your planning personality intimidating?
RESOURCES FOR PLANNING
- I am hoping you could mention some of the books that have inspired you in your journeys as mothers, as well as good books for kids addressing specific seasons in the year.
Index of follow-up posts on planning:
You can read all my planning posts here, read all about the planner I use here, and if you haven’t had a chance to listen to the first Planning Chat, block out some time tonight after the kids are in bed, grab a cup of something yummy, and listen!
Happy planning!
** A note: This post is missing the comments that originally appeared with the post. All suggestions have been added to the post. **
I thoroughly enjoy planning, organizing etc. It’s the followup that gets me. Any suggestions?
Do you mean the following through and executing the plan? If so, what works {almost universally} is to (1) keep your planning goals realistic and (2) plan a little reward for yourself at the end of a day/week/or particularly irritating chore. For example, splurge on a few decadent chocolate bites, or a bottle of wine, and reward yourself if you got through 80% of your list for the day! It gives you something to look forward to while you’re swishing that toilet!
Hope that gives you a starting point!
Just wanted to pop on & tell you how much I enjoyed the Encore Planner Chat! 🙂 Enjoyed the first one just as well. You ladies are great, speak clearly to an issue, but most of all – are real! You were talking about planning around, or WITH, (see I try to play around instead of WITH!) the season of our life. I’m in a particularly rough season & I am having a hard time planning. The answer, what you said: The season of life that you are living ARE GOD’S PLANS! I have to acknowledge that, accept it, be thankful in it that HE is still Jehovah-Shammah, Immanuel, God with us!! Thank you for pointing this out! I believe God used your words to speak truth to my heart. A truth I need to accept. A truth I need to work with! There were other things I gleaned, of course, but that was the most important! Thank you!!
Denise,
Thank you so much for your kind words! You know, I’ve lived through a number of seasons – some really, really hard ones! And, it’s tough to shift and adjust to a different rhythm – the rhythm of the season God has just handed over. Half the battle is in acknowledging that I need to adjust and accept! It’s a part of trust! But from that comes such great contentment and peace, and then grace. God can work with my own begrudging prayer of acceptance, “I don’t understand, Lord, but I trust.” Sending prayers!!