Review Time

Margins, iterations, block schedules–all these little tweaks to the calendar will only help if you happen to actually look at your calendar!   Somehow this fact evaded my notice for ever so long.  I would get a monthly calendar set up, a few obligations penciled in.  Then I would forget about it for days on end.  Turns out I need to look and look and look.

Two big shifts have lessened the vague uneasiness I always (especially when pregnant or postpartum) seemed to feel.  Isn’t there something I’m supposed to remember?  Keeping a reliable monthly calendar with appointments, work deadlines, and schedule changes listed has been so helpful.  Mystie says that your calendar is not the place for your to-do list.  It’s not the place to list all you wish you could get to.  It’s the place that lays out the hard lines of your day, the places where you have obligations.  Now at a glance, I can see conflicts and sticking points.

I also aim for a weekly review–a time to look at the previous week and find the highs and lows, a time to look ahead and plan what our days will look like.  Do we have the books we need?  Are the math lessons in the folder?  Have we touched based with our mother’s helper?  And what we will be eating?  Making the meal plan while I plan out the week let’s me see what days I have a little more time to prepare dinner and what days I’ll need to put basic brined beans in the crockpot (today!).  A weekly review keeps us moving forward in our homeschooling.

I’ve just recently started trying for an evening review too.  Just getting clear on my top priorities for the next day’s early morning working hours.  I tend to put out fires instead of carving out space to attend to projects.  If I go to sleep with clarity, I can wake up with purpose.