How do you find the time to blog?
I can’t count how many times I’ve been asked how I find time to run a blog and manage a variety of social media sites, while also homeschooling six children.
On top of that, I also have three children with special needs, manage my husband’s books and HR department, and run a home.
While being able to earn a part-time income is a blessing to my family, I want them to know that they’re my top priority. Several months ago, I was prepared to walk away from blogging completely and after much prayer and a break, I quickly realized that I was giving in to several time wasters.
The first thing I did was examine my time and set a schedule. Having a nursling who still wakes during the night to nurse also throws me a curve ball, but I finally feel that I’ve found a happy place. I also have an awesome VA and take advantage of several scheduling tools.
Here’s a typical look at our daily schedule regarding blogging and homeschooling:
Somewhere between morning quiet time and before everyone is up (before 7am): I do a quick check online for potential “fires”–is there anything pressing that must be dealt with? Is a sponsored post live and are all links working? Is html behaving? I do this as quickly as possible–I try not to spend any longer than 15 minutes. Then it’s onto breakfast and the hustle and bustle of our school day!
8:00-10:00: I work with our youngest children, my preschooler, toddler, and Kindergartener. This includes lessons through Explode the Code, Horizons, Life of Fred (we just started), a preschool and toddler curriculum for fun, plenty of books, songs, and playing with my babes. During this time, I’m not online. My older three children do their independent work.
10:00-11:00: The older children team up and it’s free-time all around. I quickly learned that they enjoyed being able to take turns spending time with each other, one-on-one. Friendships and bonds are forming, and it also teaches responsibility and character (more on this below). This is more of a free-play and quiet activity time. It’s also a nice break for them during the day–painting, play-dough, board games, books, piano, etc. My older children have even started to put together original and unique treasure and scavenger hunts for their siblings. I get online, check e-mail, social media, respond to reader questions, and start to line up things for the day. I set my timer for one intense hour!
11:00-12:00: Laptop is closed, and I check in with the older children to see if they have questions about school work, and we prepare lunch.
12:30-3:30: This is the biggest chunk of my WAHM schedule. The baby goes down for a nap, my boys have therapy (we’ve been blessed to find a therapist who comes to us), and my older two children take their live, online classes. Twice a week, a sitter–a local homeschooled teen–comes over to help with the younger children, while I take care of bookkeeping for my husband’s company, write, research the latest news on essential oils & herbs, and follow-up on e-mails.
3:30-8:00: Unless I’m working on a major project, I’m offline until everyone is down for the evening.
8:00 and onward: My husband wakes up early, so he and the children all head to bed around 8pm. I nurse the baby, and as soon as she’s asleep, I come online and wrap up projects, work on new posts and articles, and interact with folks on social media. My goal is to have everything shut down by 9pm, but there are times when I surf the web, do some online shopping, interact with friends, and take off my blogger hat for awhile.
This is also my favorite time to interact with readers—as an everyday natural living, special needs, homeschooling mama to many.
I love being able to supplement our income while also homeschooling and ensuring that my special needs children are able to get all of the resources they need.
Seeing us be productive while also living into our priorities is part of how we teach character and responsibility to our children. As I wrote earlier this week, my husband learned quickly that integrity is hard to find in today’s world. Impressive resumes come across his desk, but when it gets down to the nitty gritty, it’s the folks with a strong work ethic that stay the course.
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I do most of my work late at night. I’ve never been able to make early mornings work, so I’ve resigned myself to being a night owl while the children are little. It’s working for now, but I do look forward to being an early riser again!