Balancing Diapers and Deadlines ~~ A New TOS Review!!

Do you ever feel under the gun and you just have no idea how everything is going to get done? Whether it be multiple aged children, stay at home jobs, balancing having just one car for your getting older children, what you need the most is scheduling. Since I have just started another DM job I knew that having work at home mom productivity tips would help kick start my organzation  ESPECIALLY after moving 700+ miles from SC to IN and living in a temporary housing situation. Balancing Diapers and Deadlines from Lisa Tanner Writing was the exact answer to prayer that I needed and I was privileged to be a part of the Crew reviewing it. And what's even better is that Lisa is a Crew member too!!

I knew that this would be the impetus to help me get back on track balancing my blog, homeschooling, a new business, a new ministry, as well as navigating myself around in a new town. And it has been just that. This online, self-paced, non-video course has been so helpful. There is a welcome/introduction, six main units, and then some closing thoughts.

Within the six main units they are broken down into bite-sized chunks (lessons). Each lesson is a 5-10 minute read and at the end you are given an Action Step for you to work on. If the lessons are things you already do then you can skip through, but if not you may take some time to ponder Lisa's ideas and even cater them to your individual needs and desires for YOUR home.  Once you have completed a lesson you can mark it complete. I loved this so I knew where I have actually done the steps and where I was just browsing to see what came in the future.

That is what is so neat about this online course. It has the spark you need to delve into exploriong how you want your day to go, or how you will meal plan, or even how to grow your business with kids of all ages! Lisa has nine beautiful children of her own so she's kind of seems like an expert when it comes to balancing food, chores, and business.

I know that in the last 6-8 weeks our life has been in a state of emergency or in a holding pattern. Part way through the course Lisa encourages you to check in with her during the section on "Making a Plan of the Day". I was honest with her and told her a little of our situation, which in short has been on a 'triage' plan of sorts, especially with my son. Between us being here and the kids in SC for the first few weeks, travelling back and forth every weekend for a few weeks, then all being here and them missing all of what they've known their whole lives, to another 14 hour drive two weekends in a row and a week without dad, life has just been crazy and my son has taken the longest to get used to a new routine. But Lisa gave me some great tips and ideas to do while we are in this transition that seem to be working. I knew most of what she suggested, but it was a relief to 'hear' someone actually tell me that this is what I should be doing. Sometimes us moms just need someone to bounce ideas off of, someone who can relate whole-heartedly to our situation.

A snippet of our email convo.

Since this was a review, I did skip ahead and skim through the whole program. But because I really wanted to put effort into the course and make small adjustments I have not "checked" off all the lessons. One that I am super interested in is the Family Writing Time in the Growing Your Business section. It has strategies to help gain 2.5 hours more time to work on your business. I really want to skip ahead and work on that, which I might, but not until we move into our NEW permanent housing rental. (We just signed the lease this morning - prayer answered! Now to move everything from storage and our temporary housing into the propery BEFORE the middle of the month and the holidays around the corner!)

Also in some units she has added on attachments of other resources. These may be links to other blog posts she has written as well as downloads - like her 5 year meal plan (I know amazing, right!!), ways to engage your littles and middles while you are working. These have been really very helpful. I'm also really looking forward to delving into and implementing some of the tips and ideas from intergrating my kids into my business. Some of the ideas like taking pictures I do, but not regularly enough. I also love the idea of giving them some more helpful tasks like adding affiliate links to posts in my blog. I know my two teens can certainly help with that!

Writing out the Plan of the Day

Another item we've just started to implement was Kid Days. Lisa talks about them fully and details them better then I'm going to share with you here, but essentially each of your children get a day of the week (or more if you have less kids) where they are in charge of the meals for the day - so they plan breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But they also have other responsibilities that go along with "being in charge" of meals. If you have a meal plan they can help in the plannin process ahead of time on your planning days. Since I had mentioned it to my husband one morning, my son was like "YEAH, I want to do tomorrow" and then scheduled his sisters for other days in the week. He then (since breakfast was completed) made lunch for all of them and planned and helped with dinner.

We haven't had too long to implement these Kid Days, but they have seemed to work in the last few weeks. As soon as their day is complete they have started to plan for the next week. They have even said since there are 3 of them that they could have 2 days, but my eldest says then that doesn't give mom and dad time to make our "really great dinners". I think we may tweak the kid days a little, but it seems to have helped the stress of 'what are we eating for lunch/snack/dinner' out of some of my days.

All in all, this time management for busy moms course has been a real breath of fresh air for me. It's helped me to really evaluate our schedule - both for home and school, our meal plans, my new TEA business, and to think about ways to get more time so we can be more efficient with what we do and have more available to work on the ministry we came to Indiana to help birth.

My new business

I really think there is something for every mom (not JUST homeschool moms) in Lisa Tanner Writing's Balancing Diapers and Deadlines online course. Don't let the title throw you off.  I'd encourage you to check it out for yourself. You won't be disappointed. I know there is SOMETHING in there that will help refocus or revoluntionize your home! And don't just trust me - go read some of the other Crew reviews by clicking the link below!