Author Archives: Barb

More on Productivity

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Picking up from yesterday…….

The next change I made really drove up my productivity. It all started a few months ago when I saw a job ad for an editor in the corporate office of a well-known business, an office that just happens to be 10 minutes from here. I had all the requirements, including a journalism degree, but the job only paid $10-12 an hour. I debated about the job, but not for long because it was quickly snapped up. (Shows how bad the economy is!) But I got to thinking about it and realized that if I devoted regular hours to my writing, I could earn more than that and wouldn’t have to leave home or buy new clothes.  🙂

So I began having regular business hours for my writing. Each weekday I’m holed up in the office (doors closed) writing from 1-5 pm, with a brief break at 3 for a cup of tea. (While I’m in here, my husband is with our son, who cannot be left unattended.) During these hours, I do not check email. In fact, I don’t go online at all unless I’m fact-checking something. I don’t do any business-related work either. Nor do I run down to the basement and start a load of wash, or quickly make something and throw it in the oven for dinner. All I do is think and write and think some more and write some more.

And it’s working! It’s amazing how much writing I’m getting done during these 20 hours per week. It hasn’t been easy, though. After the thrill wore off, there were several times when I faced an enormous temptation to just jump online to surf for a few minutes’ break, but I didn’t give in.

Then that passed, and I found it was real work to just stay with one topic for four hours. My attention span had disintegrated to the point that four hours on one subject was torture. I remember being in college and getting a precious “stacks pass,” which meant I could roam about the stacks of the enormous U of I library, reading anything I wanted. I spent hours there, sometimes having to be kicked out because they were closing. I sure had an attention span back then, reading books straight through. Now I couldn’t even concentrate on one project for four measly hours.

But I kept at it, and I’m slowly getting over that hurdle. Now the four hours passes in no time (most days, anyway), and it’s much easier to stay on track. I’m finishing up a book about preparing our kids for the new economy, as well as a Bible study I designed for my daughter when she was a young teen. I’m working on one book four days a week, and the other one day a week. We hope to have both of them out this year. But I don’t think either of them would be in the works if I hadn’t started having office hours.

Here’s a question for the veteran homeschool moms who pop by this blog now and then: Have you had trouble concentrating too? Or is it just me?

Productivity

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I used to think that once the kids were grown I’d be the queen of productivity, cranking out quilts and books left and right once I didn’t have little people who needed me 24/7. But I was wrong.

I’m behind on everything. Our two kids at home still need me, though not the way they once did. Having to move twice in two years also messed with my concentration. For a while I spent more time on realtor websites (first trying to sell our house, then trying to find somewhere to go) than working on my own. I’m still homeschooling one child, and people still need to eat, so I don’t have as much free time as I thought I would.

Ultimately, though, the problem is me. I think all the years of living with kids every day (i.e. constant interruptions to my train of thought) left me so scattered and easily distracted that I could no longer concentrate.

To make matters worse, I started hanging out on the Internet, which allowed me to look up anything I was curious about….ever. Once I learned about tabs, I soon found myself opening tabs, even while I was reading something else, whenever an idea occurred to me. I learned a lot, but I also trained my brain to skip from thought to thought like a hummingbird visiting flowers. I think the Internet made my attention span shorter.

It became clear to me that I’d have to make some changes if I was going to be more productive. Having spent almost my entire adult life homeschooling, I do have some information to share with other homeschooling parents, and I’d like to get it out there before I forget it! I’d have to find some ways to become more productive before it was too late.

The first thing I did was to give up the Internet on Sundays. While I had not worked on Sundays because of it being the day of rest, I still surfed, read and wrote email, and basically goofed off. But I decided that I spent enough time online during the week, so I gave it up cold turkey on Sundays. I’m happy to report that not only have I survived the shock of this, but I now do other things on Sunday, things I used to do, like taking a nap, reading for fun, hanging with the family and watching old movies.

Tomorrow: the other change I made.

Questions, I Get Questions…..

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Every so often there’s a common thread in the questions I receive from homeschool moms.

That thread might be about getting teens to follow through on assignments, or how to handle friends and relatives opposed to homeschooling, or (in the most recent bunch) how to juggle homeschooling, homemaking and preschoolers without losing your mind.

Maybe the popularity of this latest topic stems from the fact that it’s February and everyone’s been cooped up indoors for months and they’re getting tired of it. But juggling the kids, the house and homeschooling can be stressful; how well I know that from my own experience.

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The February newsletter is up!

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This month’s issue of “The Imperfect Homeschooler” newsletter landed with a thud in email boxes near and far early this morning. It answers questions like:

What’s another skill (besides cooking) that our kids will need for the future?

Need some ideas for celebrating Valentine’s Day, Lincoln’s Birthday and Washington’s Birthday with your kids?

How can teens get two years of college paid in full, plus a stipend?

And as always, there’s a true story in the “What Our Kids Are Missing Out On Dept.” that will make you extra glad you keep your kids home from school….

Here’s the link; if you want your own copy to go thud in your emailbox each month, sign up here.

Threatened While Homeschooling

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In some ways, our teenage son with Down syndrome is very similar to his siblings when they were teens. He likes his privacy, talks about wanting a girlfriend and a car, and is very picky about what he wears. He also spends a lot of time primping in the mirror, getting his hair just right.

On the other hand, he can watch “X-Men 3” one day and “Winnie-the-Pooh and the Honey Tree” the next, and appear to enjoy them equally. It’s the same with games. He can beat his brother and his sister’s boyfriend (both in their mid-20s) at video games, yet he insists on playing Candyland and Chutes and Ladders with me, which we’ve played since he was little.

So we’re in the middle of working on his lessons this morning, and he gets mad at me because I’m making him pronounce a word correctly (he has major speech issues), and like a typical teen he loses his temper and bellows, “Stop it, Mom, or I’m not going to play Candyland with you today!”

LOL  🙂

(The rest of the story: he didn’t mean it. We had to play twice after he finished his school. Sigh. If I had a nickel for every time we played Candyland over the past 13 or 14 years……)