Back to School Week: Put the essentials on Auto-Pilot
This blog post is part of a week-long series on getting our families and homes ready for the Back To School Season! You can start at the beginning by clicking here.
Oh friends, what a fun week it’s been! I hope you feel excited and inspired to walk into this next school year!
These topics have been sort of big picture organization, right? We have talked about:
- Looking at the school year before it begins
- Creating a system to manage all the paperwork that comes through our front doors
- Managing our family’s calendar system in a simple, synced way, and
- Developing a routine to help your kids pack their own school lunches!
But what about those daily tasks that you feel like you can’t ever keep up with? What about those repetitive jobs, like decluttering and cleaning your house, meal planning, managing your finances, and even simple daily Bible study? What about the all-important tasks of caring for your home, your family, and yourself – every single day?
We need a system for those, too. Just one that’s a little more customizable.
Listen, our overwhelm doesn’t come from one single task, or even one type of task! It comes from seeing all the tasks at once and now knowing where to start, or even which one is most important to start with!
I’m no stranger to this.
Not too long ago, I hit a wall. My overwhelm had become too much for me to manage on my own, and I felt like I was drowning on a daily basis. Being the manager of our home, our family, and my business had taken up every second of my time. There wasn’t any space left for rest, for self-care, or for any sort of fun at all. At least that’s how I felt.
Can you relate?
I couldn’t see a way out at the time, but I knew one thing: This was not the way I was meant to live – constantly stressed, frantic, and thoroughly exhausted.
I don’t think it’s the way you were meant to live either.
I firmly believe that life can be full of joy on a daily basis. That we don’t have to feel like we are drowning in tasks – but that we can actually get the important things done AND still have time for rest, self-care, and family time.
And so, I began brainstorming and praying about how I could simplify my life and actually feel like I was moving forward, making progress, and spending time on the things that mattered.
Here’s what I found:
We cannot simply walk through our lives essentially “winging it”, putting out fires right and left all day, and actually feel like we’re moving forward in the areas that matter to us.
But this is what I’d been doing. Winging it. Sure, I had a basic “plan” for each day, but it was easily thrown off track by anything that came up. Rarely did I feel like I was making consistent progress in any area – instead, I felt like I was treading water (or drowning in it) and it was absolutely exhausting me.
What I didn’t have was a system, an overarching plan that took my priorities into account and then created a framework around them that I could live out, every single day. Something that included the real-life basics, like making dinner every night, and keeping my house somewhat tidy & clean. Those things seemed to take up all my time each day, and I needed more time!
Really, I needed a way to put some of those time-consuming tasks on auto-pilot, so that I could free up my time to use in more meaningful ways – instead of continuing to just put out those daily fires!
So I created that system.
I sat down at the beginning of a month and wrote out exactly what I would need to simplify the rest of the days in that month. I came up with:
- A simple Bible study plan to follow (so I didn’t have to decide what to read each morning)
- A collection of healthy ideas for dinners for the whole month
- A break-down of what needed to be cleaned that month in order to keep things tidy AND make progress on the house projects I’d been hoping to get to
- A plan for decluttering each room of the house, that I could work on in small chunks, one room at a time
- Relevant tasks to help us manage our finances and stay within our budget that month
- Ideas for connecting with my family, and prioritizing those relationships over my to-do list
- Ideas to help me also prioritize true self-care, so I wasn’t always trying to pour from an empty cup
It took me one day to put these things together. One day at the beginning of the month. And as I began to follow the plan I’d created for each of these areas, the system started to work. I was keeping up with the tasks I needed to, and I actually DID find more time in the day – probably time that I used to spend making all these decisions that were now already made in advance!
And it just kept working. (!!!)
Over time, this system helped me learn how to be more meaningfully productive, dial in on the things that truly matter, and finally find the guilt-free space I need for the things that fill my soul, so that I can keep pouring into those I love.
I want that for you, too.
You could do the same thing I did – spend some time at the beginning of each month finding recipes and resources, breaking down tasks and figuring out what really needs to be done each month in order to keep your home and family life running smoothly. You could create your own framework, too.
Or, you could seriously free up your time and let us do it for you!
Meet The Anchored Life Kit!
The Anchored Life Kit is our thriving monthly membership that gives you full access to the framework I’ve already created: putting into your hands a practical system to help you manage your home and connect with your family, every single month.
For just $14 a month, we provide you with:
- Healthy, simple meal ideas with unique new recipes each month that your whole family will love.
- Our highly-acclaimed Home Care Checklist, to help you seriously simplify cleaning your entire house in way less time.
- Our NEW Decluttering Guide, focusing on just one area of your house each month for you to purge, declutter, and organize.
- A Bible study plan with 3 levels of study for you to choose from, giving you a very simple way to get into the Word each day.
- Seasonal idea lists for managing your finances, connecting with your family, and caring for yourself – all relevant for that specific time of the year.
- A quarterly Masterclass where we go deeper into a specific topic like time management, routines, and other practical strategies to help you live intentionally & free up even more time.
- An incredible, active community of women just like you who provide encouragement, support, and ideas to help you continue managing your home & family in confidence!
Pretty great, right?! Our membership is the one thing we offer here at Anchored Women that I am the MOST proud of, and most passionate about getting into your hands – because I know exactly how much it can change your day-to-day life by freeing up your actual time and your mental energy.
Creating this system and automating these resources every month gave me my life back. Let’s get YOUR life back, too.
I want to become a member! How do I join?
Starting today, we’re opening up our doors to new members for just 6 days. We would absolutely LOVE to have you as our newest happy member!
I’ll be sending out more information next week, but if you’re ready to jump in, you don’t have to wait. Click here to get all the details about becoming a member, and when you join, you’ll get access to all of August’s resources & our community right away!
Plus, as a special bonus, I’m throwing in over $65 of bonuses while we’ve got our doors open – some of our most popular home and life management resources!
You really can start managing your home and family in confidence, while freeing up your time to actually enjoy the life you’ve been given. Click here for all the details, and be sure to join us before the doors close on August 8th!
I can’t wait to see you on the inside, friend!
Kayse Pratt serves Christian women as a writer + designer, creating home + life management resources that help those women plan their days around what matters most. She’s created the most unique planner on the market, helped over 400 women create custom home management plans, and works with hundreds of women each month inside her membership, teaching them how to plan their days around what matters most. When she’s not designing printables or writing essays, you’ll find Kayse homeschooling her kids, reading a cheesy novel with a giant cup of tea in hand, or watching an old show from the 90’s with her husband, who is her very best friend.