Simply Convivial: Biblical Homemaking, Homeschooling & Mom Life—Without Burnout

Find my free brain dump guide here: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/braindumpWhen you're feeling unmotivated, it's hard to get things done. We want to be more productive, but when we're feeling that lack of motivation we drag and dawdle. This one practice is the golden key to overcoming a lack of motivation and kicking your productivity motor into gear.You might wonder how to be more productive when you're feeling unmotivated, and the answer often comes down to acting in the way you want to feel. Whether you're working from home or working at home or both, you want to feel motivated and productive, but it's easy to feel stuck instead.

Get help ending overwhelm & stress: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/braindumpMy quick hack for busy moms will save your sanity when you have so much to juggle. When you're looking for hacks, you usually want a secret you're missing - and I have that for you today.Too often busy moms are go go go and get confused and overwhelmed about what's next. We risk missing life because we were so busy juggling details.My quick and unexpected hack today - a brain dump - is the key process to stopping the cycle and getting clear about what needs to happen next and what is truly important. Your situation is probably not as bad as your imagination is spinning it; brain dump and see reality instead of drama.#busymoms #momlife

Menu planning doesn't need to take a long time. These tips will get you to meal time peace.

More tips here: https://www.simplyconvivial.com/2019/how-to-grocery-shop/Improve your grocery shopping skill! These 3 grocery store tips will save you time and money and make grocery shopping simple.

Watch the "Save Time in the Kitchen" Workshop! https://www.simplyconvivial.info/pantryI know it seems overwhelming.I know even just planning dinner sometimes seems overwhelming.But, seriously, who wants to wake up and decide in the pre-coffee fog what to feed the troops for breakfast?It has to be decided ahead of time.Everyone talks about how much planning out dinners saves you from mental effort and decision fatigue, but that’s only 1/3 of the meals you feed people! Imagine if all the meals were planned – how much mental effort and decision fatigue would that reduce?Personally, I think the reason we balk at planning all the meals is that we build dinner menu planning into this herculean effort. Do we want to do that 2 more times over? No way! But if we simplify not only the two lighter meals, but also the dinner effort, we can have our plan and our peace of mind as well.Make an Easier Dinner PlanYou don’t need to have elaborate dinners every night to have a complete, healthy meal. Try thinking in threes and keeping easy to prepare vegetables always on hand. Rather than browse Pinterest or magazines to come up with dinner ideas, keep a list of your family’s go-to meals. Or, use Simplified Dinners, which is your list and guideline already put together.Make an Easier Lunch PlanLunch, whether you have to pack it or pause the other business of the day to prepare it, it always seems to get in the way. While taking a lunch break is refreshing, taking the time to prepare it is not.Make an Easier Breakfast PlanBreakfast hits us out of the blue, first thing in the morning. Rather than rolling out of bed without a clue about what to feed the troops, you need a plan in order to get things moving without feeling out of control.A solid breakfast starts the day off on the right foot, so planning it is essential.

Watch the "Save Time in the Kitchen" Workshop! https://www.simplyconvivial.info/pantryDoes menu planning seem impossibly hard? It really can be. So today let's talk about a simple way to make it easier. We will talk about building your own meal templates that will take the thinking out of menu planning.

Do the Daily Card Challenge: https://www.simplyconvivial.info/daily-card/What if you made a plan, you picked your real top three priorities for the day, and then you did none of them and you have no excuses. There is no good reason why you didn't do what you ought to do. Are we just bad planners or are we just hopeless? No. Neither.How do we make progress without giving up and without making the same mistakes, again, figuring out the mistakes we made so that we can learn from them. That's the important lesson that we need to talk about and need to figure out.What if you just didn't do the right thing? What then you are not worthless or helpless or hopeless. You are just normal human, maybe tired, maybe worn out, maybe burnt out. Maybe there's some kind of roadblock preventing you from getting those things done that you haven't identified. There all kinds of reasons that the top priority things don't happen. Sometimes we just don't have the energy or attention that we need to make them happen. Sometimes the high priority task actually has to take a back seat to catching up on sleep or maybe doing an exercise program. I know, I know don't shoot the messenger, but the reality is that we need to be sure that the fundamentals, the foundation of our productivity is taken care of before we can have that productivity to work in before we can get some of those big things done, we need to have sleep. We need to have energy. We need to have the time available. And sometimes we just don't have those foundational pieces. And so we have to scale back our expectations and focus on building the building blocks of managing life. Before we do the things that give us progress. Sometimes we don't really have any excuse at all, though. It happens. It happens to me. And I know it just happens to all of us. We just don't do what we ought to do. No good reason, no excuses. And that just needs to be confessed repented of before God who has given us the time he's given us the responsibility is he has given us the resources. And when we don't use them, when we just get stuck in self-indulgence or a lethargy or acedia, we can turn to repentance, which is not beating ourselves up and feeling bad. It's confessing and turning from the sin and asking God for the forgiveness and the grace and the motivation to move forward to obey. And he gives us the ability and the strength when we don't have it ourselves. And sometimes that's the lesson that we need to learn. Sometimes we need to recognize that we were trying to move forward and work in our own strength. Sometimes just making decisions or purchasing materials, just little steps that actually have to happen before the big project can move forward before the actual task can get done.Turn what you think is one task into a project and list out every single step and then identify what is the one next thing that needs to happen out of these various steps. Pick one that's next and break that bigger overwhelming task down into just a getting started task. And a lot of times that is all we need to start seeing traction and getting some momentum. We just haven't broken things down into small enough pieces to actually manage and move forward. The daily card is a great way to make that happen because we can just flip it over and use the backside to brain dump, to figure out where you're stuck and why write down a prayer, write down the next, the real next step so that you can figure make a better choice. Tomorrow. The daily card really is the planner that we all need to see some progress in our day to day life.

Free 5-Day Daily Card Challenge: https://www.simplyconvivial.info/daily-card/So you've been using the daily card writing down your top three or what you think are your top three, but then other stuff comes up. Was your plan a waste of time? What do you do when your top three is not what you do in the day?So, so often when we get those top three items chosen and we write them down on our daily card, something else comes up and we don't do those things. Not because we were lazy or self-indulgent or apathetic, but just because other stuff came up, other priorities took precedence. That does not mean that the daily card doesn't work. It doesn't mean that it's not the right option for you. It just means that we're learning what life is like. And we are living the life that we are given, not the life that we are making or trying to claim for ourselves. And that's a better option to live within the Providence of God and recognize that he sends his plan, which is often different from ours. And so, even though we are making a plan to attempt to identify our top priorities, sometimes we're wrong. Sometimes we don't have enough information. And so a big way that the daily card can help us is when we use it to, to actually identify and remind ourselves, tell ourselves of where our plans need to be, where our attention needs to be. And that's sometimes the things that we would not normally count, but it really is our primary responsibility for that day. Sometimes it's just errands, just doctor's appointments, just chauffeuring, children around cheerfully, and maybe using that time in the car to have conversations with them. Sometimes it's just feeding and clothing people, and a read aloud or audio book would be a good bonus. We can use our daily card not to create the life that we think we ought to have or write down what we think we ought to get done, but really out of everything, out of all the options, what's the best way we can spend our time today and identify those and write them down. And at the end of the day, if what we wrote down does not get done, we can ask ourselves really truly is it because I picked the wrong things, what were the right things? And maybe write those down instead, like cross out what you wrote and write down the priorities that actually happened that day. And over time, we can learn about ourselves, about our life and about how to make an appropriate plan for the current season in life that we're at in the current responsibilities that we have. 

Free 5-Day Daily Card Challenge: https://www.simplyconvivial.info/daily-card/So I have one planner secret that will make all the difference, no matter what planner you use, even if that planner is just a post-it note, there is a secret that applies and makes that planner actually useful in your day-to-day life. You're ready. You've got to look at your list and you've got to do what it says. I know ground breaking, planning secrets here. Stay tuned for more where that came from. A post-it note is great because it's small. And so it reminds you that your day is finite and you have to make some tough choices about how to spend that time. The other benefit of using a post-it note or an index card is that it is portable and portability helps with visibility. We need to be looking at our planner throughout the day. That's not a write it and forget it kind of an activity if we want that plan to actually make a difference in our day. So a great way to keep your post-it note handy is to pop it on the back of your phone or stick an index card in your back pocket. If you have a planner or a calendar that you like, and that you do use a post-it note can be a great addition because you can stick it on the calendar and see your calendar, as well as your top three for the day. 

So often we try buying a new planner, printing a new planner, creating a new planner from scratch in hopes that the planner will keep us on track. But the reality is that it's actually our time and attention to what's written to filling it out and then looking at it that makes a planner work. The format of the planner, the colors, the layout, the options are sometimes more of a distraction and a hindrance than they are a help to us getting more done. Sometimes the amount of space and options in a planner actually makes us too optimistic and over plan. Sometimes, a planner can make us more stressed out rather than less.  I want to show you how to keep a simple plan that will help you be more productive and do the right things without getting overwhelmed. We are going to create a clutter free planner with a post-it note or an index card. That's all, it takes a small little something that will keep you on target with the bare minimum list that stays in front of your face. So let's talk today about clutter free planner.