Homeschooling and Parkinson's Law

This is my eighth year of homeschooling. It is a lot of work but it can be so much fun. I have found it to be great to get to sit with my kids and learn with them. It is nice to sit and cuddle on the couch and learn about so many interesting things together.

I used to be a routine person. We did things in a certain order and it was all good. But more and more, I started to feel stressed at how late in the day we were ending school. I would rush to get dinner done. Clean up. Get the little ones ready for bed and that was it. There was no time for anything I wanted to do and this was becoming a problem.

Enter schedules. I used to dislike schedules. I found them frustrating and unattainable. But, I was the one writing the schedule so if I found them to be so difficult it is because I was making it difficult. Writing a schedule takes practice. You need to learn to give yourself margin and wiggle room and to be realistic with what you will be able to accomplish with your time.

With the schedule shunned then entered Parkinson's Law. Parkinson's law states that people will take all the time to do a task that is allotted to do it. It will take all that you give it and if you don't limit it, you may be taking more time to do it then is reasonable.

With a routine, anytime I found something interesting we wanted to learn or read about, I just added it to the list. Not really thinking that it would add more time to our school day. It is good to set a homeschool hours "budget." When that time is gone, it is gone. There is always tomorrow. Public school teachers are not staying after school hours to make sure they finish everything on the list. We don't need to do that either.