I love my daily planner. I have my daily goals, weekly goals, monthly goals, and yearly goals all written out for 2021. I love violently scribbling out things I’ve accomplished; while some would find this dedication to a to-do list burdensome, I find that it frees my mind to concentrate on whatever is going on at the moment.
My various categories of to-dos:
- habits – things that I do daily that are MUSTS and don’t end up on my to-do list. Like showering, or reading my Bible, or dressing the kids and brushing their hair.
- daily tasks – these are generally the top 5 things I want to get done in a day, and usually they are homeschooling, walking, working (if I’m teaching at the time), and writing. if the day ends up being particularly frantic (fussy baby, etc), then I cut things from there.
- special tasks – once a week i will pull something from my monthly to-do list and add it to my daily to-do list (like DIY the privacy layer to our bamboo blinds. a total pain, I’ve got 3 left. Or submit poems to magazines, etc.)
Each day when the girls wake up, i talk to them about what we plan to do for the day while we are all sitting around reading/ drinking juice / waking up.
Some days do not go as planned.
Today, for example, was an extremely derailed day where I quickly found that my plans were not in alignment with Baby’s plans for the day.
I hoped to homeschool, bake with the girls, help W write a letter to her penpal, go for a walk, write, and work.
Baby hoped to wake up 5 times in the night, wake up for the day at 5am, and take 3 minute naps throughout the day unless I was holding him (actually he is being held right now as I type one handed), fuss, scream, pull mom’s hair, all on a day where B left for work before sunrise.
Baby wins.
I found myself feeling increasingly overwhelmed and frustrated, so I took a moment to put Baby in his crib, brush my teeth (tragically late in the day), fix the girls a quick lunch, before I picked him back up. I had to just lay it all down and pray, Ok Lord, obviously your thoughts on how this day should go are different from mine!
I have thoughts on what I’d like to teach the girls, but maybe we can cut that lesson about Somalia just this once, and I can write in my head until I get a quiet moment tonight, and the dishes and laundry can go undone until B gets home and I have help.
maybe this is the day that the Lord has made, not that Renee has made. maybe I can be an example of being joyfully flexible to what Gods called me to today instead of grumping about it. Let it be so!
Renee Emerson 
thoughts?