My Favorite Time-Management Hack for Managing the Mundane as a Creative

The Pomodoro Method

Tonight, I (Shelby) am using what’s called The Pomodoro Method—but with my own twist (which I’ll get to in a minute).

The method was developed by a university student who had a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato (pomodoro means tomato in Italian). With his original time-management technique, you use a kitchen timer to discipline yourself to short, focused bursts of work, with short breaks in between.

Typically, the breakdown is four rounds of 25 minutes working with 5 minute breaks in between (which equals about 2 hours of focused work). Then after the four rounds you get a longer break (around 25 minutes) before repeating the process. My shorthand for this particular application of the technique is 25-5 x4.

I used this technique a lot when I was freelancing. The work I was doing would often get very granular and repetitive. Sometimes the monotony would make me throw in the towel—especially when I thought about needing to do eight hours of the same tasks. The Pomodoro Method kept me on track, while also legitimizing the need for breaks.

How This Hack Came in Clutch Today

I mentioned at the beginning that I’m using this hack right now—with a twist. Here’s what’s happening: I ended up unexpectedly having a free night. The kids are at the grands, the husband is working late, and the house is blissfully quiet.

It’s also a royal mess. Shortly before being ushered out the door, mine were just two of the nine kiddos running around the place. The “event” wasn’t planned—we just live in a tight-knit community with a lot of cousins. I typically do not let my children leave behind a mess for others to clean up (and neither do the other parents involved), but I happily prioritized more time for a leisurely visit over our normal habits this time.

I figured I could whip the place back into shape as soon as they were out the door.

But as I was tying on my apron and rolling up my sleeves, inspiration struck. I wanted to write more than I wanted to clean my house. (I know there are other creatives out there who resonate with this dilemma.)

October 5, 2022

Taming Your To-Do List

Posted by By Clari Mercier

Posted in Lifestyle Planning

A Season of Chaos

Earlier this summer I (Clari) was about ready to call it quits with this whole intentional living thing. We had moved to a new town, went through weeks of delayed home renovations, dealt with the whole family getting sick, travelled a bunch, and then came back to a place that felt anything like home. All our normal rhythms that we had built in our old home to sustain our daily habits and responsibilities had fallen apart, and I just didn’t even know where to begin to pick up the pieces.

Every time I had a spurt of energy to do something about my situation, I found myself contemplating the chaos without a clue as to where I should begin.

About that same time, a dear friend text me requesting tips on how to best maximize her Evergreen planner and I couldn’t decide if I should just laugh or cry. There I was as a co-owner of a company who sells a planner that is supposed to make intentional living intuitive and I couldn’t get my life in order. She had asked me how I was using my planner, and the truth was I was hardly using it at all. Like all my habits, the habit of daily planning had fallen to the wayside after so many months of not having a lot of control over my days (anyone who has gone through a slew of home rennovations knows precisely what I’m talking about here).

Taming My To-Do List

So I let the text sit there for about 24 hours until I could come up with a response that was both honest, but would also help and encourage my friend in her own time-management journey. And suddenly I remembered that Shelby (co-owner & creator of the Evergreen Planner), had written an amazing resource titled Taming Your To-Do List. I knew that’s exactly what my friend needed. And as I typed out that text, I realized that it was also exactly what I needed. Not even bothering to search for it among the many files on my computer, I went straight to our website and downloaded the guide.

September 21, 2022

Realistic Systems for an Amazing Homeschool Year – Part 3

Posted by By Clari Mercier

Posted in Homeschooling, Planner Tips

By default, the homeschool life is full of the unexpected.

So how can you, as a home educating Mama, leverage your foresight, creativity, and problem-solving genius to set up easy-to-maintain systems for an amazing homeschool year? Having a strong planner that operates as a dynamic hub for your brain really helps.

If you missed the first two posts in this series, you can read about my two most effective ways for using my planner and how I use life-giving rhythms to support our homeschool day. Today’s post is all about keeping things real, leaning into your own unique vision and goals for homeschooling, and how to troubleshoot problem areas. This post is full of easily applied practical advice you will want to use again and again!

Check in Every Morning to Create Realistic Lessons for That Unique Day

Homeschool mamas have to self-manage—and it’s really easy to let the day get away from you.

Taking just 5 minutes in the morning to timeblock your day can really come in clutch to prevent this from happening.

The Day Spread on the Evergreen Planner has the todo list space nestled right up to the timeblocker, allowing you to write task lists to accompany each section of your day. This keeps these tasks realistic, well-defined, and within visually obvious boundaries.

As a working homeschool mom, it really helps me transition out of the deep work I need to do for my business in the mornings and don my teacher hat for morning lessons. I’ve found that planning my deep work session the night before helps me to maximize that 5:30-7:30am block, and then using my planner to timeblock the rest of the day afterwards helps me to shift my emotional-orientation away from my work and towards jumping in whole-heartedly with my students. I also know that I have their nap/quiet time to close any loops from the morning and catch up on shallower administrative tasks.

September 7, 2022

Realistic Systems for an Amazing Homeschool Year – Part 1

Posted by By Shelby Shepherd

Posted in Homeschooling, Planner Tips

By default, the homeschool life is full of the unexpected.

Over the next three posts, I (Shelby, the residential homeschool nerd) am sharing my best tips, planning strategies, and proven systems for providing my children a consistent and rich homeschooling experience—even when life keeps on throwing the curveballs.