Simply Convivial: Organization & Mindset for Home & Homeschool

Welcome to The Simply Convivial Audio Blog! Releasing weekly on Wednesdays, this podcast brings you short & meaty focus sessions to help you keep your head in the game as a classical homeschool mom. Check out the podcast page here and please leave a review. Thanks! Season 2: Seven Laws of Teaching Your Own Law 1: The teacher must know that which he would teach. A teacher who knows what he is talking about, who has internalized that which he would communicate, is free; he is not slave to a textbook or curriculum. It is from feeling and living the truth that he knows that enthusiasm spills over to his students. It is the excitement of felt interest that sparks all his powers of communication. This law, stating that teachers must know – really know – what they are teaching, might discourage us and make homeschooling seem foolish and futile. However, it doesn’t have to. You delegate when homeschooling as you would if you sent your child to school. If your child went to school, you would still hold him accountable to completing his work well, right? That is your primary job in homeschooling, as well, not standing in front of the whiteboard as the fount of all knowledge. Indeed, the best application of this law for us is in our choice of books and materials. This law is the reason living books are essential. The authors your child reads are his teachers, so ensuring they are clear, passionate, knowledgable teachers is vital. Read the original post: Seven Laws of Teaching Your Own: The Law of the Teacher Listen: Resources: Simple Sanity Saver: A Homeschool-Specific Brain Dump What is a homeschool audit? In its simplest form, it is a brain dump all about our own particular homeschool. It’s a way to think through all the components – there are probably more than you realize! – and see what might be the triggers tripping us up. It’s a way to evaluate our situations and see our strengths and our progress instead of simply feeling our defeats. It’s a way of looking at any defeats squarely and deciding what to do about them – and the thing to do might simply be to stop expecting ourselves to be perfect and always on top of every detail. A homeschool brain dump – an audit – is a way to work through the mess of our emotional or even hormonal responses and think more straightforwardly and honestly and bravely about what’s actually working and what’s not. Be brave. Do a homeschool audit. You might be surprised at the results. Spread the word! Leaving a review on iTunes will help other homeschooling moms discover this podcast!

We need a reason to clean. I enjoy organizing. I hate cleaning. I dislike laundry. I sigh at dishes to be done. I delegate dishwasher duties to children because I feel such things are beneath me. I feel imposed upon by the housework, but I love the house and the family. However, love of the home and hatred of cleaning the home can’t coexist. The two are inconsistent. I spent a considerable amount of time believing that housekeeping, especially repetitive chores, does not really matter, and had to take a somewhat long and painful route to realize that it does. To make a home, we have to keep a house. Find out more at http://www.simplifiedorganization.com/audio

Welcome to The Simplified Organization Audio Blog! Releasing weekly on Mondays, this podcast gives you short and punchy action items and mindset resets. Check out the podcast page here and please leave a review. Thanks! Season 1: Interval Planning Increase your capabilities with interval planning. The problem with much of the productivity and planning advice out there is that it begins with a vision for a 5-year outcome. When we as mothers at home try to do that, we are rather at a loss. We might not even know how many children we’ll have in 5 years. If your oldest is 5, you’re not likely to accurately foresee what it’s like to have a 10 year old – and the same is true if your oldest is 10 and you’re trying to predict 15. We have to put one foot in front of the other where we are, and not get too wrapped up in predictions and visions. We should have a general direction, but we don’t know how that will play out. Rather than try to shoot for some 5-year outcome, we should have a general purpose and direction (this comes by knowing your vocations) and then make a short-term plan. Make a plan that is only 6-12 weeks in breadth. We can work toward ends in a chunk that small. The ends might not be as exciting as a grand 5-year vision, but that’s because it’s actually realistic – looking at that shorter amount of time allows you to make smart and meaningful choices about what’s best to do next. We can grow and develop and mature and become better at fulfilling our duties, but it will take time and effort. Read the original post here: Interval Planning for Growth Make your goals manageable. Then do them. Download the free interval planning guide. .kt-btns_e8a5c2-4a .kt-btn-wrap-0 {margin-right:5px;}.kt-btns_e8a5c2-4a .kt-btn-wrap-0 .kt-button {color:#582786;border-color:rgba(88, 39, 134, 1);box-shadow:3px 3px 2px 0px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);}.kt-btns_e8a5c2-4a .kt-btn-wrap-0 .kt-button:hover, .kt-btns_e8a5c2-4a .kt-btn-wrap-0 .kt-button:focus {color:#ffffff;border-color:rgba(88, 39, 134, 1);}.kt-btns_e8a5c2-4a .kt-btn-wrap-0 .kt-button::before {display:none;}.kt-btns_e8a5c2-4a .kt-btn-wrap-0 .kt-button:hover, .kt-btns_e8a5c2-4a .kt-btn-wrap-0 .kt-button:focus {background:rgba(88, 39, 134, 1);} Download Follow the bibliographic trail These are the books that inspired me to plan in short bursts rather than with long-term goal setting.

Welcome to The Simply Convivial Audio Blog! Releasing weekly on Wednesdays, this podcast brings you short & meaty focus sessions to help you keep your head in the game as a classical homeschool mom. Check out the podcast page here and please leave a review. Thanks! repetitio mater memoriae, or Repetition Season 1: Education is For Life This Latin motto, which apparently is used within the Latin classroom primarily and not embraced as a defining motto like the others so far, means Repetition is the mother of memory. This is supposed to spur you on to chant those declensions, but I think the truth contained therein should spur us on in much more than language acquisition. What adjectives do you associate with repetition? Dullness, boredom, monotony. What about training, practice, discipline, rehearsal. Pianists practice the same scales and pieces over and over daily. Actors rehearse their scenes over and over. Athletes practice the same drills over and over daily. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. In the same way, we must repent, pray, read our Bible, speak kindly, admonish, rejoice, give thanks daily, even multiple times daily. We must do so to become good at them, to become fit and trained in holiness, to imitate and glorify our Father. Read the original post: The Best Teacher, repetitio mater memoriae Listen: Read the original post: Living from Rest – cum dignitate otium Resources: * Dr. Perrin’s lecture “Eight Essential Principles of Classical Education * Rejoicing in Repetition by Mystie Winckler * Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton * Quotidian Mysteries by Kathleen Norris Simple Sanity Saver: Brain Dump When does the brilliant idea strike? When do you remember you’re desperately low on milk? It’s rarely when you’re actually sitting down, pen in hand, to make a relevant list. But if you don’t write it down right away, it’s gone. Hence, the need for ubiquitous capture. Ubiquitous capture is a term from David Allen’s Getting Things Done that basically means you should always have a way to write down, right away, any information you need to have rather than assuming you’ll remember it or remember to write it down later. * If an event or plan is mentioned, put it on the calendar right then. * If I pull out the last bag of flour, add it to the grocery list immediately. * If I say I’ll bring something to someplace, make that note. * If I realize I need to do this or that, get it into Remember the Milk right away. My personal ability to keep any information or reminders in my head has been practically nil the last few years, so I’ll be following the advice in Getting Things Done: These collection tools should become part of your lifestyle. Keep them close by so no matter where you are you can collect a potentially valuable thought — think of them as being as indispensable a...

Welcome to The Simplified Organization Audio Blog! Releasing weekly on Mondays, this podcast gives you short and punchy action items and mindset resets. Check out the podcast page here and please leave a review. Thanks! Season 1: Interval Planning Test out interval planning for Christmas preparations. I’m a proponent of making short-term plans and goals – ones that can be tracked and kept top-of-mind easily. I call it ‘interval planning’ because I think it’s like interval training: Go all out for a short amount of time, then take a rest period, and you’ll progress more than if you just slog through at a consistent but slower rate. The holidays provide a perfect example of and opportunity for an interval plan. Christmas is six weeks out, and then there’s a week afterward that is perfect for taking a break week. Then, if you find intervals work for you, you can move into the new year with a new strategy. Read the original post here: An Interval Plan for the Holidays I received this email from a Simplified Organization member last week: Try it out for yourself! Download the free interval planning guide. Follow the bibliographic trail These are the books that inspired me to plan in short bursts rather than with long-term goal setting. Move forward with confidence. Have questions about topic? Let’s talk in the comments!

Welcome to The Simply Convivial Audio Blog! Releasing weekly on Wednesdays, this podcast brings you short & meaty focus sessions to help you keep your head in the game as a classical homeschool mom. Check out the podcast page here and please leave a review. Thanks! cum dignitate otium, or Sabbath Season 1: Education is For Life So, I discovered that otium was the Latin word for leisure, and although I have not encountered it in education talks, it seems to have been the word used by philosophers to mean precisely what Pieper in Leisure, the Basis of Culture was trying to convey: that to truly cultivate arts – including those of reading, thinking, and discussing – we must have a space apart from the cares of marketing, buying, and selling. Otium – leisure – can mean idle amusement. Just as our word leisure can be used to talk about watching tv at night, so otium could carry similar connotations of mere unproductiveness. The phrase otium cum dignitas was a phrase used to distinguish the kind of leisure being discussed. It is a leisure that is with dignity, not a leisure of sloth or indolence. That is, it is a leisure characterized by worthiness, appropriateness, propriety, nobility, dignity, and self-respect. In the classical world, otium cum dignities meant one had time apart from an income-earning job to read, think, discuss, and participate in politics. Such a state was either a retirement earned after a lifetime of occupation or came as a result of inheritance. Cicero defines otium as a state of security and peace, of tranquility of mind, which is cultivated when one is not seeking profit and personal gain, but rather contemplating and having a mind at ease. In the medieval period, this word otium came to be used primarily to indicate peace of mind – a leisure that is internal more than an external circumstance. Petrarch, writing in the 13th century, says that otium is ideally spent on nature appreciation, serious research, meditation, contemplation, writing, and friendship. So in this phrase we have wrapped up both the concept of a space set apart from economic considerations or “getting ahead” and also the concept that leisure is internal, a way of being. I think we need both meanings in our lives. Listen: Read the original post: Living from Rest – cum dignitate otium Resources: * Dr. Perrin’s lecture “Eight Essential Principles of Classical Education * Leisure, the Basis of Culture by Joseph Pieper * Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman * Crazy Busy by Kevin DeYoung * Teaching from Rest by Sarah Mackenzie P.S. – You also don’t want to miss this Sarah-approved post: 5 Myths on Teaching from Rest Simple Sanity Saver: Brain Dump So, after you’ve completed your first, thorough brain dump and started processing it, what’s next? Are you done? Nope. Though you’re done with a thorough brain dump, at least until life throws you into the deep end again, you’re not done writing things down. Once everything is out of your head and on paper, the trick is to just write things down, right away so they never accumulate and clutter up your head again. I call it Ubiquitous Capture. It’s a habit that pays dividends the more you practice it.

Welcome to The Simplified Organization Audio Blog! Releasing weekly on Mondays, this podcast gives you short and punchy action items and mindset resets. Check out the podcast page here and please leave a review. Thanks! Season 1: Interval Planning Stay focused on what matters. Leverage the interval training technique in your personal life by setting up your calendar in intervals and planning goals accordingly. Planning and executing in short-term bursts is a great way to keep laser focus and high energy. By always keeping short deadlines and tackling manageable chunks, you can avoid overwhelm and procrastination. As you make your plan, look at your calendar and the season and be realistic. It’s really easy to leave out projects you’re committed to because you aren’t counting them as projects. Don’t “assume” projects – they all have to be on the plan. Even kids’ birthdays have to be accounted for (or anything that requires gift buying), at least on the tasks list if not the project list. If it must happen this interval, then it must be on your list. Read the original post here: Interval Planning: Keeping Laser Focus Download the free interval planning guide. Follow the bibliographic trail These are the books that inspired me to plan in short bursts rather than with long-term goal setting. Build the habits of productivity needed to stay focused at home. Have questions about topic? Let’s talk in the comments!

Welcome to The Simply Convivial Audio Blog! Releasing weekly on Wednesdays, this podcast brings you short & meaty focus sessions to help you keep your head in the game as a classical homeschool mom. Check out the podcast page here and please leave a review. Thanks! esse quam videri, or Virtue Season 1: Education is For Life Would we rather look good than be good, than do what is right? What if we prioritized being and doing good over looking good? And I’m not talking about makeup. It is simpler and more immediately rewarding to have people think we are good than to expend the effort and rise to the challenge of really pursuing virtue, regardless of people’s opinion of us. At the park with our children, is it more important to us that we appear like good moms or that we actually do what our children need us to do, regardless of what the other park moms think? When having people over, do we care more about making it seem like we have our act together or actually have our act together enough to prioritize keeping in fellowship with our children over conquering the dust, fingerprints, and crumbs, if we have to choose. Being and doing good does not always give us the payoff of looking good, actually. If we must choose, which will we choose? Being or seeming? Yet, actually having these virtues is hard work. Seeming to have them is easier than actually having them. Seeming to have them will make us more popular than actually having them, than actually obeying God’s commands. To be virtuous, rather than simply seem so, will require diligence and perseverance in the midst of adversity. Virtue isn’t a magic trait that smooths paths and makes life soft and easy. Rather, the opposite is more true. Virtue is forged in the furnace of trial and temptation. You can’t have courage without fear. You can’t have patience without trial. You can’t have self-control without warring desires. Virtue is a fruit God grows in us through adversity. Listen: Read the original post: Seeking or Seeming – Virtue Resources: * Dr. Perrin’s lecture “Eight Essential Principles of Classical Education * Virtue is the Goal of Education * Wisdom leading to virtue is the only liberal art Simple Sanity Saver: Brain Dump So you have a thorough brain dump. You have deleted what you can. Now you have a collection of things that you think maybe you should trash and maybe you should save. How do you make that call? Start a fresh list. Make two columns. One column is Discuss and the other is SomedayMaybe. As you flip through your brain spillage, move onto the clean list in the SomedayMaybe column projects, goals, hopes, etc that you can’t do now, but you’d like to do in the future. Once they’re on the new list, cross them out of your brain dump notebook so you don’t need to filter them visually again when you go through for the important things. If you have items in your brain dump that you can’t decide about, if you aren’t sure if it’s an unrealistic expectation or just a hard truth. If you aren’t sure sure if you should be doing this or concerned about that, add it to the Discuss column and cross it off the brain dump. Those issues that make it to the discuss column are now your agenda items. One by one over time or in a big heart-to-heart session,

Welcome to The Simplified Organization Audio Blog! Releasing weekly on Mondays, this podcast gives you short and punchy action items and mindset resets. Check out the podcast page here and please leave a review. Thanks! Season 1: Interval Planning You need a break. Breaking up your year into intervals is a simple way to sharpen your focus and stay engaged with projects and the things that need to be done to keep life at home rolling along. Instead of looking ahead over an entire year and making goals, try looking only at the next six weeks. What has to happen in the next six weeks? That’s a lot more clear usually. The truth is, you don’t know what your life will be like in another 12 months, or even 6. Especially if you are still in the phase where your family is young and growing, you might not know if you’ll be pregnant, what the toddler’s nap routine will be like, and a million other variables. Instead of trying to control the details and plan out your life for an entire year (or more!), look at the next 6 weeks and determine what is most important in the phase that you are actually in right now rather than where you hope to be in the future. Faithfulness happens in the now, not the future, and God works with us where we are, not where we should be or want to be. So embrace the now and work with it. Live it. And know that you’ll be able to handle the unpredictability of life by applying faithfulness and obedience as you go along. Read the original post here: Interval Planning: Don’t Skip the Rest Period Download the free interval planning guide Follow the bibliographic trail These are the books that inspired me to plan in short bursts rather than with long-term goal setting. Learn a complete system for keeping your plates spinning. Have questions about interval planning? Let’s talk in the comments!

Welcome to The Simplified Organization Audio Blog! Releasing weekly on Mondays, this podcast gives you short and punchy action items and mindset resets. Check out the podcast page here and please leave a review. Thanks! Season 1: Interval Planning Make interval plans work for you. Use the theory behind interval training to maximize your planning effectiveness. Just as runners train and gain strength and endurance by running in short, intense bursts and then going at a slower pace for awhile, so we can follow the same pattern in our day-to-day lives. Breaking up your year into intervals, with rest periods in between, is a great way to keep your head wrapped around what you have to do and also keep up your energy as you do them. Planning for a space of time that is long enough to complete a small project or at least accomplish milestones in a large project helps you retain focus and the benefits of deadlines and end-of-season pushes that usually only happen at the end of school years, fiscal years, or calendar years. You never get to slump into the “I have plenty of time” mentality as is so easy come February for those annual goals. Deadlines motivate, and intervals are a way to consistently bring deadlines to bear, increasing our self-discipline and effectiveness in the things that matter to us. Read the original post here: Making an interval plan work for you Download the free interval planning guide Follow the bibliographic trail These are the books that inspired me to plan in short bursts rather than with long-term goal setting. Find clear, step-by-step help for creating goals, plans, and routines. Have questions about interval planning? Let’s talk in the comments!

Welcome to The Simply Convivial Audio Blog! Releasing weekly on Wednesdays, this podcast brings you short & meaty focus sessions to help you keep your head in the game as a classical homeschool mom. Check out the podcast page here and please leave a review. Thanks! Fortiter fideliter forsan feliciter, or Repentance Season 1: Education is For Life This motto keyed into a vague notion I’ve been pondering lately: The idea of focusing more on the process, on doing what I should do, and leaving the results, the outcome, to God. The world recommends setting SMART (specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, timely) goals, where the focus is on achieving measurable results. But, doesn’t the Bible focus more on obedience and trust? And aren’t so many of the things we strive for as mothers and home-educators not exactly measurable? Yes, getting dinner on the table or taking the kids to the dentist could be accomplished as a SMART goal, but these things are small parts of a bigger vision and goal that is not at all measurable, not even all that specific, and much too long-term to be “timely”: raising healthy, happy, godly children. The motto means “bravely, faithfully, perhaps successfully.” What I love about this motto is the reminder that so often the results are not in our hands. We are called to obey faithfully, but God gives the increase – in His time, in His way – and it often doesn’t look like what we expected. We can’t control how things will work out, but we can control whether or not we obey, right here, right now. We can trust that God will work it all out in the end. Listen: Read the original post: A Life of Repentance Resources: * George Grant: Education is repentance * Martin Luther: 95 Theses * Why You Want to Give Up Homeschooling Simple Sanity Saver: Brain Dump Once you have a full brain dump, you have a clear head, but you also have a notebook full of random bits – some vitally important and some trivial. Now what? Now you process. Before you can process, you need to have a planning system in place so that you can trust you won’t lose that vitally important information. In short, you need a reliable calendar, a place for notes that you actually look at, and a habit for working through task lists. Work the Plan walks you through setting up these systems and building the habits of using them if you need further help there. Processing the brain dump will also take multiple sessions over the course of a week or more. It’s sort of like you’ve totally emptied a closet (your brain) and now you have a pile of treasures and junk heaped up in front of you. It’s time to sort through it and figure out what you’re going to keep and what you’re going to throw away. So the best first processing step with your brain dump is to go through with a black pen and delete. Toss the trash. Delete the unrealistic expectations. Cross off the worries. Let go of the outside pressures. Delete whatever you can. If you aren’t sure you should delete it or if you just aren’t ready to, there’s another option. We’ll cover that in the next sanity saver segment. Spread the word! Leaving a review on iTunes will help other homeschooling moms discover this podcast!

Welcome to The Simply Convivial Audio Blog! Releasing weekly on Wednesdays, this podcast brings you short & meaty focus sessions to help you keep your head in the game as a classical homeschool mom. Check out the podcast page here and please leave a review. Thanks! Festina Lente, or Faithfulness Season 1: Education is For Life This phrase, Festina Lente, juxtaposes both briskness and plodding. We should make haste because we should not be stagnant or lethargic, but we also should go forward slowly because, as Erasmus put it, Things that are foreseen and provided for by slow and gentle forethought are safer than what is hurried into action by hot and hasty heads. So the maxim of festina lente opposes both laziness and impulsiveness. It requires both action and thought. It steers us from both sides of the ditch. Faithfulness doesn’t imply large, impressive deeds. Faithfulness is all about doing what’s in front of you – your own duty, however humble that is – reliably and earnestly. Faithfulness does not evaluate how a duty ranks in the public eye or whether or not the duty will earn credit; faithfulness steadily fulfills its calling. Listen: Read the original post: Daily Faithfulness Resources: * Dr. Perrin’s lectures on the principles of classical education * Erasmus’ Adagia: Festina Lente * Cindy Rollins’ wisdom “So that kings [mothers] would commit nothing through rashness they would regret, nor pass over through laziness anything that would tend to the well-being of the state [home], I ask you, what could be more prosperous, better grounded, and more stable than this kind of rule?” – Erasmus Simple Sanity Saver: Brain Dump I first learned about brain dumps from David Allen’s time management classic, Getting Things Done. In it, he recommends executives block off an hour or two on a Friday, follow his prompts, and totally clear their heads of all the random tights and concerns. That’s simply not feasible for the typical homeschooling mom. Our time is largely spoken for and any uninterrupted time is precious and scarce. Instead of trying to find a magical few hours to totally clear our heads, we need to simply turn to our brain dump in the margins, in the spare moments here and there, in the midst of the hustle and bustle. Keep the brain dump notebook handy with a pen and spend a few minutes in the morning, some time over lunch, a bit in the evening, and wherever you have a few moments in the day and jot down as much as you can about all the things rattling around in your head. It might take two weeks or even a month to wok through the prompts and spill it all onto paper, but that’s ok. Some time to peel back the layers will likely ensure its a more thorough brain dump. Take your time and do your best to get all your obligations, ideas, concerns, goals, nagging suspicions, and hopes and dreams written down so you can use your mind to think about them rather than hold and juggle them. If you need help and tips for your brain dump, click the link below for the free brain dump guide which includes prompts as well as instructions and more. Spread the word! Leaving a review on iTunes will help other homeschooling moms discover this podcast!

Welcome to The Simply Convivial Audio Blog! Releasing weekly on Wednesdays, this podcast brings you short & meaty focus sessions to help you keep your head in the game as a classical homeschool mom. Check out the podcast page here and please leave a review. Thanks! multum non multa, or Simplicity Season 1: Education is For Life The principles that we base our education upon are the same principles we can base our home routines, our activity choices, and our personal goals upon. These are truly principle principles, first things, foundational things. Another way the Latin phrase multum non multa can be translated is ‘not quantity but quality.’ This sentiment is one that has several traditional English proverbs, as well: Quality over quantity, and less is more. The principle tells us that we should privilege depth and quality over breadth and quantity. It means that it is ok to say no to good things when we realize that saying yes would diminish the quality and depth of the good things we are already committed to. It helps us recognize and be content with our finiteness. Read the original post: The Simple Life, multum non multa Listen: Resources: * Christopher Perrin’s series on the principles of classical education * Review: Managers of Their Homes Simple Sanity Saver: Brain Dump A brain dump is simply writing down whatever is piling up in your head when you start to feel a little crazy, a little overwhelmed, a little swamped. And if you’re feeling a lot swamped, a brain dump is essential! When you write it all down on paper, you move it from the ethereal realm where it’s vague obligation and stress to concrete words on paper you can deal with. When it’s written down, you can better see what’s bothering you and instead of using your mind to hold details and try to remember things, you can use your mind to actually think about those details and make solid decisions. Putting things down onto paper clears the space in your head. A brain dump is not a to do list. A brain dump is just a collection. You might move things from your brain dump notebook to a to do list, but you might also – and probably should also – move things from your brain dump notebook into the trash. Whenever you start to feel like you just can’t juggle everything, try grabbing a piece of paper and writing down all that makes up your everything you’re trying to juggle. You’re sure to have some ah-ha moments. Spread the word! Leaving a review on iTunes will help other homeschooling moms discover this podcast!  

Often when we plan out our goals, we think in year-long chunks of time, either personal goals in January or academic goals in August. If you’ve ever done this, perhaps you’ve noticed that it’s really difficult to keep those goals. A cycle I’m familiar with goes like this: * Commit to a huge life-overhaul, personal transformation sort of goal for the year. * Go for it gung-ho for two or three weeks in January. * Burn out in February. * Forget about it in March. * Remember and try again in April. * Be hit-or-miss in May. * Get distracted in June. * Remember again in August and try hard. * Have too many other things on my plate in September. * Remember in late October. * Feel like it’s too late now. * Give up until January. This year, I’ve found an way to avoid this cycle, to keep motivated, and to have goals while remaining flexible. Intervals. Interval, noun * an intervening time or space * a pause; a break in activity * a space between two things; a gap. Listen to this article: Intervals have two components: a period of focused, intense activity and a pause or space between the bursts. The applications for intervals are broad, and usually not applied to planning or goal setting. Interval Exercise When I’m trying to lose weight and get back into shape after having a baby, I turn to the couch-to-5k program. It’s an easy way to do interval training, which gives you the greatest results for the least amount of work. The idea behind intervals is that you work at your highest capacity, giving all you got, for a very short amount of time. Then you have a recovery period. You alternate periods of intense effort and recovery. When you exercise this way, you boost your metabolism and achieve longer afterburn than with any other method. Interval Programming Programmers and others in high-tech companies have started implementing this concept in their work environment. They call the intervals “sprints,” and it’s known as Agile Development. The idea instead of spending a huge amount of time and money on upfront engineering-like design of software and continual documentation along the way, they roll out software that meets the requirements as soon as possible, then debug and add features in short sprints – sending out a new version each sprint to keep the software in continual improvement. At the end of every sprint, they also evaluate how they did, where they’re going, and how they can improve not only the software, but also their processes. Interval Planning After exercising in intervals and talking to my husband about how his company implements Agile methods, I started wondering if there was a foundational principle I could apply in other areas of my life. I have often heard it said that life is a marathon, not a sprint, but how does one train for a marathon? Through sprints and rests. Even within a marathon (hypothetically for myself), runners will run faster for periods of time and then take a “break” by slowing their speed to catch their breath and build up stamina for another burst. So why not apply those same principles to how we plan and work out our plans? Interval planning to the rescue. Learn how to make an interval plan In this series, which will run on Fridays through May, I’ll talk about each of these components of an interval plan. Components of an Interval Plan

Festina Lente, or Faithfulness part of the Education Is for Life series This series was inspired by Chrisopher Perrin’s great webinars on the principles of classical education. One of my favorites so far was his “deep dive” into the principle Festina Lente. Erasmus wrote of this proverb in his Adagia: If you weigh carefully the force and the sentiment of our proverb, its succinct brevity, how fertile it is, how serious, how beneficial, how applicable to every activity of life, you will easily come to the opinion that among the huge number of sayings you will find none of greater dignity. So, let’s apply this motto maybe not to every activity of life, but at least those that make up a large percentage of our days. These principles are for life – not just for schooling. I must admit, though, I was tempted to veer into school talk when I read Erasmus’ essay on Festina Lente, because he clearly sides with a “better late than early” mindset. If you’ve ever been tempted toward an “accelerated” mindset, read sections 28 & 29 in this short essay and be encouraged to not push your children before they are ready – early academics is not classical. Listen to this post: Festina Lente This phrase, Festina Lente, juxtaposes both briskness and plodding. We should make haste because we should not be stagnant or lethargic, but we also should go forward slowly because, as Erasmus put it, Things that are foreseen and provided for by slow and gentle forethought are safer than what is hurried into action by hot and hasty heads. So the maxim of festina lente opposes both laziness and impulsiveness. It requires both action and thought. It steers us from both sides of the ditch. Faithfulness A poem Cindy Rollins through the years has oft quoted is Little drops of water, little grains of sand, make the mighty ocean and the beauteous land. And the little moments, humble though they may be, make the mighty ages of eternity. Most of what we as mothers do all day are little grains of sand: read a book, correct a child, make a meal, sweep a floor, change a diaper. Our days are full of small tasks, but their smallness does not mean they are insignificant. It is in these ways that we love our families. I think that the English word that summarizes this Latin motto is faithfulness: Faithful, adjective 1. strict or thorough in the performance of duty: a faithful worker. 2. true to one’s word, promises, vows, etc. 3. steady in allegiance or affection; loyal; constant: faithful friends. 4. reliable, trusted, or believed. 5. adhering or true to fact, a standard, or an original; accurate: Faithfulness doesn’t imply large, impressive deeds. Faithfulness is all about doing what’s in front of you – your own duty, however humble that is – reliably and earnestly. Faithfulness does not evaluate how a duty ranks in the public eye or whether or not the duty will earn credit; faithfulness steadily fulfills its calling. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. (1 Corinthians 4:2, ESV) Faithfulness at Home To make haste slowly in the home, I think, is to embrace routine, embrace maintenance, embrace the ongoing nature of the task. I have fought against this aspect of homemaking more than any other.