Prioritizing tasks can feel really overwhelming and sometimes impossible when you have so many parts of your life as a mom, farm wife, managing your home, bonus breadwinner, and maybe even teacher if you homeschool. Its all important right?
That can feel true in the moment but we have to find a way to make it all work. AND in this busy season of life prioritization is one of the key ways to manage your time well and get what needs to be done completed and be ok with letting the rest wait.
1. Understanding the Importance of Prioritization
Why Prioritization Matters:
By prioritizing, you can create a balanced daily routine that makes sure both farm and family needs are met.
When you’re juggling the demands of a homestead and motherhood, prioritization becomes your best friend. Focusing on the most critical tasks will help you get the most important things done and take care of life and still move you forward in your daily life goals.
Life is going to throw you chaos at any given time. It’s knowing what your priorities are that can help you get back on track and get the most important things done without feeling guilty that other tasks have to sit for the day.
They just didn’t make the cut and they can wait until tomorrow.
The Consequences of Poor Prioritization:
Without prioritization, tasks pile up, leading to stress and decreased productivity. Did you know that planning and prioritizing can save you up to 20% of your time? Here is why I personally think that it helps you.
When you know exactly what needs to be done you don’t have to think about it and you are not wasting time waffleing back and forth about what to do. — My husband and I both are terrible about deciding what to eat for dinner on the weekends. The amount of time spent waffling back and forth and piddling around because of it is CRAZY. I can’t imagine how little I would get done if I took that approach to my business and household tasks.
That’s more time for what really matters, whether it’s spending time with your kids or tending to your garden.
2. Assessing Your Daily and Weekly Tasks
Creating a Task Inventory:
Start by listing all your daily, weekly, and seasonal tasks. Categories might include animal care, gardening, household chores, homeschooling, and self-care. But don’t forget to list tasks that help you reach your life goals as well. Digital tools like Trello or Google Calendar can help manage these lists efficiently, perfect for moms always on the go.… But more on that later.
Identifying Non-Negotiable Tasks:
Determine which tasks are essential and time-sensitive, like feeding animals or preserving the harvest. Recognize tasks that can be delegated or postponed.
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3. The Eisenhower Matrix for Homesteading Moms
What is the Eisenhower Matrix:
The Eisenhower Matrix helps prioritize tasks by urgency and importance. For example, feeding animals might be urgent and important, while planning next season’s garden is important but not urgent.
Breaking Down Tasks into Quadrants:
- Urgent and Important: Immediate animal care.
- Important but Not Urgent: Long-term planning, like crop rotation.
- Urgent but Not Important: Interruptions that can be delegated.
- Not Urgent or Important: Activities that can be eliminated or postponed.
I also want to throw out there that sometimes we have to be willing to admit that some tasks are not urgent or important. I can’t tell you what those are but when there is a pile of tasks and it’s not realistic for you to get it all done. You may have to be willing to let some things go. Here is an example
You want to expand your garden or add more to it that you aren’t experienced with yet. It’s important to you that you grow most of your own food but you have a hard time keeping what you already have going and you don’t have time to preserve any more.
Do you see how some things are “important” or noble but sometimes you just have to let it go? Your family won’t go hungry if you don’t grow it all. You have to recognize that some things aren’t possible right now in this season.
4. Setting Realistic Goals and Deadlines
SMART Goals for the Homestead:
Set Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals. For instance, Plant 25 tomato plants by the end of May is a SMART goal.
- Specific and Measurable: You know how many to plant and you can know if you did or did not hit that number of planting 25.
- It’s relevant to your current situation if you have a garden ready to go. — (I want to raise enough beef for my family to eat each year. Is a smart goal. BUT it’s missing one thing. RELEVANCE. I am in a growth phase and dealing with a 1 year old. Learning something new is not wise. It’s a 5 -year goal for me)
- Time Bound: “By the end of May”
Planning with Flexibility:
Life on a homestead can be unpredictable. Build flexibility into your schedule to account for unexpected events like weather changes, animals getting out, or a sick child. This is how knowing what your priorities are can help you decide what gets bumped to the next day so you can adjust deadlines and priorities as needed without guilt.
5. Time-Blocking for Maximum Efficiency
What is Time-Blocking?
Ok here is what time blocking is in the traditional sense. Read through it but I think in this season of life we have to take a different route with it. — Time-blocking organizes your day into specific blocks of time dedicated to certain tasks. This method helps you stay focused, even with potential interruptions.
Here’s how we have to tweak time blocking to work for busy moms and farmers with lots of interruptions.
I think time blocking is good because it restricts tasks to a certain amount of time and doesn’t allow for a task to take longer than it needs to.
So give a task a certain amount of time. If you are interrupted, pause that time given, fix the interruption, and get back to what you were doing with the remaining time left.
Creating Your Time-Blocked Schedule:
Group similar tasks together, such as morning animal care or afternoon homeschooling. This helps streamline your day and makes it easier to stay on track.
Incorporating Breaks and Downtime:
Don’t forget to schedule breaks and downtime for self-care and family time. This helps recharge your batteries and maintain a healthy balance.
6. Delegating Tasks and Involving Family Members
The Power of Delegation:
Delegating tasks can lighten your load and teach your children valuable skills. Tasks like collecting eggs or weeding can be great for kids. A tip to help encourage them to do a task without having to be nagged is giving kids chores that they are less likely to hate. If a kid hates chickens but doesn’t mind the goats. Give that child the goats to feed and someone else the chickens.
You can ask kids which chores they would prefer and don’t leave “none” as an option.
Creating a Family Chore Chart:
Chore charts are great for the mom to remember who is doing what but if no one is going to look at it dont waste your time or demand that they stay in tune with YOUR organization method. Having chores is a great way to start teaching kids to plan their day in a way that works for them.
Do they need a to-do list or a calendar? Give them a cheap notebook to have by their bed or something of that nature.
A chore chart can clearly outline each family member’s responsibilities. But open communication about task assignments is the key to making sure everyone is on the same page.
7. Using Technology and Tools to Stay Organized
Ok, this can be a sticky subject because a lot of us like paper planners. I am the first to admit this. But it’s realistic when we are busy and on the go. But we always have our phones with us.
Give digital planning a chance. Start with tools that you use naturally and try to make those work. I have recently started using Google calendar much more often because in the end that is the one that I was using consistently even though I tried a lot of other tools.
Digital Tools for Task Management:
Apps like Trello, Google Calendar, and Notion can help keep track of tasks and deadlines. Reminders and notifications ensure you stay on top of your schedule.
You can access all of these on desktop and they sink up with mobile so if you like planning with big open spaces this is why these are my first choice.
Old-School Methods:
Traditional methods like to-do lists, bullet journals, or whiteboard calendars can help clear your mind. But try using those to handwrite all the tasks then transfer them to your digital tool so you can access them from anywhere.
Integrating these with digital tools can provide a comprehensive system if you give it a chance.
8. Review and Reflect: Adjusting Priorities Over Time
Weekly and Monthly Reviews:
Regularly review your task list and priorities to ensure they align with your goals. A simple checklist can help with this process.
Celebrating Progress and Adjusting Expectations:
Celebrate your achievements, no matter how small. Adjust expectations as needed and remember, it’s okay to reprioritize as circumstances change.
Also, remember that organization methods are not going to stay the same for your whole life or even a full year sometimes. As life changes you are going to feel like something is out of alignment. So see what is causing a snag in your organization and try to fix that one thing first before blowing up your entire operating system.
Prioritizing tasks is essential for busy homesteading moms to balance farm and family responsibilities. By understanding the importance of prioritization, assessing daily and weekly tasks, using tools like the Eisenhower Matrix, setting realistic goals, time-blocking, delegating tasks, and utilizing technology, you can create a more manageable and fulfilling lifestyle.
Remember to review and adjust your priorities regularly, celebrate your progress, and find joy in your homesteading journey.
