Barely Getting Homeschooling Done? A Lesson from your Junk Drawer – with Audio

If you’re barely getting homeschooling done because there’s too much going on, take a lesson from your junk drawer.

Do you have a junk drawer? I do. It has dry pens, broken pencils, grubby crayon stubs, rogue staples, crumbs, and erasers that some long grown baby tried to eat for breakfast. But that isn’t the real problem. The real problem is that the junk is all mixed up with good stuff – working pens, sharp enough pencils, bright new erasers, paperclips, post-it notes, and spare change. The drawer weighs more than my pots and pans but I keep adding to it anyway. Somehow, I rely on it.

But anybody who ever had a pet junk drawer knows that eventually, it turns on you. You reach in to get a paperclip and a staple bites you. You go for a pencil and they’re all pointless. You grab pen after pen, tearing up post it notes trying to start one. It’s time to bring in the garbage can. But you can’t just throw it all out. You need to sort it.

Do this and the drawer is light again. Paperclips come out of hiding; pens roll around freely, eager for service; pencils await your command like little soldiers, capped with colorful erasers. Everything is clean and everything works.

Let’s apply the junk drawer lesson to homeschooling. Do you overbook? Afraid you might miss something? Think that more is better?

Trying to do too much could be what is keeping you in the state of barely getting homeschooling done. It’s time to sort the good, the bad, and the grubby.

Let’s bring in the garbage can and assess the mess. Here’s a quick and dirty list to get you started. Check off all that apply:

• You feel like your curriculum runs you; not the other way around.
• You’re always driving somebody someplace.
• Friends/family members feel entitled to your time. You can just do school later – like midnight.
• You say yes to people but feel resentful or you say no and feel guilty.
• You own so much stuff your walls are closing in like the trash compactor in Star Wars.
• You start more projects than you finish.
• You want to kill everyone on Facebook for being so perfect or so dumb.
• Your little kids reenact Lord of the Flies whenever you’re in the bathroom.
• Your big kids tell their friends their hopes and dreams and troubles, but they don’t tell you.
• You had a meltdown when your spouse asked you for just one. more. thing.
• Fill in the blankety-blank ___________________! You might want to print this out.

If you checked off anything on this list, it is time to stop letting your “junk drawer” weight you down.

You need support. Here’s how get it.

First, put your list into three categories.

Category 1:

The first category holds the things that are going well or well enough. This is the good stuff that is buried underneath everything else. If not perfect, maybe it just needs a little cleaning up. This is the stuff you keep.

Category 2:

The next category is the stuff you can fix yourself. Is social media making you hate everybody? Do you need to draw a boundary with the friend who drops in on Monday mornings? Do you drive the kids everywhere but they won’t walk across the room to get you a glass of water? Those little things, like rogue staples, can bite you if you don’t purge them from your life.

Making these small changes empowers you to face the big ones.

Category 3:

The last category holds your worst problems. What is the worst of the worst? It is the unfixable, impossible, you’re stuck with it thing.

Chances are, it is the root cause of the others.

You have to face it.

Will it be hard for you to face? Probably. It could take hard work and time and resources. Ask yourself this: Are you okay with still having the problem in a year? How about in five years? How about in twenty years?

If you do not have the energy, the time, the resources, imagine the energy, time, and resources you will need to keep on enduring it.

For example, people who don’t get marriage counseling because it’s expensive or embarrassing often end up getting expensive, embarrassing divorces.

Whatever your issue is, the support is out there and with God the victory is possible.

Remember that nothing is hard for God.

Did I Mention Prayer? Forget that.

Prayer needs more than mere mention. It needs an increase, a commitment, and a higher degree of intensity. God is listening. I have seen so many drastic situations turn around because people dialed their prayer up to eleven. Even a little prayer – as long as it is of God and not “Gimme a beach body” – often receives an immediate answer. God is just waiting to be asked.

“Ask and you shall receive.” Matthew 7:7.

If you are barely getting homeschooling done, clean out your junk drawer. Don’t wait until it gets so heavy it collapses. It’s always harder to pick up the pieces.

This article originally appeared on the Homeschool Connections Blog, May 2021, and is reprinted with permission.