Peek Inside My Presently Productive System

As a working homeschool mom, I have a LOT to manage. There’s work tasks and projects, homeschool planning (and execution), keeping the home clean, and everything in between.

A year ago, I was drowning in the weight of it all. The overwhelm was swallowing me and I felt like I was going to have to give up something, and I was afraid that thing would be the one that was most important to me – homeschooling.

That’s when I created the Presently Productive System.

Overview

The Presently Productive System is (among other things) a task management system designed to handle EVERY area of my life as a working homeschool mom.

I can manage my work projects and tasks, homeschool planning, housework, Bible study, church involvement, and everything else in one place.

I used to go searching in all my different planners and notebooks for that one note I just knew I had written down somewhere and would often drop the ball on things that needed to get done because I didn’t have an easy way to see all of my priorities and tasks in one place.

Now, with the System, I can easily see all of my tasks together and order them by priority throughout the week and within any given day. It’s been an absolute game-changer.

Work

In the work section, I have all of the tools I need to manage my work projects and tasks. I can easily see a list of the projects I’m currently working on, and within each project, I can see an overview of the project, along with all of the tasks and notes related to it.

Tasks can easily be given a due date and that due date can easily be changed. And within the task itself, I can add the notes and links I’ll need for completing the task.

It has genuinely never been easier for me to stay on top of my work and know that I’m not dropping the ball on anything.

Homeschool

In the homeschool section, I keep all of my plans – both big picture and weekly – and any other notes I’ll need to reference.

Along with my planning pages, there are established areas for writing out my educational philosophy, keeping an attendance tracker, tracking the books my children have read, and noting resources I might want to use in the future.

I’m also able to easily add notes, so I’ve added notes for things like tentative plans for future years, Bible verses I’d like my kids to memorize, toddler activities for the younger kids, etc.

Home

In the home section, I keep an overview of my home management rhythms, along with my meal planning pages and shopping list.

I’ve never been a naturally tidy person, so having a clear rhythm for managing my home is an absolute game changer. I follow a daily, weekly, and monthly rotation that includes the deep cleaning tasks that need to get done. This allows me to do just a little bit of cleaning each day without ever feeling like I need to take a full week to deep clean my house.

The home management rhythm overview is easily adaptable, so it can be used by others as is or changed up to fit the family and home.

Personal

In the personal section, I keep everything else in my life that doesn’t fall under the first three categories. Here, there are sub-categories for health, faith, schole, and relationships.

I use the health area to track health goals and routines, appointments and medications, and health information I might need to reference.

I use the faith area to keep Bible study notes, a prayer journal, and sermon notes.

I use the schole area to track my personal reading and commonplace quotes, along with hobby information and tasks. For example, I have a page set up for cross stitching, where I list current projects and someday projects, supplies I want to buy, and books or courses I have my eye on.

I use the relationship area to keep things like a list of gifts for friends and family, a list of date ideas to do with my husband, and information about my friends’ favorite things.

I also use the personal area to set up personal projects where I can keep related tasks and notes. For example, I have a project set up for my involvement with my church’s missions team. I add tasks to that project and keep meeting notes there, as well.

Planning Hub

The planning hub is my planning bestie. I use it to figure out by big picture vision for the year and then to turn those into quarterly goals and then into weekly tasks. It helps ensure that my day-to-day is aligned with what I value most.

Daily Pages

The rest of the system is lovely, but the daily pages is where it all comes together. It’s my control center and where I spend the vast majority of my time.

In the daily pages, I can see exactly what I need to do each day, and I can filter those tasks to only show work tasks or only show personal tasks, etc.

One Last Note

As a working homeschool mom, I needed a better way of managing all my priorities and the Presently Productive System has filled that need incredibly well. I’m still blown away by how simple it is to manage all the moving parts of my busy life with this one system.