How to Make Personal Reading Happen

You must have been wondering where I disappeared for the past several months! I just recently submitted all the paperwork and jazz I needed to submit for my 12th grader for her college application, being the School Administrator, Principal, High School Counselor and teacher all wrapped into one! And I didn’t make all the 80 plus pages of official documents that I made from scratch, sitting in an office room all by myself. I did it all in the middle of all the chaos of raising 9 kids, feeding them 3-5 times a day, homeschooling them and lots of other responsibilities. First, I had to spend lots of time learning how to even make these documents! I had consumed so much information over the past months in the form of e-courses, webinars, books, blogposts etc, that some times I actually felt my brain was fried. Yes, it was an intense 5-6 months, that I am happy to still have some sanity left. It is ONLY by God’s grace I even achieved this mission. 

As attending college in the US is very expensive and most students graduate with student loan debt, I had been on top of researching and attending webinars on homeschooling high school, the college application process, debt-free degree, and non-traditional/accelerated approaches to attaining a college degree, for a few years now; but more so in the past year. My daughter will be graduating 12th grade with an Associates Degree in Science, thus technically shaving off close to 2 years of a 4 year undergraduate college degree. My son is also on an accelerated path, and he is hoping to even complete his whole 4 year college degree by end of 12th grade. All these different non-traditional paths I had learned about, I gathered information from different sources, as I had formally set aside time to learn about these, and some days even had to prioritize it into my schedule. God correctly guided me to the different resources and talks and books, that I took advantage of. I still have lots of gaps in my knowledge in these areas, but I was really able to sense how God would direct me to the right resource at the right time, at the moment I needed it. (even if I probably forgot everything afterwards! 😌 ). 

Lifelong learning is very essential. Though we all are learning something or the other every day, it is also important to set aside some time in the day to pursue more ‘formal’ learning in different areas. It is through self-education and constantly improving ourselves, that personal growth happens, Unless we be intentional and manage our time well, it is very easy to neglect this important area. In order to live a life of balance, we have to cater to all dimensions- our soul, heart, body and mind!

Usually, I try to educate and improve myself in areas that are relevant to me in my present state of life-spiritual, vocational (parenting, homeschooling, homemaking), as well as time for self-reflection. I also occasionally try to venture into areas that are new to me, many a time leading to new avenues of self-discovery; this blog being a fruit of such venturing.

In this post, I was hoping to touch upon how to incorporate learning into a busy schedule:

1. First and foremost is the intentional use of time. There will always be millions of things screaming for our attention all the time; especially in this media laden world. But making the choice to not squander our time by mindless scrolling of media that doesn’t edify, is a conscious decision one has to make. This can easily shave off few hours from the day. And for this very reason, I do not have social media. But sometimes things like looking up recipes can disguise itself as a ‘useful’ thing that I sometimes end up in the ‘recipe hunting trap’, being decision-fatigued, and at the end preparing something I already make all the time. In this era of information overload, it is important to choose how much of what type of information to consume. 
2. Having routines in place– I use a method of ‘time-blocking’ where I lump similar activities into certain time-blocks. For example, I try to do physical chores related activities in a certain time frame; stuff I need to sit down and read or use a computer, I do in another block of time, etc. This makes it easier to tackle the broad demands of day to day life. Thus, in the afternoon, I carve out a couple of hours after homeschool, for reading/ personal growth, or whatever I am upto those days. 
3. Utilizing little pockets of time-A lot of my learning happens by using small pockets of time. I always have something with me handy, that I can easily read or look up while I’m waiting on something. And of course, while waiting to pick up kids from activities, is a key time to invest in learning/reading. I have a large library of digital books (related to the above mentioned list) that I store in Google Drive. I always keep a few interesting ones offline, so that I can access them anytime. Whichever book I’m currently reading, I import to the Goodnotes app, so that I can annotate and write notes as needed.
4. I also signup for Webinars of relevance, especially related to homeschooling. I mostly don’t attend live, but watch the recordings later at double speed. There are some days when I want to attend an online webinar or summit live, and then I make that a priority in that day, by adjusting the rest of my schedule. As I always try to keep some flexibility in my day, I am able to accommodate to this for the most part. Podcasts are also a great way to enhance learning. A great spiritual tool is the “Bible in a Year Podcast’. 
5. I keep a running list of any articles, courses, podcasts or books I want to visit in the near future. That way, when I do get the time, I can just pick one. 
6. I also do a lot of learning right beside the kids, as well as in between homeschooling, while they work independently. This is actually even good to do, as we are modeling lifelong learning. 
7. As a homeschooling mother, I also have an added advantage of learning along with the kids of subjects that I may have learned as a child and have completely forgotten. 

I think it is also very important to adopt a mindset of personal growth and improvement, and that will help us to give it a priority and fit it into our daily grind. There may be some periods of time or seasons of life that it may not be possible. But for the most part, if we are intentional, it shouldn’t be that hard to find few extra minutes a day. Even 10-15 minutes a day, consistently every day, will pay off huge rewards!