How I Keep It All Together as a Work-From-Home Homeschool Mom | A5 Planner Flip-Through

Hey everybody, welcome to Law Doc Way. I'm Jessica. Today's video is going to be all about how I keep it all together as a work from home homeschooling mom. So if this is your first video in this series, make sure you head back and check out the past few videos, which I will link here. We have been talking all about organization and planning when it comes to homeschool and life and family and just kind of all of the things. And I have mentioned a few times about the planner that I keep that's like mine, and it's literally my external brain. It is an A5 planner. I've shown you a few little glimpses inside. Today, we're going to do a full in-depth walkthrough because that is like, this is literally my brain, you guys. Before I do that, I do want to just like talk to you a little bit about the system that I use. It's so simple, it really is. So we have talked about how I plan 36 weeks of homeschool in the first video. We've talked about how I homeschool plan a week in the second video. We talked about how I keep it all together, which is basically using a color-coded Google Calendar and our Skylight. That's kind of like the big overview, if you will, of like our monthly planning and kind of the family. I also talked about some systems that I use in our day-to-day life to just keep things moving and more effective and efficient in our life and homeschool and everything. Now I want to kind of put it all together because it all lives for the most part in this planner. Like I said, this is my brain. Everything is kind of housed here. So the system that I use, if you will, is My homeschool planner for all things homeschool. Okay, this is where the homeschool basic stuff lives with the exception of her portfolio, which I keep a Google Drive portfolio for her for the end of the year. If you've missed that and you've never seen it before, I will link that up here. That's like a digital portfolio. That's what I send to an evaluator. That is how I plan and keep our homeschool. All right, then I have an A5 planner. I promise we're gonna do an in-depth look, so just give me a minute. And this is... Everything, like everything, okay? There's a lot of dashboards that kind of tell me where I need to be and what I need to do and when I need to be there and what I need to be doing. I do not keep a monthly plan in here because I don't need to be redundant and I have a Google Calendar for that. So this is where I get into my weekly planning. This is for me, for my personal stuff. This is for our family stuff. This is for my work stuff. There is very, very little homeschool stuff in here, unless it's telling me something I need to do for homeschool, like make a plan or print this. With the exception of that, there is no homeschooling in here. Just so you know, all of like the homeschool planning happens in the homeschool planner. This is my brain. This is where all the big stuff happens. And then because I don't want to be overwhelmed on like a day to day basis, I keep a small notebook. And this is where I make my like specific daily to-do list. So I, every night before I go to bed, because if I don't, my brain will not go to sleep. I open up my A5 planner, which I'll show you in a minute has like a master to-do list. So it like kind of helps guide me through and I will write down the specifics in here. Of what needs to happen that day. So I have like the basic things that go on every day. So for example, take my supplements, um, do my skincare morning and night. So those things happen every day. And then I will have like a spot for life, work and admin. And I will pick the things that need to happen based off of what's going on that day. What things we have, like whether we're leaving the house or not leaving the house, how much time I have, what's on my to-do list. Um, Same thing for work, like I have a block when I work. Whatever specific work task I am hoping to get done goes on this page. That way, when it comes to like the daily nitty gritty, this is the only thing I'm looking at. I, while I love this and it's amazing, I don't want to see my giant to-do list and get overwhelmed with all of these things I need to do, but don't have time to do today. Instead, I keep this little notebook and it also lives. When I go to bed on my nightstand so that if I wake up and think, Oh my gosh, I need to get this done. I can jot it down and I can like clear my brain and go back to sleep because sleep is something I've been prioritizing. And without doing this, I was not getting enough of it. Cause my brain would not turn off. So this has been very, very helpful, especially in the last three to four months. That's really when the system kind of like ironed out for me and it Perfectly like this. is working really really well because I have my brain where I dump everything where I keep everything where I can reference everything and it stays nicely all put together and beautiful and then I have my day-to-day to-do list. Okay let's go ahead and look inside the A5 planner that I keep this Um, is pretty large. It's like I said, a five and it's the 30 millimeter rings because I knew I needed to keep a lot of stuff in here. I will link as much as I can in the description. I did make a lot of this myself. Emily made me this adorable little paper clip that has my initial on it In the front pocket, I keep a lot of the stickers that I use for planning. So this is like the September monthly stickers that I have, the workout stickers. I'll show you why I have a whole page of those birthday stickers and other little icons. I keep a fluted dashboard because it gives me something hard to write on without having to write on this. If I write inside the planner, it also keeps it kind of blurry if I didn't want something to just be inside. I have these laminated dashboards that I created just to kind of remind me what some of my goals were this year. I also like using them for a place for me to put sticky notes. So these are things that I want to do someday. I keep to-do lists, like a lot of to-do lists right up front. This is where I was saying, I don't reference this on a daily basis because this is overwhelming. Basically, I. Just write down, I brain dump anytime I'm like, oh, I need to do that. It gets brain dumped on here. Once it's done, I check it off and then I highlight it. Pink is personal, purple is work. And I just, I mean, I just randomly brain dump. Like there's no rhyme or reason to it at all. But this is where I reference when I'm making my to-do list every night. I have another dashboard here. Like I said, I like to keep them for sticky notes. This is kind of like my reference section. So this is a year at a glance for 2026. This is holidays and notable dates. So any kind of like holiday or anything like that. Daylight savings. Things to celebrate. This is birthdays and anniversaries of friends and family. This is my vision for 2026. Like all of the things that I kind of wanted to do as well as my goals for 2026. This is my master to-do list. This is what I was talking about in case I'm like having a brain fart. When I get ready to do my to-do list at night, I will reference this. Like for example, I'm going to shake and bake, which is my vibration plate with my red light mask. I'm going to eat breakfast and take my supplements. I'm going to brush my teeth and do some sort of beauty prep before I go work out because I'm going to either be wearing eye patches, have a hair treatment, teeth whitening strips, whatever. I'm going to work out. I'm going to do whatever my chore is for that day. I'm going to shower, do my morning skincare, get ready, do a post to social media, or at least kind of like check and see what's going on, make sure that there's no fires that need to be burned out. Homeschool Emily. Life or admin tasks. This is where I reference that to-do list. Work tasks. Again, I reference that to-do list. I try really hard to put something for me time before bed to help me unwind. My evening skin and hair care and then prep for tomorrow which means I need to lay out homeschool, lay out whatever clothes, make my to-do list, that kind of thing. This is like my master reference page for that to make making my to-do list easier. This is my daily rhythm. This is obviously in an ideal world, but it tells me like what I should be doing when if I was to want to get all of that stuff done. Daily routines, my morning routine, evening routine, and a me time menu in case I'm just like, wait, what do I need to do? Or what do I want to do? What are my options for me time? A minimal viable day. We talked about this last week. This is really, really important because I tend to be like an all or nothing. And if I don't get everything done, I feel like I failed. So it just reminds me that like 10 minutes of movement and my water and protein is enough. Posting just a story is enough for work. Brushing your teeth is enough for getting ready. Like just minimal. My weekly work rhythm, this just helps me like make sure that I'm doing what needs to be done in order for things to happen when they need to happen. So for example, Monday is blog and emails because an email goes out on Tuesday. Tuesday is my YouTube day because my YouTube videos typically go out on Wednesday. That doesn't mean that's always what I'm doing. It's just if I don't know what to do for work, I have something to reference that would keep me on track. Our weekly cleaning Rhythm. We talked about this last week as well. This like a little bit of Cleaning every day helps keep our house in order without it ever feeling like it's completely falling apart and so when I do that master to-do list and I'm like okay I need to write my chore down if it's Monday I know I need to dust and wipe if it's Thursday I need to do whatever catch-up needs to happen or that kind of thing I'm like constantly referencing this. Monthly reset. These are just the things that help me reset our month. Like life, for example, I need to deep clean my water bottle, like just little things. I need to look ahead at our plans for homeschool. I need to plan the upcoming month for content, for work, that kind of stuff. This is like, it's a new month. What all needs to happen to make it productive? My personal maintenance calendar, this seems really silly, but this is like the stuff that takes care of me that would fall off. So like these are the things I want to do daily, weekly, every three to four weeks, every six weeks, every 12 to 16 weeks, which would be like getting my hair cut and colored, that kind of thing. And again, it just helps me know when to plan it. And then we get into the actual calendar. Now I keep six months in here at a time. So I have like the rest of 2026, so July through December. Um Again, I already told y'all, I do not keep a monthly in here because I use my Google calendar for that. So I don't need it. So I just have like an overview of the month. Actually, let's look at August. you That would be a little bit easier. So like, here's kind of a dashboard of the month. This is the things that I would like to get done, so the birthdays, the goals I have, just what's going on. And then we have the weekly. much. And the weekly is where I get like really down into it. So I write everything that's happening that week, um, from appointments to everything that needs to happen for work to Emily's stuff. Um, this is where I'm keeping my workouts. That's why I was saying those little workout stickers. Let me show you, um, October. So it says notes normally, and I put a little sticker over it that says workout. And then I write my average steps, which are kind of sad over the summer because it is so stinking hot. But that is. what the week kind of looks like. Let's look at September. I use a paper clip at the top so that when I flip September, it takes me to the exact week that we're on to make my life easy. But here we have September. This is going to be a little bit better because we're actually like in the school year happening. So this is the stuff that's kind of happening this month. These are my goals, something important I want to remember, the birthdays that I have. And then each week, gets a plan and every color that you're seeing has a reason. Um and remember we talked about automation to make my life easier. This was Emily's idea and it was genius. My highlighters actually have labels on them. So I don't even have to remember, like if it's blue, it's mine. If it's purple, it's work related. Um this orange color is other, which is normally like birthdays and anniversaries or like daylight savings time or something. Green is family. So we're all doing it. And then pink is Emily. And so I just labeled these. So I never even have to wonder like when I'm planning, what is what? Um so you can see here, we had a birthday. This is something everybody was doing. All the purple stuff is work. So I have social media, blog posts, videos. That's all kind of happening. I had a massage and facial this day. Emily had guitar and leather work. Um Like I had Pilates. Like you can just kind of see what's happening. And then now that we're back into like the actual, you know School year, I had a full workout schedule where I'm planning my workouts at least five days, my average steps, which I do that at the end of the week. And then I wanted to do vibration plate you. daily. So that is a look at the week and kind of what and how I plan. And then to make my life easier, Um I don't actually fill out the next month. I keep a sticky note. So that I can just jot down what I think is coming up or things I want to be planning or thinking about. But I don't fill anything out until we get there. So if things shift or move, like it's not a big deal. On the back, this is a notes page. This is where I brain dump any content ideas of things that I want or think I might want to do that month. And then if it already like exists, I highlight it in pink. So like these are things that were already like filmed or made or whatever. So I knew I didn't have to worry about making them, but I just brain dumped. So you can see I've already started thinking towards October and I've brain dumped content ideas that would be good for social media. Um, for October. So that's what I do there. Okay. So let's get in to the back. I have one more dashboard. And then back here, and the back half, this is basically all lists. My brain works in list function. And so I have a work tab, a life tab, and then notes. So in work, again, it's just a ton of lists. Launches and promotions for the year, products that need to be updated, unit study ideas, novel study ideas, discovery deck ideas, state study plans, blog and video ideas, social media plan, social media ideas. Um, top performing content. And then under life, we have goals to work towards words to live by. That's quotes from books that I've read, uh, health and fitness, beauty and wellness. This is kind of like my skincare routine and what I'm using, what's working, what's not working self-care ideas, things that I want to try books that I want to read. Shows and movies I want to watch, and then I obviously highlight them once we've watched them. Family bucket list, so things that we want to try to do as a family. Meal planning ideas, this is just where I write down like anything that we love and is like a tried and true. Gift giving ideas, this is where I write down things as people mention them or as they're like, oh yeah, that would be really great. My wish list, because I never know what to tell people when they ask me what I want, so I keep a wish list so that if somebody's like, what do you want for your birthday, I have something to reference. And then I have a note section that just has like pieces of paper. So for example, when I was, I'm actually almost done with this, but like back to homeschool prep, I brain dumped everything that needed to be done for back to homeschool. This was my morning basket plan. I brain dumped that. Prep for the Disney cruise. Obviously we're back. This came in the garbage now, but it's just kind of a place for me to brain dump everything. Then I have one more dashboard and another one of those acrylic things that I can write on this side and not have to worry about it. These rings open up super easy so I can take pages out. And then in the back, I have some sticky notes. This is just like picture bookmark if I needed it. And then I pick. One habit that I want to focus on kind of each month and I make a like a punch card that has a reward. And so currently I'm working on strength training and my reward is a new workout outfit. And then I just color them in every time I do a strength training because I really stink at a habit tracker, but this I'm good at for some reason. So this is kind of how I do it. So I pick whatever habit I'm either want to get better at, or I'm slacking on. And I make a punch card for that. And then this is like Disney Cruise information, but that's just where I put any important documents. So that is my A5 planner. That is a look at my brain, like literally my brain. Then this little notebook, like I told you guys, is where I make my daily to-do list. So. If there is something that I want to work on that is not necessarily going to get completed today, I write it on a post-it note so that it can move along. So like you can see here, homeschool prep, this was a list of things I wanted to get done. And it just kind of kept moving throughout. And I would just write homeschool prep and I'd like to start checking off of this and it can just move throughout. But what I do is I write down by referencing that master to-do list template. I will just open it to that page that night and I will start writing down like for example shake and bake breakfast and supplements teeth and that day I wanted to do whitening strips workout I'm going to do mat pilates my morning skincare and get ready my chore for that day because I flipped and referenced that chore needed to be dust wipe and vacuum homeschool with Emily I wanted to film a vlog that day so that was kind of work monthly reset again you can see I just wrote down what still needed to be done for monthly reset and I just write Monthly reset so that I can just reference that. And if I don't get through it, it would have just moved to the next day. No problem. Um, these were work related things. So like for my work block, I knew I needed to schedule social media, edit the first day blog, vlog, um, do this blog post, write this email, and then I needed to prep for tomorrow. And so that is what I do. And then, like I said, anytime there's something that I feel like needs to keep moving, I put it on a post-it note and then I just leave the post-it note when it's done. If I didn't get it done, I'll put an arrow. So, I'm going It's really not anything complex, but it works because my brain lives here. to go ahead But this is overwhelming on a day-to-day basis. So then this is all I have to look at. and show And then I just keep My highlighter in there and highlight it off as I'm done. you how So like that is my system for keeping it all together and getting it all done on a day-to-day to do that.