The Sane Way to Plan Days for Working Parents Who Home-School

You know what’s alienating? The daily agendas that pop up in the search results when you Google “home-school schedules.” So complex! So pastel! So different for each member of the family! These packed-to-the-gills plans won’t work for you, business-minded pandemic home-school leader. You want the most streamlined schedule around.

Zara Fagen, author of Minimalist Homeschooling: A Values-Based Approach to Maximize Learning and Minimize Stress, says the trick to settling into a home-school groove while working is getting a grip on your own time. She educates four children age 4 to 12 from home near Chicago while running real estate and wholesale flooring businesses with her husband. You might have previously compartmentalized your time into work, home with kids, and, hopefully, me time. Now you need to reconfigure your days into categories such as playing teacher, here-but-not-here because I’m working, and hiding my head in my child’s backpack (kidding—sort of).