Do you consider yourself to be a creative person?

Whether you answered “Yes, definitely!” or “No way - are you kidding?” I think you should keep reading.

Many of us have neglected to spend a lot of time realistically evaluating our creativity, and we often associate creativity with doings lots of crafts, creative writing, or art. There are many ways to live a creative life, though, and homeschooling is most definitely one of them!

I just finished reading a really cool free ebook this week, and I was unexpectedly struck by just how appropriate it was for homeschoolers. For instance, do you know what is one of the best ways to create amnesia? I bet most homeschoolers would be interested to know that, and also to know how to avoid that fate, as well!

You can download your own free copy of Time Management for Creative People, which was written by Mark McGuinness. The subtitle is “Manage the mundane, create the extraordinary” - that sounded pretty good, to me.

It is a very manageable 32 page download, succintly written, that collects a number of intriguing and unique ideas, including:

• How to ring fence your best time for creative work.
• How to get things done by putting them off until tomorrow (!)
• How to use buckets to get things off your mind.
• How to avoid getting so busy with urgent details that you never get around to doing the things that matter most.

I’m sure some of you are wondering (especially since the book is actually aimed at web and design workers), “Why does this apply to homeschoolers?”

Consider the following:

• Lots of homeschooling parents have creative goals for their lives, or ongoing creative projects. (blogs, for example, or work at home businesses, or scrapbooking, or even writing the Great American Novel)
• Lots of homeschooled kids and teens also have creative dreams and ambitions. At some point in their education it is incredibly useful for them to learn more about ways they can take full advantage of their creative potential.
• Finally, homeschooling itself can be an intensely creative experience. After all, no matter how you actually go about doing it, your primary goal as a parent is to create a rich learning environment for your offspring.

Homeschooling offers opportunities for amazing possibilities, but it also often entails plenty of distractions. These mundane, everyday distractions can derail (sometimes permanently) your more creative and meaningful plans. Those great things that you were going to get around to may be truly wonderful, even life changing. But they are rarely urgent, and so time and again they get bumped to the back of the line, while you struggle to take care of the “emergencies” that invariably pop up to gobble your time.

You may find this book especially helpful if you (like me) find yourself avoiding your child’s requests for a particularly cherished activity or project more often than you’d like, because, “We just don’t have time.”

Homeschoolers stand to greatly benefit from suggestions for setting aside the time to do the things that are most important to us. Unless we pay special attention to those goals, we run the risk of always putting out fires, but never quite getting around to engaging in some of the most meaningful, life enriching actions to which we aspire.

This ebook offers up some excellent tips and links to several intriguing tools and websites. It also includes recommendations for resources to learn more about creativity, productivity, and expanding our capacity for both. Best of all it is truly free, and it doesn’t even come with a sales pitch or sleazy marketing (phew!).

I want to challenge you to make the most of the opportunities you have opened up for your family through homeschooling! (I’m challenging myself to the same thing!)

What would your life look like if you dared to attempt some of your most audacious goals?

If you are a homeschooler, you have quite a bit of flexibility compared to most families. What are some great opportunities that you could pursue if you wanted to take maximum advantage of your freedom and flexibility?

What have you been telling yourself you’d like to do, but haven’t gotten around to yet?

What are some steps you can take now, to move yourself a little closer to actually doing those things? (Even baby steps or starting on a small scale is preferable to never getting started at all!)

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