If your days never seem the same and you are struggling to keep a homeschooling schedule, learn how to anchor certain homeschool subjects and be flexible with everything else.

My husband was a police officer when we first started homeschooling. He worked a 12-hour flex schedule and a lot of nights. He would work for 3 days straight, be home for 2 days, back to work for 2 days, and home for 3 days. Sometimes he was home on weekends, sometimes he slept all day, and sometimes homeschooling felt impossible because of his schedule.
Even now, 8 kids and 2 career changes later, I find that our lifestyle requires me to adapt to an ever-changing schedule. It’s how we roll as a family, but if I had not learned how to homeschool in a way that fit our life, it would have been my undoing.
If you find yourself in circumstances that keep your daily schedule in a constant state of change, here are my secrets for a happy and productive homeschool experience!
Step 1: Choose Autopilot Subjects
With a constantly changing schedule, you need to eliminate decision fatigue. The best way to do this in your homeschool is to build a backbone of autopilot subjects.
Read: Put Your Homeschool on Autopilot
Math is an easy one to start with. A curriculum like Teaching Textbooks takes the lesson planning, teaching, and grading load off of your shoulders and creates a do-the-next-lesson daily plan that doesn’t require decisions from you or your child.
Read: How Teaching Textbooks Has Been Perfect for Our Homeschool

Reading assignments, grammar, and certain spelling programs can also be put on autopilot. Look for curricula that don’t require a lot of lesson planning and hands-on
Step 2: Anchor Seatwork Subjects
Seatwork subjects like math and phonics need a consistent daily time frame. However, when your schedule is always changing it may feel like you get those subjects done in the morning one day, in the afternoon another day, and not at all on the third day. By Thursday you are exhausted and feel as if you haven’t accomplished anything.
You need to “anchor” your homeschool day! Start by looking at your everyday life throughout the week. Is there a time frame during the day that is consistently open? That will be the anchor for
For instance, if your husband works nights and leaves the house around
During that anchor time, you ONLY do seatwork. Seatwork for your kids should only take 1-3 hours. To understand more about this concept, read: How Many Hours Does it Take to Homeschool.
Step 3: Fill in the Extras Where They Fit
In my book Flexible Homeschool Planning, I go through all the steps for creating a flexible schedule that allows you to get all the homeschooling extras in on YOUR time. You can find Flexible Homeschool Planning and other helpful homeschooling resources in my Shop!
Practically, this might look like watching a history video during lunch, reading aloud in the car, taking a nature walk after breakfast, or doing an art project during naptime. All the extras stay flexible to fit your day – only the seatwork is anchored to a specific time.
Step 4: Let Your Children Pursue Passions
Remember, children pursuing individual interests is school too! Not every moment of every school day needs to be filled with a scheduled homeschool activity. Make sure you give your children plenty of time and resources to pursue their passions. Budget their passions into your homeschooling resources, and start creating a Delight Directed homeschooling atmosphere! You will see your children soar to heights you never even imagined when you allow yourself to see their interests as part of the school schedule!
Read: What is Delight Directed Homeschooling?
Listen to the Podcast Introduction to Delight Directed Homeschooling!
Step 5: Accept Change as Normal
Those of us who live in a constant state of flux tend to feel like something is wrong with us or wrong with our family dynamic. We look around at other homeschoolers (first mistake) and wish we had their steady and predictable lives (second mistake). We forget that God didn’t accidentally place us in the family we ended up in (third mistake). It took me a lot of years to accept that my life as mom to this clan of kiddos and wife to this adventurer was exactly where God had placed me. I wasn’t doing anything wrong that made my schedule ever-changing, but if I tried to stop the change, I would be tearing my own house down.
We homeschool moms have to come to the place where we stop looking around us and start tending to our own households in the unique way God designed for us. Accept the change as YOUR normal, and get on with the mission God has for you!
Aglaia says
Thank you for speaking to my heart here! Our kids are very active in pursuits outside the home and change has become our new normal. I appreciate the reminder that God put us in this for a reason.
Amy says
You are so welcome!
Jodi says
I needed to read this today! Thank you!!
-Jodi
Amy says
You are so welcome!
Marle says
Accept change as your normal, I love it!! We tend to move house a lot, having moved 10 times in the last 11 years. We also do trips every 2-6 weeks(for a week at a time), so change is so normal for us. Though I’ve been feeling like this was a bad thing and that we should really start to “settle” a bit. I’m re-embracing this, since this is one of the main reasons that God put homeschooling our kids on my heart from the birth of the first. He wants us to be flexible and be able to move at short notice(that has happened so many times!) Thanks for the encouragement! Love from Lesotho(ask your kiddo’s for their Geography lesson to find it on a world map 🙂
Amy says
This is wonderful, Marle!
Leslie Lewis says
Thanks Amy! I know this is an older post, but it’s the first time I’ve read it!
My husband works 12 hour rotating shifts, 6am-6pm, for two days, off two, work three day weekend, off two days, work two, off three day weekend. We prefer this to the rest of his factory’s “8 hour, 5 day” schedule. Usually those folks end up working a lot of weekends, which turn into multiple week stretches if production falls behind. But as much as I love how frequently he is off with us, I struggle to maintain any kind of routine, partly due to my hubby’s love of going and doing. I can’t really swing only doing school when he is at work, because my older children have friends who want to play on the weekends. I don’t want to ignore my hubby, or deny any children from running errands with daddy, but the lack of productivity at home leaves my to-do list—and thus my self esteem— in shambles.
Thank you for the encouragement that God didn’t accidentally put me in this marriage and this family, so I should embrace our chaos. I can also communicate better and find more balance. Praying for wisdom.
Leslie
Amy says
You are so welcome, Leslie! I’m glad you found this post!