The Johnson Crew!

Hi husband in the house with me today okay he's in the house with me every day but today you guys get to hang with him so today we're talking about how we juggle running our business and homeschooling our kids it's a lot of work Bud obviously does more of the business well not obviously but he does more of the business I do more of the homeschooling but we both do some of both and support each other in those goals so today we're going to break down our daily

And weekly schedule and how we do all the things channel intro we're back if you don't already know me I'm Sarah and we have four kids between the ages of eight and one and have been homeschooling them since the beginning of time it feels like my channel is full of homeschooling tips so if that interests you go ahead and hit that subscribe button thanks and you I am Bud I'm a wedding photographer here in savannah georgia you know I jokingly say to everybody that Sarah is my boss

And even though yeah I'm kind of kidding about that really is kind of true as well she does manage a lot of the business side of things if you've ever emailed me um then you probably actually emailed Sarah she's in charge of all the client communications and the scheduling she's a business when it comes to all that but it's only fair that I also help with the homeschool side of things so of course you've seen a lot more of her on this channel with all the homeschool things

But believe it or not I actually help kind of as well which we appreciate very much so and he also has a youtube channel I'll link to that above and in the description box below all about photography tips gear reviews beautiful photos that you've taken at weddings good good stuff so go subscribe to his next obviously we know that probably a lot of you have a completely different working schedule and job than what we have going on so stick around to the end and we'll troubleshoot a few different situations

And scenarios and try to help come up with some creative problem solving for you so one question we get a lot is how do we get it all done between running the business and of course homeschooling and everything else we do in between how do we get it done every day and the answer is we don't some days some days we don't you're right one tip is using block scheduling if you haven't heard of that before there are other videos that can explain it way better than I can

But basically just setting aside certain blocks of time for certain things throughout your day it sounds pretty simple and like duh but there was a time that I was trying to multitask because like that's supposed to be something that women and moms can do really well I I can't I'm a terrible multitasker so we were doing homeschooling and I'm like trying to get work done a little bit while they're working on assignments but then once they were done I wasn't always done with my stuff

And so it felt like they were interrupting me which leads me to frustration and raises my stress level so me trying to get other things done in the midst of school time was actually really bad for us it did not go well so I have certain times you know school time is just for school and then I am a lot more pleasant of a teacher when I do it that way and then later in the day is my work time and me staying on task actually helps us to get through school

So much more efficiently quicker so it's better all around so in the afternoons my little kids take a nap and the big kids have what we call quiet time and so that's the time when I get a lot of work done as well and so the kids know I've already set the expectation mommy is unavailable during this chunk of time which really helps with mommy guilt like they just know this is when mommy has to work and they know when daddy has to work and that helps a lot

And we also get work done after the kids go to bed at night so a lot of times we'll still put a tv show on in the background something we've seen a zillion times like parks and rec or the office or something so it still feels like we're relaxing and hanging out but we're getting some things done at the same time and then we'll try to shut things down at a reasonable time and just hang out and relax so I know not everybody has the same like work schedule as Sarah

And I you know shooting weddings a lot I'm usually working on the weekends and during the week I want to try really hard to not overwork myself or to completely miss my family so I try to keep to that magic 40 hour week number of course it often goes over but really that means I work from like monday through thursday I'm in my office of course my garage and studio and office space and I'm trying to work during the day I still get to pop in for lunch

And be involved but I also have kind of my special office hours so I can kind of relate to people who have normal nine to five jobs but of course I'm usually working on saturdays as well so because of all that fridays we actually swap Sarah manages the business she gets to step out take a break from the kiddos for a little bit do a lot of really awesome work for our photography business and then I jump in and do the homeschooling on fridays and it's actually a lot of fun

And I know it's a really good relief for Sarah to have that break with the kids and it's a good time for me to spend with the kids as well it might be my favorite day fridays are currently the day that I do work and he does the homeschooling because that's when the ladies that I'm doing bible study with in the mornings have chosen that day but if it's a day that Bud ends up having a wedding we'll just swap that day for a different day during the week

So we're very much able to change our schedule okay so that's how we manage our week and our days so let's go ahead and troubleshoot some of the different situations that you might be in so say you've got an alternating schedule kind of like Sarah and I where one of you is out of the house the other one's in the house and well that might mean that you've got to then alternate that teaching schedule as well you know for us we found out our kids are really good students better students in the morning than in the evening or in the afternoon

So for us we prioritize that time but for your child and for your family maybe even you as the teacher that might be a different time so you might have to figure out a way to help your spouse help if you say your wife is kind of pulling a lot of the heavy load teaching the kids during the day and maybe you need to help follow up at nighttime manage some of the homework or even a couple of the different subjects kind of can move after suffer or something like that maybe it's the other way maybe you as the guy you're you're doing most of the work

And then your wife is out working hard well maybe when she comes back both of you are going to have to learn to overextend yourself for this brief period of time to make sure that the kids get the education they need it really is it's tough I'm not we're not going to lie and say it's easy and every day's you know super walt disney world fun but you know it is it's a lot of work but it's worth it and it's worth it for our children's sake it's worth it for our sake

And it really is something that you have to be aware of what your spouse needs and those breaks goodness the breaks that they need as well now say you work from home but you have strict hours like maybe you have certain conference calls you have to be on during the day things like that and you're thinking how can I fit this into the schedule it may be something where you can work with your kids and then get them set up on some independent work that they can be doing while you're on your conference call or maybe they're getting some chores knocked out while you're on your conference call

And so you're just kind of hitting subjects here and there throughout the day as you can get to it it's probably not the most ideal setup but doing what you got to do right you might even find that yes you do want to just save some subjects for the evening or even over the weekends just trying to fit it in where you can or maybe the situation is that you have a toddler or a baby and you're thinking this is going to be impossible to get anything done while they're awake which I feel you there it is really hard it's very challenging I have another video that I'll link to above with just some ideas for what to do with the toddler during school

Time but it's still crazy and hectic so if that's something that really seems like it's going to be a huge hurdle what we used to do actually is school them during those babies and toddlers nap time so I would wait until the afternoon to get their schoolwork done or maybe just choose to save the most parent-involved subjects for nap time so you're kind of knocking some out in the morning and some out in the afternoon really just try to think outside the box you don't have to keep the same exact schedule as the public school kept try to think about how you know you're gonna have to show a lot of flexibility during this time

And I bet your kids can show a lot of flexibility as well so try new things maybe give it a week or two see how it goes and then maybe change the schedule completely if you have to um it's worth kind of trying new things from time to time yes trial and error might take some trial and error it definitely feels like we change up our schedule and how we do things like pretty frequently so that's all we have for you today if you have made it this far in the video thank you for sticking with us today then go ahead

And give this video a thumbs up thanks for hanging out with us today we'd love to get to know you so please in the comments below let us know what your work situation is and if you've already figured out how to deal with this leave that in the comments below as well so other people can learn from your ideas and let's all help each other out thanks for hanging with me today babe of course yeah bye how do we juggle you ready and he also has a youtuber