So you know your “why” now–why you want to homestead–and you have some goals written out. You’re excited to get on with all this homestead management you’ve been reading about. So you’ve invested in your supplies. You’ve dabbled a little bit, but the more you dabble, the more intimidated you become. You’ve got “homestead overwhelm”.
This month we’ve been talking a lot about homestead organization, goal setting, and achieving all that you desire on your homestead. Those things are definitely important. I applaud you for getting for getting off your rear and getting yourself into action. It’s the only way your homestead is going to work FOR you, rather than you working with not a lot of return.
But there is something we haven’t yet talked about: homestead overwhelm. Why yes, I did just make up that term! But isn’t it self-explanatory? You are overwhelmed because there is SO much to learn and to do on your homestead. I get it! I’ve been there too. If I’m honest, I’m still there in some areas.
A Personal Experience
So let’s sloooow down for a moment, and think this through. I know we talk a lot about multi-tasking, and those of us who are homesteading women do it very well. It’s not the multi-tasking that counts, though, because doing too many things at the same time isn’t always as productive as we’d like to think.
For instance, when I write a blog post, I usually will do ALL that it takes to write a blog post (writing is only one of 58 things I do for every one of my posts). That’s a lot of different tasks that I go back and forth from, finding and losing my place almost non-stop for 2-4 hours with each blog post. It’s very overwhelming!
Today, I decided to take a stretch of time and just write. Full disclosure, I did have a few things I had to do before I knew how to start each post, but inside of 3 hours, I’ve gotten almost 3 post completely written from start to finish. The other 50+ items that it will take to complete these posts will take at most one hour to complete for each post. That means that I’ll have spent about 2 hours on each post, which is a savings of 2 hours for each post! If I write two post per week, that’s 4 hours per week, and times that by the 52 weeks of the year, that’s over 200 hours that I’ve just bought myself by doing a thing called “mono-tasking”.
Now, I know you may not be a blogger, but you can see the value in what happened when I decided to mono-task, right? I stopped futzing around with everything else and allowed myself to think about one thing at a time. This is the point I want you to get: it’s not admirable to be able to multi-task if the job is taking twice as long. Ain’t nobody got time for spending double the time on homesteading jobs!
Pick Your Skill
So here’s the deal. Let’s think about which homesteading skill is most important for your family. Do you need to start producing food right away? Time to get some chickens or start a garden. Maybe you’re a seasoned homesteader who has never had the time to learn how to preserve the food produced on your homestead? Then, honey, you need to learn to can, dehydrate, or freeze that fantastic food! The point here is to think about the ONE thing that will move the ball forward for your homestead, and work ONLY on that skill until you make it a normal part of what you do.
Here’s an example from my own experience: Over the summer, we were harvesting a lot of tomatoes. For some reason once I bring them into the house, I set them on the counter and forget them. It’s my bad habit of thinking that since I did a lot of work harvesting, that the work was over when I got into the house.
Because I was so lame at taking care of my produce, I took a dehydrating course in the fall. It took a few weeks and I dehydrated many foods. I learned that taking just 15 minutes per day can really help me to get control over my the small tomato harvests I bring in every day. This works with any type of harvest if you can deydrate it! Nothing goes bad, and I’ve mastered a skill that has become a daily (or weekly) habit!
Learn and Practice Your Skill
So now you know which skill you and your family will benefit from most. Now it’s time to make sure that you learn that skill. Do you know anyone that can teach you? One on one teaching is a really great way to learn, and my favorite way to teach someone homesteading skills. If you don’t have anyone you can ask to teach you, perhaps you can join a Facebook group like mine to learn your homesteading skill. I have taught myself most everything I know from books, YouTube, Facebook groups, and by just practicing.
When I say practice your skill, I don’t mean just do it every now and then. I mean practice, like a doctor practices–he puts the things he knows to work every day! We have to do that too. When I learned how to dehydrate food last fall, I did it pretty much every day that I had something to dehydrate. I mean–the husband and kids thought I might be looking at THEM as dehydrating prospects, I was doing it so much! (Totally kidding, I would probably can them rather than dehydrating them, he he.)
Master Your Skill
But seriously, you need to make sure that you fit your new skill into your lifestyle so that it sticks. Make time on your schedule to practice your new skill frequently. You don’t want to spend time learning something so that it falls by the wayside and never becomes a workable piece of your homesteading journey. No–you want this skill you are learning to become a fruitful skill that provides for you and your family for years to come.
Once you are working this skill regularly, it will become second nature to you. You will notice yourself finding ways to make it more simple with each time your perform it. Pretty soon, you will be a canning/dehyrating/knitting/gardening master, who knows not only how to do the skill, but how to make it fit into your life effortlessly. And let’s not forget, that this mastered skill is now working for your family by saving it money and providing its needs. I call that a win!
Do It All Over Again
Once you are completely comfortable with what you know and how you are using your mastered skill, it’s time to do the next one. Did you notice that I didn’t tell you at the beginning to pick more than one skill? That’s because I want you to avoid burnout with your homestead. Or they just decide that they’ll fly by the seat of their homesteading overalls. They let those overalls take them from task to task, never to master anything. That’s risky because homesteading is such an investment of time and money, and to lose any of it, none of us can really afford.
So wait until you are good with your mastered skill, THEN pick the next one. And do it all over again. Again. And again. Until your homestead is exactly what you envisioned way back at the beginning. It’s your life and your homestead–take control of it and make it what you want it to be!
Avoid Homestead Overwhelm with my ”Jump Start to Homestead Planning” Worksheet
Print out my Jump Start to Homesteading worksheet, get your thoughts in order, and get working on that first skill to master!
Great article, Kristi! So much going on all the time, so for us, it’s a mindful approach to take things one step at a time. Great to hear your solutions:)
Don’t I know it! There is ALWAYS stuff happening, but it is very good to take everything one step at a time, as hard as it is to avoid multi-tasking!
I remind myself there is a season for everything. Plan a couple big projects and work on smaller ones. Can’t get it all done in one season or one year.
For sure, Candy! There’s always so much to do and pacing ourselves is a great way of dealing with it all!
I always appreciate your posts, you have such good information to share!
Thank you so much, Nancy! That really means a lot to me! 🙂
I feel the most overwhelmed in summer, when the garden is in full swing and I know I need to preserve the harvest…or lose it!
Thanks for sharing your ideas on making this easier!
OH yes, I hear that Lisa! I tend to do what I can and freeze the rest. But of course, that means that we lose some much needed freezer space!
I’m completely on board for choosing one skill and mastering it. I tend to forget to do it though, so this article is a great reminder.
I did that with your Dehydrating Made Easy course, Shelle! It helped so much to complete that from start to finish. It truly did change my kitchen!
Yup Homesteaders over whelmed!!!
I have that. I cook, can, dehydrate, garden, and just want to focus more on my gardening, herbs and get some chickens!! That I have to learn!!
Thanks for all the great information and tips!!!
Ha ha, yeah! I know what you mean, Pamela! You’re welcome, it’s always my pleasure to share!
I have recently read an article that stated multi tasking does NOT mean you will get more done. Now that I have read about mono tasking again, there must be something to it. Good read!
Thanks Amy! You know–it’s true. I have LOVED to and prided myself on the fact that I can multi-task. But now that I’ve found mono-tasking (and time blocking), it makes it so much easier to actually finish a project. This article was as much for me as it was for anyone else! Thanks for stopping in!
Kristi I loved this article! Since we rent our homestead and I cannot have farm animals, I am learning all I can in the meantime and networking with those who do have the animals I want in the future. I think it will help me because I will not only have some limited experience, and new skill set learned, but I will also have mentors who I can call if I hit a bad bump in the road. Homesteaders are some of the most caring folks I know, and they want to teach others! Thank you for your insightful article. There is always something new to learn and master. Even when we have a skill, sometimes we learn a new way to practice it that makes it easier. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us all!
Yes, that’s so important Jennifer! Networking, I mean. Having people that we can rely on to help us learn what we need to is key to mastering the skills we need! Thank you so much for your kind comments, Jennifer!
This hits so close to home! Sometimes, it is just a matter of STARTING too! You can think about your to do list all day long, but nothing gets done until you actually START! And Homesteaders, always have an endless to do list!
Oh, and about those tomatoes, yes, dehydrating is awesome! But consider throwing those tomatoes in the freezer and dealing with them later when there is less food to preserve. I love pulling out gallon size zip locks full of home grown tomatoes in the middle of winter, and making sauce with them and canning them up on a cold winter weekend! I have an article on my blog talking about all the benefits of freezing some of your tomato harvest!
YES! I totally do that with the tomatoes in the summer, Tamara! Last year I had both my freezers so full of tomatoes that I couldn’t fit things we needed in there! All through fall, I did so many canning posts because I had so many!
So much good information here! Thank you.
You are so welcome, Monetta! Thank you for visiting!