Superman could not have conquered all that a woman with young children has to overcome in a day.

So why do we set superwoman expectations for ourselves?

If you have a child under the age of two, and you're reading this, take it from someone who's been there. My exact thoughts after my first month of being a new mother were, "This is a short cut to insanity!"

You will never be able to accomplish as much as you did before you had your baby, and sometimes you may even find it difficult to take a shower or brush your teeth.

Unless you learn how to come to terms with and manage this situation, you’re in for a lot of frustration and resentment ahead.

There's a simple reason for your new lack of productivity, too: you are no longer a free agent. You are now a servant to your baby, and servants are too busy serving to think about anything else.

If you look at it from this perspective, instead of feeling frustrated and disappointed with yourself for not getting more done, it becomes easier because you realize it's temporary. Freedom will come again, but it will take a couple of years.

Freedom Lies Ahead

As your baby moves past the two-year mark and is capable of becoming more independent, your job is to make sure he does become independent. You train him to do more for himself, while you do less for him, and you slowly gain your freedom back.

Now, if you're a homeschooling mother, this servant problem, as temporary as it may be, is still a problem. You not only have to keep your older children clothed, fed, and exercised, but you also need to educate them.

There's no maternity leave, and there's no sabbatical when you’re a homeschooling mother.

What do you do? You can't get organized enough to get dinner on the table at a reasonable hour, so how are you going to teach your children?

There is a little hope, so don’t despair yet. Things will still be chaotic for a while, but the chaos should subside to a more tolerable level. 

There's a strategy I use in business that works in the home, too, because, after all, running a home well requires good management skills. If you implement my strategy, you’ll keep overwhelm at bay most of the time.

The Plan

Yes, the Plan. A realistic plan, not a superwoman plan. Get a plan in place that's based on what you can actually do, not on what superwoman can do. Your first step is to get realistic about what this is. 

Realism #1

1. Get some paper and a pen and make a list of every single thing you expect to do in any given day and week. 

2. Rate your list according to what has to be done, what should be done, and what can wait six months. To rate your list, put an A, B, or C by each item on your list.

3. Rewrite your list according to your new categories. 

4. Take a new sheet of paper and make a list of only the A items. These are the items you must and can realistically perform in any given day.

Realism #2

1. Take your A list items and one by one, write down the tasks you need to complete before you can do each A list item.  For example, if you need to homeschool by 9:00 a.m. then you need to get your children up, dressed, and fed first.

2. For each task on your list, work backward to determine the steps that you need to take to reach your goal, so you can determine the amount of time it'll take to complete each task.

3. Schedule the "A" list items into your daily planner 

(A planner is your therapist when you have too much to do. It will help you remain sane.)

What About Missed Deadlines?

Will you be able to do your tasks on schedule? Not always, you’ll miss many deadlines which is okay because it isn't the point. The point is to know what needs to be done and approximate how long each task will take so you can be ready to homeschool at or around 9:00 a.m. 

Clearing the Obstacles to Your Success

Another thing that's important to the success of your plan is to understand the obstacles that may be draining your time and energy.

Is there anything in your day that takes more time than what's necessary? Once you've determined that there is, then you want to rid yourself of the obstacle. 

A typical obstacle is the Picky Eater syndrome. Somehow, being a picky eater has become the norm, but it shouldn't be. A child should eat what he's served, no whining about it.

If you are raising your children to be picky eaters, you are going to spend a lot of unnecessary time in the kitchen.

Unless there are diagnosable food allergies, children should be taught to eat what's served to them. A "family" meal is a meal that's everyone shares. When everyone has a special meal prepared for them, it's no longer a family meal. 

You can learn more about the Picky Eater syndrome, but for now, if this is a habit you've adopted, then break it. You will save a lot of time for yourself every single morning by as much as one hour.  

And time is more precious than gold when you have young children.

You will feel less frazzled, and your children will behave better because they now know what you expect of them, at least at breakfast time. 

Don't worry. Your child will not starve if he skips a meal, but he will become spoiled and unappreciative if you indulge him with special meals.

Once you've tackled the obstacles that are slowing you down, acknowledge your success, and recognize that it can get easier.

One by one, go through the same steps listed above with each item on your list until you can remove all obstacles and get your "A" items successfully handled in a day with an hour or two in the evening to relax, baby's needs permitting.

Your “B” Items

Once you've got your "A" items handled, you can then tackle your "B" items. By now, though, you may have realized that your "B" items need to go to the "C" list because you only have so much time and energy in a day.

A warning though: you don't want more than three items on your "A" list in any given day, or you'll feel overwhelmed, and this is what we're trying to conquer. Keep your list short and realistic, always. 

Revisit your plan every few months. As your baby gets older, life will become less hectic. Once he hits the age of two, you can start slowly transitioning him into a relatively independent existence. By the time your youngest is six, you should be sailing along.

If you use this strategy to get a little more organized and a little less overwhelmed, you'll be able to get more homeschooling done. There are other strategies you can implement, but this is one that will undoubtedly help.

It's crucial to your family's well-being that you do your best to keep your stress levels under control because if you don't, you will always feel frustrated and exhausted, and you'll frequently grow short with those you love most. 

We've all been there, and it doesn't feel good. 

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Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a Love and Leadership certified parenting coach with 17 years experience working in children’s education. She has two successfully homeschooled children in college.