"We are treating ourselves like machines who operate the same way every day, with replaceable parts, and valuable only for what they can do. But we are not machines. We are God’s trees, for whom He lovingly cares. Trees are not the same every day, and neither are people."
— Joy Clarkson, You Are a Tree: And Other Metaphors to Nourish Life, Thought, and Prayer

Our culture has conditioned us to believe that efficiency matters more than wholehearted connection.

This has deeply impacted our relationship with time. We see our minutes as something to be sliced up and atomized so we can be in the right place at the right time to stamp next right mold on the next right widget.

And so our children and their education, our work, our homes, and our relationships are all fed on this conveyer belt of modern busyness. We hope we can just “trust the process” and it will all work out.

So we shuffle from event to event, worksheet to worksheet, and item to item on our todo list, waiting for the blur of these shallow touch points to somehow give birth to the depth we crave. Things will slow down tomorrow (or next Monday, or next semester) we tell ourselves, then hustle everyone along to the next activity.

We pray for that depth to come in the future and give into simply hanging onto for dear life in the present, trying to show up, trying to focus on the conversation, trying give our best to it all—but somehow our best feels like it’s being dissipated in the modern blur of life.

But the depth continues to be elusive, and the emptiness we feel haunts us every time we slow down long enough to down a cold cup of coffee so we can somehow keep going.

But our children (and our own hearts and callings) were not designed to be widgets on a conveyor belt, to be stamped by a regimented series of activities and work sessions. Our children are born persons—much more akin to masterpieces being developed by the Master Artist. And we are working alongside of Him, each day unfolding with opportunities to see more beautiful layers of color brushed on to capture the light and wonder all around, infusing each golden moment into the development of their character and imagination.

While widget-making is a precise, cold, contained work of efficiency, the development of a masterpiece is an altogether different process. It’s messy. It means going to a lot of effort to unpack your supplies in the field just to see that the angle or the lighting is not quite right, then repacking them to go to reach for higher peaks. It takes experimentation and a tenacious sense of hope.

It also takes having a wholly different relationship with the passing of time, as well as a different set of belief about what is even truly productive.

The Evergreen Planning Method exists to provide an alternative to the modern, conveyor-belt approach to time-management and productivity.

It invites homeschooling mamas to step away from the noise and notifications of an overwhelmed schedule, sit down, get quiet with our own mind, and dig deeper into what our values are for our families.

Our leather bound planner system gives us the opportunity to interact with the realities of commitments, schedules, and deadlines—but in a way that reminds us that WE have the freedom to choose the way we invest the time we’ve been given to steward.

The Evergreen Planning Method comes from a thoroughly Christ-centered perspective and it works for anyone in any walk and in any season.

Learn more here.