I had a big break-through for my self-management recently, that might be an idea for you, too. Because I have to be two brains all day long due to additional responsibilities providing eldercare, I would find myself bewildered in even remembering what it was I had to do next in my life, and even if I could remember it, actually doing it was just not happening. Being two people all day makes your brain feel like fog and mush, and makes one’s life a respond-a-thon.
Until recently, I would write out do lists for my own life after my elderly mom had gone to bed--when I could think straight, but those lists , those attempts at organization, would fall flat. My written lists would then get tossed in a pile on my desk and I wouldn't look at them for two weeks, if ever--lost in my running to respond to the next immediate thing the next day. My list-making was consummately unsuccessful.
So, the other day, just as an experiment, I decided to make a large-print written do-list and put it on a wall in a prominent place. Bingo! Every time I passed through the kitchen I saw it. When I ate a meal I saw it--between teaching lessons I saw it--it was amazingly becoming a benevolent help via subconscious reinforcement.
Well, lo and behold I got through half of my own list in one day. I found out I need visual accountability or I'm a mess.
This idea could help you with your list-making, too, or even your budget, to post that on a wall so that you can always be aware of right where you are financially. Then, if you order something online, you immediately go to the wall, and pencil in the amount of your order to subtract it from that column budgeted amount—and also when you come in from buying groceries: immediately go to the wall and pencil in that amount under that category. That way you will know every minute of every day, which column needs to be squeezed because you want something more in a different column , etc.
Putting pencil to paper is helpful, to begin with, which we already know is true, but posting it large is, in my experience, another step up--at least for me. I'm looking at it out of the corner of my eye, even right now. Powerful. All successes come inch by inch, but they do arrive if worked at steadily, intentionally, consciously.
For a correlary chart to manage your homeschooling, see our e-Book, How to Make Homeschooling To-Do Charts.
