Are you ready to tackle consistency in your homeschool? In this episode, I’m joined by Dawn Garrett to talk about one of my favorite tools: the Minimum Viable Day (MVD). We share how this simple concept helped us overcome perfectionism and establish daily momentum in our homeschools. Learn how to identify what truly matters for your family, create a flexible fallback plan, and build trust with your kids—all while simplifying your homeschool days.

Pam Barnhill [00:00:01]:
Are you ready for homeschooling to feel joyful again? Do you long for support as you learn alongside your kids? Welcome to Homeschool Better Together, a podcast about building a homeschool experience that works for your family. I’m Pam Barnhill, and it’s time to step out of the overwhelm and into the wonder. Let’s do this. Happy New Year. Happy 2,025. That seems like the weirdest thing in the world to say, Dawn Garrett. Doesn’t it seem like future time to you?

Dawn Garrett [00:00:41]:
Yes. Where is my flying car?

Pam Barnhill [00:00:44]:
Exactly. We are totally supposed to have flying cars by now. Now the self driving cars, in some ways, are kind of cool, and then in some ways to me, the control freak is like, maybe not.

Dawn Garrett [00:00:56]:
You know, my husband’s car has, like, too many things. I’m like, that would, like, lull me into not paying attention. I I have to keep paying attention.

Pam Barnhill [00:01:06]:
Matt keeps walking around the house going, in the year 2525. And it’s actually 2025, not 2525. But, like, we can’t get over. It so feels like the future now. I

Dawn Garrett [00:01:21]:
yeah. I think it’s because it’s that quarter of a century that it just feels like, oh, we’ve really been in the 2000 for a long time now.

Pam Barnhill [00:01:30]:
Yeah. You know? And where did where did my 19 hundreds go?

Dawn Garrett [00:01:34]:
Yeah.

Pam Barnhill [00:01:35]:
For sure. Well, happy New Year regardless. I am here with Dawn Garrett, who is our community manager at Homeschool Better Together. And I wanted to start off the conversation by asking you, what is something that has been working for you in January, this new year? Because I know you probably got some new year things going on.

Dawn Garrett [00:01:56]:
I do have some new year things going on. One thing that is working for me is this week, you know, so all of 4 days. I started making breakfasts again for years years years, and there’s a blog post on on the site that will

Pam Barnhill [00:02:12]:
link We can link it.

Dawn Garrett [00:02:14]:
I made the same breakfast. Like, I made a Monday breakfast, a Tuesday breakfast. I I had the same schedule for years years years, and I made breakfast every morning well, every night before the morning of because when I prepped it ahead, then I could just throw it in the oven or have it ready to go, and I could have my time of reading and study before the chaos of the day started with children being awake and moving around and whisking all the questions and trying to get all the things done.

Pam Barnhill [00:02:43]:
Mhmm.

Dawn Garrett [00:02:44]:
So I’m still doing some of the make ahead, but I also have been doing, like, this. I made egg in a hole and bacon, and that requires standing at the stove and babysitting. Right? But I knew that I could go back and read once my kids were up because they all have their well, one’s not here, and they have their things to do on their own time, and I don’t have to be, like, directing everything. So

Pam Barnhill [00:03:09]:
Yeah. But making that teen. That’s a whole different animal.

Dawn Garrett [00:03:14]:
Well and and, really, homeschooling teen because my other one who is home is actually he’s off school for until Monday, and I don’t have anything to do with his school

Pam Barnhill [00:03:26]:
other than paying for it. So Yeah. Yeah. So getting back to making breakfast again after a while. I like that.

Dawn Garrett [00:03:34]:
Yeah.

Pam Barnhill [00:03:35]:
I think my new thing well okay. Yeah. So we started a new book. We finished To Kill A Mockingbird right before Christmas, watched the movie, which, yes, so good. My boys were like, oh, we like the book better, which that’s always the right answer. Right? Correct. The Kill A Lucky Bird is really one of those movies where it just the movie is fabulous too. Right? Sure.

Pam Barnhill [00:03:58]:
Because we had just read the book, we definitely recognized all the things that had been cut out, you know, just condensed for time and stuff like that. But the beauty of the movie is still really good, and that was one of those situations where I wanted them to see the movie as well as hear the book. Because we don’t always do that. We don’t always make it a point to watch the movie. But they If they really like that.

Dawn Garrett [00:04:19]:
We are planning to watch a movie, we often require reading the book before the movie, though Yeah. At our house. So Yep. So we

Pam Barnhill [00:04:28]:
did that. So now, new semester, starting a new book for morning time, and we’re doing Everything Sad is Undrue.

Dawn Garrett [00:04:35]:
Such a good book.

Pam Barnhill [00:04:37]:
At Dawn Garrett’s recommendation. Who wrote that? Because I can’t remember off the top

Dawn Garrett [00:04:40]:
of my head. Daniel Nayiri, I think, is his last name. He was an Iranian refugee in Oklahoma, and it’s kind of like his family life cultural story. It’s so good. So good.

Pam Barnhill [00:04:56]:
So I had read 14 pages. So I I’m reading on my e reader because I just happened to have it because I downloaded it to read for me, and then you had convinced me, oh, read this with your boys. Right? Yeah. So I’m reading it on my e reader, but it took me about I was about 14 pages. I’m using air quotes here. And when I realized it doesn’t have chapters. It just has these little sections. So I was like, I don’t think this book has chapters.

Pam Barnhill [00:05:21]:
Maybe because my ereader at the top, it tells me, like, how many pages are left in the chapter. And I’d read and read and read, and I looked at the top and I’m like, oh, there’s no indication up there. I don’t think this book has chapters. So that’s gonna be interesting.

Dawn Garrett [00:05:36]:
Yeah. We listen on audiobook. Nayiri reads it. We listened to it in the car. I think it’ll be a really fabulous comparison contrast follow-up to kill a mockingbird for you. Just there there are several places where I was like, oh, those could be really interesting ways to think about cultures and societies. Yeah. I like it.

Pam Barnhill [00:05:57]:
Okay. It’s well, we’d like I think it’s interesting so far. Actually, it’s funny because Olivia had not yet started back to school, so she was here and she was getting ready to go to work, I think, that day. And she was kind of in and out of the room a little bit. Mhmm. And she kept, like, stopping and listening and commenting, things like that. I’m like, yeah. You’re gonna want my e reader when we’re done, aren’t you? So you can finish this one for yourself.

Dawn Garrett [00:06:22]:
Yourself. Uh-huh. I I will say he writes it from the perspective of himself as a 12 year old boy. So there are some some places in it that people get annoyed by, but it’s 12 year old boy humor. It is what it

Pam Barnhill [00:06:37]:
is. Considering I’m reading to a a 15 year old boy and a 17, almost 18 year old, I’m sure that that we’ll all do fine with it. So I understand. That’s my thing. Okay. So Dawn’s making breakfast, and Pam has a new book. Alright. Today, our main topic for today is all about a little something, gosh, that we have talked about for years, but we’re kind of discovering that there are some things that we talk about that we’ve never done a podcast about.

Pam Barnhill [00:07:05]:
We’ve come up with a couple of those this week that I think we’re gonna have to make podcasts about. But this one, today, it’s about our MVD, we lovingly call it, which stands for

Dawn Garrett [00:07:17]:
Minimum viable day. Minimum

Pam Barnhill [00:07:20]:
viable day. Okay. Well, I guess since I kinda made this thing up, I’ll start with where it came from. And then I

Dawn Garrett [00:07:28]:
would have never come up with this idea, so this is all you. Oh, yeah. I don’t

Pam Barnhill [00:07:33]:
know, though. I feel like I feel like you own it now for sure. Yeah. So the minimum viable day was something I came up with to kind of help solve consistency issues in homeschool. And maybe we go like, take a step back and highlight the problem of consistency. Why is it so hard? Because this is one of the things that moms tell us a lot, and they told us that so much. And I had such a problem with it myself with consistency that, you know, we came up with the homeschool consistency boot camp, which we do a couple of times a year. And I’ve told my consistency story on the podcast before, and we’ll find one of those and link it so you can kind of hear just the different struggles that I had.

Pam Barnhill [00:08:18]:
And it was interesting because once I realized, I had this consistency issue that I was not getting home schooling done in a way that felt good to me. And that I realized that that came from perfectionism and not laziness. That was like a game changer for me. Because originally, I thought, well, I have to stop being lazy and just start being a better homeschooler. But then I realized that that was not my problem. My problem was perfectionism. That that was my problem. That was the thing that was keeping me from being consistent.

Pam Barnhill [00:08:50]:
So that’s why consistency was hard for me was perfectionism. Now you struggled somewhat with consistency. I don’t feel like you ever struggled as much as me. Right?

Dawn Garrett [00:09:01]:
No. I don’t know. I don’t know. I would say the first three regular years of homeschooling, I did struggle quite a lot with if things didn’t go really well on Monday, like, if I didn’t get Monday going well, we’re just we’re flexible. The whole lifestyle is flexible. So I could just talk myself into, well, we’ll just take this week off. And so I would say when we switched up in year 4, one of the big reasons why I added the 6 weeks on, 1 week off schedule was to help with the whole idea of consistency for me. That having a plan for when our breaks would be helped me to force myself to be more consistent.

Dawn Garrett [00:09:50]:
Maybe I’ve never told you that.

Pam Barnhill [00:09:52]:
I don’t know that you have. I don’t know that you have. So it for you, that’s so interesting. That’s so fascinating to me that for you, it was a it was a weekly thing. Like, you could, like, get your whole week thrown off. For me, it was just a daily thing. I would, like, start you know, his mercies are new each morning, so I just get up every morning to see where we were gonna go that day. But for you, it was a Monday thing.

Dawn Garrett [00:10:12]:
Or or, you know, like, oh, it’s Wednesday. We did school Monday Tuesday. We’re good. You know, like, I I I could justify myself out of anything.

Pam Barnhill [00:10:21]:
Oh, yes. Yes. Yeah. I I wonder what what that because you and I are very different personalities, but we do share that in common. And I wonder what that is. What and it’s I always wanna say, like, oh, you know, flexibility and other lies have homeschoolers tell themselves. But I don’t wanna give the message that homeschooling isn’t flexible because it is. And that is one of the beauties of it.

Pam Barnhill [00:10:44]:
But Yeah. I think I do think we can be too flexible.

Dawn Garrett [00:10:49]:
For sure. I I I absolutely think we can be too flexible. But there are like, we started our school year in January instead of in August because we were flexible and able to do that. Like, we could make our schedule the way we wanted it to because it’s flexible. We can travel when we when we want to because we can be flexible. But there is a level of flexibility where, like, you’re doing the splits and you’ve gone way too far. Right? So

Pam Barnhill [00:11:18]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that and I think you have to look at it. Yeah. I think you have to look at flexibility like a rubber band. Right? Like, rubber bands are very flexible. But if you stretch them too far, they break, and they’re no good to you. Right.

Pam Barnhill [00:11:30]:
You know? Correct. And, yeah, there’s your metaphor right there. So flexibility within within reason.

Dawn Garrett [00:11:36]:
Working constraints. Yeah. And like a sonnet where you’ve got structure, but you have to fit the creativity within the the structure.

Pam Barnhill [00:11:44]:
Yeah. Which makes the poem all that much more beautiful because you did that. Right. Yeah. Right. Literature lovers here. So okay. So, yeah, I think consistency is definitely an issue for a lot of homeschoolers.

Pam Barnhill [00:11:59]:
I we know from personal experience, and we know from people who have told us that over the years, and we know from the hundreds of people who have taken the homeschool consistency boot camp, and we might be pushing, like, a 1000 people at this point who have gone through the boot camp. We have a lot of people who come back to it again and again. Do. But yeah. So when I realized that perfectionism was my issue and that it was not laziness. And let me tell you, there’s a boatload of baggage that comes from feeling like you’re lazy. Right? You Absolutely. Really beat yourself up for that.

Dawn Garrett [00:12:35]:
Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. Yes.

Pam Barnhill [00:12:37]:
Yeah. Lots of lots and lots of guilt. And I’m like, yeah. And I look back, and I’m like, that was so stupid. You were, like, the least lazy person. You work all the time. But the perfectionism, that really keyed me in on I needed some kind of solution, and that’s where the MVD came in. Mhmm.

Pam Barnhill [00:12:58]:
This was kind of my first step for getting consistent. And let me just go ahead and lay it out if you’re not familiar with the concept of MVD or minimum viable day. This came from an idea that I had discovered, you know, as a business owner and an entrepreneur. I came across the concept of a minimum viable product. And this is because as perfectionist, people who develop products, whether it be a curriculum or a course or, you know, an app or a car, anything, a book, anything people make. You can get really caught up in making it absolutely perfect. And if you have all of this time and money invested in this and you can’t get the product out the door, you’re never gonna make any of that money back. You know? Mhmm.

Pam Barnhill [00:13:52]:
And and for people who are in, like, big corporations and stuff, this is a big deal. You’ve got to we’ve paid all these people to make this product. We’ve got to get it out the door. And I was thinking, oh, this is kinda similar in homeschooling. Like, my day doesn’t have to be perfect for me to get it started. Right? Right. And that’s where the minimum I was like, oh, minimum viable product. I could have a minimum viable day.

Pam Barnhill [00:14:16]:
This could be a day that I know going in is not going to be my perfect school day. It is not going to be the day that I planned back in the summer when I sat there and visualized what I wanted my perfect homeschool day to be like. You know? It’s not going to have the science projects and it’s not going to have, you know, history readings and literature readings and morning time and everybody gets math done and everybody gets reading done and every, you know, art And foreign language and

Dawn Garrett [00:14:54]:
all of the

Pam Barnhill [00:14:55]:
yes. Yeah. All of the things. All of the things that constitute the perfect homeschool day in my head, not gonna happen in the minimum viable day. Instead, what it is is this very simple defined set of tasks that count as a school day. So now let’s give a little background here. Like, I’m not going to tell you what your minimum viable day is. Dawn is not gonna tell you.

Pam Barnhill [00:15:27]:
You decide that for yourself. So, like, part of this process, you’re gonna sit and decide what your MVD is for your family or for individual kids.

Dawn Garrett [00:15:39]:
Yes. I think what you often say is a minimum viable day is the least you can do and still feel good about having done school that day.

Pam Barnhill [00:15:51]:
Yeah.

Dawn Garrett [00:15:53]:
Having done something for school that day.

Pam Barnhill [00:15:56]:
Yes. Having done something

Dawn Garrett [00:15:57]:
for school. Something in there because people will come back to me and say, well, I don’t feel good unless I’ve done my whole school day. And that’s a big mind shift change that you have to to be willing to say, I have done something towards school today, and and so I can check that box anywhere.

Pam Barnhill [00:16:18]:
Because that’s the kind of perfectionist thinking. If if people are really honest with themselves, if if they come to you and they and that this is why they end up in the boot camp. I do not feel good unless I have done my entire school day is why they end up in the boot camp is because we know it’s not possible to do your entire school day every single day.

Dawn Garrett [00:16:42]:
No. You know? I mean yeah. And and back to that flexibility thing. I mean, there may be some service projects that you want to accomplish. There may be some like, there may be a family emergency, and you’re running back and forth to the NICU. There are all kinds of different reasons why you have a very short amount of time to do a little bit of school and call it good for the day, And there’s all this other learning that isn’t in your academic learning that your kids are gonna be seeing from living life together with with in families and communities and people and groups. That’s not your academics, but is maybe as or more valuable than the academics themselves.

Pam Barnhill [00:17:28]:
Yeah. And I just wanna point out for those of you who are maybe newly out of your kids are newly out of the public school system, you may not know this, but there were not a lot of days in when your kids were in school where they had a full perfect school day either. I mean, I can remember being very frustrated as a teacher going like, like, is there gonna be a week where I get to teach the whole week exactly how I planned it out without some kind of interruption, whether it be, you know, some kind of planned interruption, like, you know, what do they call those things we used to go do? I don’t know. We An assembly. An assembly. That’s what the like, boy, I’m way out of that world. Like, you would have rallies. An assembly, a pep rally, testing.

Pam Barnhill [00:18:13]:
You know? Part of your kids were pulled out for this or that or or the unplanned things, like, you know, the kid who comes in and has the major meltdown that just completely throws your entire lesson plan out the door. You’ve got to deal with this kid, and now you come back and you’ve got this whole room full of kids who are, like, kept up on goofballs because this major thing just went down in their classroom. That stuff happened all the time. Still does.

Dawn Garrett [00:18:39]:
Or the 2 hour snow delays that Yeah. I think we’ve had school canceled and we’ve had 2 hour snow delays this week.

Pam Barnhill [00:18:47]:
Bomb threats. Can’t tell you how many times I stood in the middle of a field with a group of teenagers because of bomb threats. So, yeah, if you’re feeling if you’re feeling like, oh my gosh, you know, this would never happen in public school, you’re lying to yourself because it happens

Dawn Garrett [00:19:03]:
all the time. But even the regularly scheduled stuff, I mean, 10 minutes in high school, you have the bell, you walk to your next class, you you get you get your stuff all packed up, walk to class, get your stuff all unpacked. Like, there’s those transition periods are that those aren’t exactly directed educational time. Yeah. Yeah.

Pam Barnhill [00:19:27]:
So So it it it happens. It it totally happens. And so coming up with and and for me, an an MVD starts with an examination of conscience. Right? Mhmm. Because it is the least amount of school that I can do and still feel good about having done school. And so I have to have a conversation with myself, with my conscience, you know, to say, okay. Like, be honest here. What what are the things that you feel like you need to get done? So at the end of the day, you can check that box and say, we have had a school day.

Pam Barnhill [00:20:07]:
And when you stand before God one day, you could say, I feel good about it. We had a school day. You know? And so for me, it always starts with that examination of of conscience. So I have to feel good about it.

Dawn Garrett [00:20:20]:
Yeah. I I think that’s really important. But I do think that we need to consider what feeling good about it means. So and and we’ve just given a bunch of examples about, like, why you can feel good about what you perceive as a less than shorter school.

Pam Barnhill [00:20:37]:
Yeah. Yeah. So give me, just for example say, speaking of examples, a couple of examples of of MVDs that you’ve had through the years. Because this is another thing, and we may get into this a little more later. Like, it’s not gonna be the same. Like, you’re not gonna wake up tomorrow and say, this is my MVD forever and ever and ever amen. It changes. So give me some examples of yours through the years.

Dawn Garrett [00:21:01]:
Well, when I was emphatically always having to be the teacher and intimately involved, it was morning time in math. We had to do we did morning time. I was in charge of that. I ran morning time, and I taught math to my kids. When I had the shingles, it was watch how the states got their shapes and Magic School Bus and zapoomapoo and Liberty’s Kids and and where in the world has come in San Diego. Right? It was like, do those things, stay out of trouble, and let me lie here in agony. As my kids got older, it was get your independent work done. So it it really did evolve where, like, it became something during a period of, you know, a very, very focused period of time, like 6 weeks.

Pam Barnhill [00:21:58]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well and I wanna and your kids were really little at that point as well. They were pretty young. And I wanna point that out. You said as my kids got older, it became get your independent work done. And I do think it’s important for maybe people who are new listeners to point out that for as long as I’ve known her, Dawn Garrett has done about a 2 hour a day morning time. And a lot of your learning happened in that morning time because your kids were so close in age together.

Pam Barnhill [00:22:25]:
For sure. And so for you to say, get your independent work done, that took you out of the equation so you could deal with whatever the issue was, you know, whatever was going on that you needed to do because there was something probably something pulling you away that you needed to be doing then that’s why you were doing that MDD. But even though they were doing their independent work, you were still missing a big chunk of your day by just doing that.

Dawn Garrett [00:22:50]:
Yeah. Oh, for sure. And their and and their independent work, it’s not like I was totally divorced from that because since we do Charlotte Mason, they would bring me their narrations. And, I mean, there there were still interaction, but I could be focused on something else for for that period of time. Yeah.

Pam Barnhill [00:23:07]:
Yeah. So for us, we have had periods where it was morning time in math, then I realized that I had some struggling readers. And then for us, it became reading lessons definitely made the list of MBD. Mhmm. Every single time. Like, if we were going to miss, we were not going to miss reading lessons because that was the place where I felt like, some of my children needed the most consistency. I had 2 boys who were whizzes at math and could fly through it, but one of them in particular needed some very dedicated reading help. And then if I’m doing one, I might as well do the other.

Pam Barnhill [00:23:45]:
And then independent work at times, what whatever they could do by themselves

Dawn Garrett [00:23:51]:
Mhmm.

Pam Barnhill [00:23:52]:
And reading was an NBD for a while because, you know, then I could go off and do what I needed to do. A lot of times now, I will say it is morning time. I think the thing that gets dropped, you know, we might shorten our morning time, but there’s so much they can do on their own. Right? But I do try to do a short morning time because we do still do some essential subjects in morning time. And if I’d let it go for too long, we get behind in those subjects. We do logic in morning time. We do economics in morning time, and we do literature in morning time. And so I don’t wanna get too far behind on those and feel like we haven’t made progress.

Pam Barnhill [00:24:33]:
There’s a lot of stuff they’re able to do on their own. I would say writing is probably the thing that gets left out, like composition, because that’s the thing I sit and work with them on more than anything else. So so yeah. So it’s gonna change. It’s gonna change depending on the season of life you’re in, the ages of your kids, and the needs of your kids as well.

Dawn Garrett [00:24:55]:
And your needs. I mean, I know the seasons of life, but your needs,

Pam Barnhill [00:25:00]:
the those aren’t always the same. So yeah. Yeah. Okay. So why do we think having this super simple list and we tell people when you start making this list, like, maybe put 3 things on it.

Dawn Garrett [00:25:14]:
Maybe.

Pam Barnhill [00:25:15]:
Maybe. Maybe put 3 things on it. And if you haven’t picked up on this, you could have an MVD for your kindergartner that is different than an MVD for a 13 or 14 year old if you have that. Yeah.

Dawn Garrett [00:25:27]:
You know? Probably need to. Yeah.

Pam Barnhill [00:25:30]:
Yeah. You’re gonna make different MBDs for different kids in your house, and then you could say, oh, we’re doing an MBD today. Here’s yours, and here’s yours. But why is it a helpful tool? I’m gonna let you start.

Dawn Garrett [00:25:45]:
For me, for a long time, my I’ve already said my inconsistency was that, go. We can be flexible. If I could get started, I would do the day anyway. So sometimes having an MVD of, okay, I can face doing this, and if I get this much done, I will feel good about today, but I’d find that it just kind of the whole day ended up rolling in anyway.

Pam Barnhill [00:26:10]:
Yeah. Is it is it tiny habits? Is that the name of the book, or is it simple habits? Or there’s a book out there where he talks about if you just make your habit doing one push up

Dawn Garrett [00:26:22]:
While you’re on the floor.

Pam Barnhill [00:26:24]:
While you’re on the floor, you’re gonna convince yourself to do a few more. But the habit and this is an exact same concept. The habit is just to do one push up. And if you get down on the floor and you do one push up, you have maintained that habit streak. And you can and, actually, it’s funny because right now, I’m using the Atomic Habits app to build some new habits. I do not have a habit of going for a walk every day. My habit is to put on my walking shoes. Getting started is the hardest part.

Pam Barnhill [00:26:56]:
It really, really is.

Dawn Garrett [00:26:58]:
It really is.

Pam Barnhill [00:26:59]:
Yeah. And so for you, that was the thing. Right?

Dawn Garrett [00:27:03]:
Oh, that it was definitely one of

Pam Barnhill [00:27:06]:
the things. Yeah. So For me, we had fallen into this pattern because of my inconsistency. We had fallen into this pattern where my kids were just relentless about Mhmm. Wanting to be let off of school. Are we doing school today? You know? And they would push back because they knew that if they played really well together or stretched things out or got me distracted or just left me alone. I mean, this is like

Dawn Garrett [00:27:40]:
the the

Pam Barnhill [00:27:41]:
scourge of inner, introverts everywhere. It’s like if your children just leave you alone, and you can, like, you know, be over here doing your own little thing, which probably way often involved way too much scrolling in Facebook that, like, you would turn around and go, oh, it’s 11 o’clock. We have to be out of the door at 1. There’s no way we’re gonna get school done today. We might as well just not do it. You know? Right. So

Dawn Garrett [00:28:05]:
Oh, yes.

Pam Barnhill [00:28:06]:
There was this pushback from them. There was this it was a struggle. They were just gnarly about, you know, doing school. And are we are we doing school today? And there’s also this lack of trust. They Okay. Did not trust, and they didn’t know how their day was gonna go when they woke up, which was probably unsettling to them. Are we doing school? Are we not doing school? And so for me, the minimum viable day when we started doing that, that started solving so many problems I had with my kids. So many of the pushback problems because we would get up.

Pam Barnhill [00:28:43]:
And let me tell you something. In my kids, my kids did not know we were doing an MVD. They did not know that was not in the the vocabulary. That was not part of their language. They didn’t know anything about that. They just to them, we were doing school. They did not recognize the fact that it was just morning time and math, or it was just math and reading or something like that. And so for them, we were doing school whether we did a full day or a minimum viable day.

Pam Barnhill [00:29:18]:
And so what it looked like to them is over time I mean, it took a little bit of time to get back to this point, but what it looked like to them was we get up every day and do school. We don’t even

Dawn Garrett [00:29:29]:
need to ask. Right. Yeah. And and that is so huge in making forward progress, in mom’s attitude, and, like, all all of the things become easier when it is in a fight to get school started.

Pam Barnhill [00:29:47]:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. 100%. Like, when you just fall into that. And nobody ever asks anymore, are we doing school? Like No. Yeah. Though I do have a funny story. So I accidentally my kids are very immovable sometimes.

Pam Barnhill [00:30:06]:
So I accidentally told John that we were starting school on 7th because I thought 7th was the Monday. Oh my gosh. I had the biggest fight on my but you said we were starting 7th. You said we were starting 7th. I’m like, I misspoke. I don’t care that you misspoke. You said we were starting the 7th. So just be careful about that.

Dawn Garrett [00:30:31]:
Yes.

Pam Barnhill [00:30:32]:
Yes. 18 year old

Dawn Garrett [00:30:33]:
boy. My almost 18 year old I didn’t I didn’t really know when we were starting back because all of our stuff was online, but she was on top of it. She’s like, oh, classes start Monday. So she got started back on Monday. I’m like, great.

Pam Barnhill [00:30:49]:
Girl, boy. Well

Dawn Garrett [00:30:53]:
and yeah. So yes.

Pam Barnhill [00:30:56]:
So she’s Girl, an obstinate boy. Goodness. Yeah. So but, anyway, it really was the thing where, like, just doing the school every day was such a game changer for us and really solved yeah. You’re right. It solved my attitude because I knew we were doing school every day. I had that fallback plan for the days when I felt like, okay. We can’t get everything done, but I could still get enough done that I felt good.

Pam Barnhill [00:31:28]:
Remember, that’s the key. I could still feel good about what we had done. Like, oh, yeah. We’re being super consistent with these reading lessons. I know that the kid is getting exactly what he needs to be successful, but they also started trusting me. And I think that was a huge thing in our, you know, student teacher relationship is that we built that trust.

Dawn Garrett [00:31:47]:
I agree. Yeah. The say same thing happened here. Once we are consistent like, I don’t even have an MVD anymore. So Right. Because you don’t need one. You know? Because I don’t need it. We’re Yeah.

Dawn Garrett [00:31:59]:
We’re consistent, and we get our school done.

Pam Barnhill [00:32:02]:
Yeah. And, yeah, that’s probably largely what we are. Like, there’s no technically, there’s no official NVD. Like, we if if something were going on, we would just get up, and I would say, okay. Do this and this, and, you know, we’ll be good. But for the most part, we just get up and do school. So Right. All of this to say, the NVD is not the end goal.

Pam Barnhill [00:32:22]:
Right? It is kind of the starting point to building. For sure.

Dawn Garrett [00:32:27]:
For sure. And it, yeah, it changes over time, but being consistent grows. I sometimes compare it to, like, couch to 5 k. If you go out and you don’t start off running a 5 k from sitting on the couch full time. Right. Go out and you follow the program, which gives you a little bit of running at the beginning and mostly walking. Yep. And at the end, a lot of running and a little bit of walking.

Dawn Garrett [00:32:56]:
The NVD kind of does the same thing. It will grow and expand as as your consistency grows and expands. Your capacity will also grow.

Pam Barnhill [00:33:06]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think too it’s important to remember you’ve always got it in your back pocket so that if

Dawn Garrett [00:33:12]:
Mhmm.

Pam Barnhill [00:33:12]:
You ever had even after a period of consistency, if you had to pull it out and use it again for a while, you could, and that is not to be seen as a failure. Right? Right. And so it it would be kinda like if you stopped running for a while because, like, something crazy happened in your life and you couldn’t run. What like, let’s say you broke your foot. Let’s just say. It happens sometime, sadly. Poor Dawn. She’s about a a want you know, like, really close to the 1 year anniversary of of breaking

Dawn Garrett [00:33:42]:
her foot. And my foot finally doesn’t hurt when I go for my 10,000 steps in a day. It’s it’s been a year, and my foot now doesn’t hurt.

Pam Barnhill [00:33:53]:
But you had to work back up to that. Yes. Yeah. And so it’s the same thing with the MDD. So you always have it in your pocket. I think it’s a tool that you could use forever throughout your entire homeschool career whenever

Dawn Garrett [00:34:05]:
you

Pam Barnhill [00:34:05]:
needed to pull it out and use it. And it I think it’s the great first step Mhmm. To consistency along with the other things we teach in boot camp, which is the planning, the motivation, the accountability, those things.

Dawn Garrett [00:34:19]:
As a professionalism? Yes. Yeah. It’s something it’s a tool that I can use. Like, I’m about to graduate with my last. I’m not like, my my school day involves a do you do math today? Right now, that’s pretty much as involved with school as I am. Did you do your math? But my mother’s morning basket had kind of fallen off toward the end of 2024, and so I’m trying to ease back in. And if I get even a little bit of it done, then it it’ll grow back. But getting started is the hardest part.

Dawn Garrett [00:34:51]:
I can get up and scroll my phone for a while, or I could get started on my mother’s memory basket and do my readings and my devotions. And so I use the same tools. If I get this part of it done, then I’ve done it for the day.

Pam Barnhill [00:35:04]:
Yeah. Yeah. I I bet of huge I never start I never start any new actually, back to my atomic habits and my putting on my walking shoes, but my reading goal, because this is this is my thing. Everybody’s got their reading challenges for the years. Pam Pam’s challenge is just to be a habitual reader. Right? I wanna make it a habit again. And so my goal is to read 1 page a day. Now there has never been a day.

Pam Barnhill [00:35:34]:
I think I’m on, like, 28 days straight, so I started this, like, before the start of this year. Let me just look it up, and I’ll let you know how many days I’m on. On 26. 26 days in a row, I’ve done this. It has never been 1 page. I have never read just 1 page. But if I were, like, bone tired and about to fall into the bed and realize that I hadn’t read that day, all I would have to do is read 1 page. Because once you read the first page, you just you tend to keep going, whether it’s 3 or 5 or 25 or or whatever.

Pam Barnhill [00:36:09]:
Finish the chapter. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So such a good tool to get you started. And so we’re hoping that this is what this does for you is you can really think about this concept and brainstorm it, think about your essentials. You know, how can I reduce the decision fatigue? But if you need help with it, if you’re like, I need help. I need some accountability with this MVD.

Pam Barnhill [00:36:33]:
Maybe I have some questions because questions always do come up. We Uh-huh. You know, we’ll typically have a few conversations in boot camp each year about MBDs. Let me give you a little hint. You’re probably trying to put too much on it. I’ll just that’s for free. But if you’re wanting help establishing your MBD, some accountability, and then how do you grow beyond it and turn it into a real rich consistent homeschool? The homeschool consistency boot camp is opening. The doors are opening on February 11th, and we will get started with the very first warm up activity on February 19th.

Pam Barnhill [00:37:13]:
And you can join us for the consistency boot camp last week of February into March and really solve some of the consistency issues in your homeschool. And we would love to have you join us. What are we, Dawn?

Dawn Garrett [00:37:27]:
Oh, it is one of my very favorite things that we do. I love boot camp. It makes emphatic difference in people’s homeschools and helps them succeed at homeschooling. And like you said, people come back and just get that kick. It’s like going to see your personal trainer and going in back to see your personal trainer. It just it really I don’t think we’ve stamped.

Pam Barnhill [00:37:51]:
Like, our most clear cut transformations with Yeah. Absolutely. In people’s homeschools. So, yeah, we would love, love to have you join us. And I’ll be back next week. I’ll be talking to one of the moms who has done our boot camp a couple of different times, and she’s gonna be talking about why she’s done it a few different times and how she’s used it. So alright, Dawn.

Dawn Garrett [00:38:14]:
Thank you so much for joining me. Thanks, Pam.

Pam Barnhill [00:38:18]:
That’s our show for today. Be sure to follow, subscribe, and leave a review so you never miss out on the wonder of homeschooling better together. To stay connected and learn even more about the homeschooling better together resources and to join our free community, visit hsbtpodcast.com. Until next week, keep stepping out of the overwhelm and into the wonder.

Links and Resources From Today’s Show

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper LeeTo Kill a Mockingbird by Harper LeeEverything Sad is Untrue by Daniel NayiriEverything Sad is Untrue by Daniel NayiriHow the States Got Their Shapes: Season 1How the States Got Their Shapes: Season 1The Magic School Bus Complete Series: Seasons 1-4The Magic School Bus Complete Series: Seasons 1-4Zoboomafoo - Hip, Hop, Skip and ThinkZoboomafoo – Hip, Hop, Skip and ThinkMill Creek, Liberty's Kids: The Complete SeriesMill Creek, Liberty’s Kids: The Complete SeriesCarmen Sandiego 8bk Box SetCarmen Sandiego 8bk Box SetAtomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & BreakAtomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break

 

Key Ideas About Minimum Viable Days

  • What a Minimum Viable Day is and why it’s a game-changer for consistency.
  • How MVD evolves with your homeschool season and supports your unique needs.
  • Practical tips for creating your own MVD and sticking to it.

How a Minimum Viable Day Can Transform Your Homeschool

Consistency in homeschooling can feel like an uphill battle, can’t it? One day you’re on top of the world, and the next, you’re wondering if you’ll ever find your groove. That’s where the concept of a Minimum Viable Day (MVD) comes in—a game-changing tool to help you stay consistent, reduce stress, and build trust with your kids. Today, I’m diving into what an MVD is, why it works, and how to create one that fits your family.

What Is a Minimum Viable Day?

An MVD is the smallest set of tasks you can do in a day and still feel good about having done school. It’s not about perfection or doing all the things—it’s about doing something. The idea comes from the business concept of a Minimum Viable Product—a simplified version of a product that gets released to gather feedback and improve. In homeschooling, it means focusing on the essentials so you can keep moving forward without burning out.

Why You Need an MVD

Many of us struggle with perfectionism, thinking that if we can’t complete our full homeschool plan, it’s not worth doing anything at all. This mindset leads to inconsistency and, frankly, a lot of guilt. An MVD gives you a fallback plan for those chaotic days when nothing seems to go right. It helps you:

Stay consistent even when life throws curveballs.

Reduce decision fatigue by having a pre-defined plan.

Build trust with your kids—they’ll know school is happening every day, even if it’s a lighter version.

How to Create Your MVD

Define Your Essentials
Start by asking yourself: What’s the least I can do and still feel good about the day? For many families, this might include:

  • Morning time or a group activity.
  • One core subject like math or reading.
  • Independent work that kids can complete on their own.
  • For younger kids, your MVD might focus on reading lessons and play-based learning. For older kids, it could be math and an independent subject like science or history.

Keep It Flexible

Your MVD will change depending on your season of life. If you’re dealing with a newborn, illness, or a packed schedule, your MVD might be just one or two tasks. That’s okay! The goal is to make progress, not perfection.

Communicate With Your Kids

One of the biggest benefits of an MVD is how it builds trust. Your kids will stop asking, Are we doing school today?  because they’ll know the answer is always yes.

Examples of MVDs

Here are a few examples to inspire you:

  • For Younger Kids: Morning time, reading practice, and 30 minutes of free play with educational toys.
  • For Middle Schoolers: Math, a writing assignment, and a group read-aloud.
  • For High Schoolers: One core subject, independent study, and 20 minutes of SAT prep.

On particularly rough days (think sick kids or broken appliances), your MVD might simply be watching educational videos or listening to audiobooks. That’s okay too!

Why It Works

Consistency is key to a successful homeschool, and an MVD helps you build that habit. Over time, you’ll find that starting small often leads to doing more. Like putting on your running shoes is the first step to a jog, starting with your MVD can lead to a fuller school day.

Final Thoughts

The Minimum Viable Day isn’t the end goal—it’s a tool to help you stay consistent and make homeschooling manageable. Whether you’re in a tough season or just trying to find your rhythm, an MVD can be a lifesaver.

If you’re ready to dig deeper into building consistency, join us for the Homeschool Consistency Boot Camp starting February 19th. We’ll walk you through creating your MVD, setting realistic goals, and finding the accountability you need to make 2025 your best homeschool year yet.

What’s your MVD? Share your essentials in the comments—I’d love to hear how you’re making this work for your family. Until next time, keep stepping out of the overwhelm and into the wonder!

To join our free homeschool community, you can create an account right here.

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