The first week of homeschooling our children while working from home is complete. Believe it or not, the worst part of this is all over because the adjustment periods are always the toughest. So, take a deep breath, and find time tonight to have a drink and celebrate.

After that, we should all strategize for week two to make it all go smoother starting Monday.

Now, if you are anything like my home, or the homes of friends I have seen through FaceTime, or the countless pictures on social media, your kitchen or dining room table was the battle station. That is where the laptops and school stuff was during the week.

If that is the case, lean into it and accept it. Take time this weekend, and find ways to organize your work and your kids school stuff so it is easily accessible and can be straightened out at the end of the school or work day. At least in terms of the kids, the best way might just be putting everything back into their school bags and putting it where they normally put it when there is actually a school bus. Maybe, you have some extra kitchen storage or counter space you can use.

Space allocation aside, there is also the time management issue. The general construct of the schedule my family devised has worked well, but only as a general construct. There are work calls or emails which have already superseded the schedule, but you have to do what you have to do.

One way we adapted to all of this was realizing the earlier our child can start schoolwork, the better. To put in in perspective, our school district has been sending out the class assignments at roughly 7:00 A.M. To allow us to be better available for our work demands, we started our son on his school work almost as soon as it was released.

This gave us the chance to focus more on his school work at a time when no one from work was really looking to contact us. That’s the good part. The downside is he’s been done with his work before lunch leaving us to figure out what to do with him for the rest of the day while we struggle to work and manage a two year old.

Really, you can only go so far with read a book or play with your brother. However, that is a better problem to have than paying half-attention to work and half-attention to your child’s school work. At least, that is how we see it.

In week two, that is just another adaption we are going to have to make. Given how many kinks we have already worked out, that seems like an easier hill to climb. We’ll see.

In any event, we have all survived the first week, and we will survive the next. We will continue getting better at this until this is no longer necessary. When that time comes is anyone’s best guess. Until then, remember that even though we are all doing this apart, we are all in this together.