3 Tips to Tackle the Back-to-school crazy
Depending on where you live, you might be either staring down the last days of summer or still have several weeks before school starts up again. Does that reality have you cringing and rejoicing at the same time? For me, the last few weeks of summer are always the hardest. The kids are sick of each other. The glee and freedom of no school has worn off. It’s hot. Everyone is more easily agitated. I’ve made 67,238 snacks. The kids’ bedtime is my favorite part of the day.
On one hand, these last couple of weeks excite me: I love school supplies. I love the fresh start of a new school year. I’m looking forward to quiet mornings when the kids are at school (2 more years till all 3 are full day).
On the other hand, this time of year also makes me crazy: There are clothes to try on and buy. There are summer reading books and projects to work on. I wonder if I’ve done enough to make sure my kids are ready for their new grade. Sports start and the calendar starts filling up faster than I’m ready for. Our schedules are about to drastically change and I’m the one responsible for leading our whole family through the transition back to school. It’s exhausting.
If any of what I’ve shared resonates with you, I got you. We’ll get through this together. Read on for some of the ways that I not only keep myself sane this time of year, but also ways that I continue to prioritize my own care. I have to be honest with myself: if I’m a hot mess, I’m not going to do a very good job at setting my family up for success.
Write it down
I don’t know about you, but as the family “Rememberer” my mental load can get really heavy. I’m not saying my husband isn’t my partner in running our household, but I’m the one who manages the calendar, makes doctor appointments, buys backpacks, shops, cooks, knows where most household items are at any given point in time…you get the idea. I’m sure many of you know exactly what I’m talking about!
To help ease the mental load, I write everything down. Many years ago when I worked in an office, we all read David Allen’s Getting Things Done and it completely changed the way I organized myself at work. I never translated his system into my home life, but the concept of “get it out of your head” has stuck with me all these years later. His theory is that if you write it down (and trust your system so you don’t lose what you wrote down), it frees your brain up to actually get things done rather than always trying to remember what you’re supposed to do. I love this and it works really well for me. If I write it down, I don’t have to worry about forgetting it. Whether its something for a shopping list, a call I need to make, an idea I have, a funny thing one of the kids said, I write it down. Do I keep all my notes in one place? Nope! Grocery lists go in my Whisk app. Shopping lists go in Google Keep. Phone calls or calendar related things become reminders in my calendar. I started using Trello recently and am now keeping some notes and tasks in there. Sometimes I just draft an email to myself because I know I’ll go back to my drafts and find it. This system definitely isn’t perfect, but I’ve noticed that the more stressed I get, the more lists I write, and the better I feel…because it’s out of my head. Sometimes I write down CLEAN THE BATHROOM!!! on a piece of paper and leave it at my spot on the dining room table before I go to bed so that I see it yelling at me the next morning. Whatever gets the job done. The bottom line is, if you write it down, you don’t have that extra mental load of trying to remember it.
I challenge you, right now, to write down (whether its on paper or digitally) 5 things that you know you need to do but keep forgetting or not prioritizing. The simple act of writing them down relieves a bit of weight and also gets you one step closer to actually getting the thing done.
Photo by Angelina Litvin on Unsplash
Get ahead when you can
This is not an indictment of procrastinators or people who aren’t natural planners. It is, however, about developing an awareness of moments of opportunity. For example: If your daughter’s sandals just broke and now you’re hunting through her shoes to see what fits? Double-check that her school shoes still fit and if not, write a note to get her new ones ASAP. I didn’t it plan it, but I’ve had 99% of our upcoming school supplies purchased and packed in backpacks since I saw the first Target back to school sale at the beginning of July. Why? I hate it hanging over my head so jumped on the opportunity when I saw the sale. Now I don’t have to worry about it. I wasn’t planning on doing it that early, but I’m not sad it happened!
This awareness can apply to anything, not just back to school topics. Sometimes I wipe down the mirror or counter while I’m waiting for my youngest to finish up in the bathroom. Or, sometimes I water a plant when I happen to walk by with my glass of water. If I’m talking on the phone, I might also I grab a tissue or the nearest paper towel and attempt to wipe some of the dust off whatever surface is nearby. (I so rarely dust, it’s not hard to find a spot!) The moral of the story: look for little things you can do that help ease your mental load. It will look different for all of us, but it’s what makes sense to YOU that matters.
Get enough sleep
We hear this all the time, and with young kids it’s so frustrating. Of course we want to sleep! Tell that to the baby who’s hungry, or the toddler with a nightmare, or the hungry kid who’s clamoring for breakfast an hour early. And maybe we want the sleep, but we stay up too late because we need the peace and quiet and some sense of autonomy for a few hours. That said, doing whatever you can to get quality sleep will not only help your stress levels, but many other aspects of your health, too.
Think about your kid’s bedtime routine for a minute. Is there a set time you start getting them ready? Do they take a bath? Brush teeth? Read a book? Snuggle? Say prayers? How do you help them wind down from the day and transition them to peace, quiet, and sleep?
Now take a look at YOUR bedtime routine. Do you have one? If you don’t, before the school year kicks into gear is a great time to start working on one. Even if you need your evening quiet/alone time, you can still create and benefit from a bedtime routine. I’ve found it most helpful to work backwards from when I want to be in bed, lights out. So, start with your bedtime in mind. How do you need to (ideally) put yourself to bed? Do you have a cup of tea? Shower? Exercise? Read? Meditate? Pray? Journal? Notice I said ideally. This isn’t going to happen every single night, but you need to know what you’d love bedtime to look like. Once you have the steps, think about how much time you’d like to spend on each thing and map out what time you need to start that part of your routine. Still with me? Great. Now: Do not do this all at once! If you have 5 things you’d like to do before bed each night, start with ONE. Do it for a week, maybe aiming for 5-6 nights. If that goes well, add the second and so on. It will take time to work up to your ideal bedtime routine, but as with all habits, building them takes time and the longer you do them, the more likely they are to stick.
Let me illustrate with my own bedtime “habit stack” that I’m working on. These are all based on my goal of being in bed, lights out by 10:30 most nights.
Week 1: by 10:25, 5 minutes of deep breathing
Week 2: by 10:20, 5 minutes of prayer
Week 3: by 10:10, 10 minutes of stretching or light, relaxing exercise (really, whatever my body needs)
Week 4: repeat week 3 because it didn’t work out as planned, and I decided to cut stretching down to 5 minutes and up prayer to 10 minutes. It’s MY bedtime, I get to decide what works best for me. It’s so freeing.
(Current) Week 5: by 9:50pm, be in the shower (honestly, it’s not going super well so far and I’ll probably tack a week on)
Week 6: by 9:40pm, 10 min planner review (may bump down to 5 min)
Week 7: by 9:35pm, 5 min pick up of one room
Photo by Lux Graves on Unsplash
When I first heard the idea of “putting myself to bed”, I was fascinated and I’ve really taken it to heart. I need to transition myself to peace, quiet, and sleep much the same way my kids need that transition. To summarize, to whatever extent you can, help give your body the gift of sleep.
I’d love to hear some of the ways you handle the back-to-school season and keep yourself a priority. If it all feels too overwhelming or anything in this post resonated with you, shoot me a message or an email so we can talk!
