Getting Organized for Summer: Routines

It’s Monday again! But it’s just not any Monday in our house– it’s the first Monday of summer vacation! Con finished up preschool last week, so we’re done with school until he heads off to Kindergarten in the fall. (Don’t even get me started. I’m going to be a basket case. 😉 )

I wanted to make sure we made the most of our time this summer, so I began getting organized right off the bat.

I have done different things in the past to try to add a little bit of structure to our summer days so that we don’t waste them away watching TV or playing the “I’m borrrrrreeeddd!!!” game, and this year I decided to focus on our morning and evening routines.

I feel like if we can get certain things done in the morning and evening times, it will set us up for success for the rest of our day, so of course I did what I always do when I want to get something organized: I made a pretty little printable!

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This was so super simple, you guys! I just sat down for a few minutes and thought of the things that I would most like the Cs and I to get done in our day.

Most of the items were a logical fit for either morning or evening, so I just plugged them in in the appropriate spaces in an order that made sense and hung my chart in a visible location so we could refer to it often.

I kept it to five items in the morning and five items in the evening so it wouldn’t get overwhelming. Depending on your situation, you may want to trim it down to even 2 or 3!

For our morning, I decided on taking a few minutes to straighten our rooms and make the beds. (“Making the beds” is a very loose term for the Cs since Caleb is 2 and can barely reach and Connor is on the top bunk. Basically if their covers are off the floor, I’m happy 😉 )

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Then I’m hoping to do a little devotion with them each morning with our breakfast from one of their children’s Bibles.

I would love to exercise in the mornings– a lot of times the Cs will “exercise” with me or play with their toys right under my feet. I think I work in some extra reps trying to avoid stepping on them. 🙂

I am forever trying to do better at keeping up with the cleaning so I fit that in, and then I’ll get showered, and we’ll all get dressed and ready for the day!

In the evening the plan is for the Cs to clean up their toys in our main living area while D and I take care of the after-dinner cleanup.

They get to watch one show, then jump in the bath and brush their teeth {not at the same time, :)}. After that it’s reading time and to off to bed for them, and I want to make sure I make my to-do list for the next day before I go to sleep. (I use a time-blocking system for my to-do list. You can find a printable version here.)

Now we have purposefully left our summer pretty wide open since I will be having surgery in a few months, so we will have time to get a bunch of stuff accomplished in the mornings. (I hope!)

If you are working full time outside the home or you have an infant or have a lot of commitments during the day, your list might consist of getting everybody fed, dressed, and out the door, and that’s perfect!

Every family will have different schedules, needs, and priorities, which is why I left the printable so open for interpretation!

I hope this little tool will be a helpful one for getting your summer off on the right track! And even if you’re finding this well into your summer vacation, it’s never too late to start!

I think that having some structure in the morning and evening times and getting the “big” to-do list items out of the way is so essential to making the rest of the day go smoothly, so hopefully with this list as our little reminder, we will be able to able to have a fun and productive summer!

Stay tuned during the rest of the week for more summer organization tools and ideas! “See” you then!