55. My Back To School Routines

My Back to School Routines | Kylee Ann Mentors Moms Podcast

I hope you all had a chance to pause, take some deep breaths and reset last week. Summer is too crazy, so pausing will help us get ready for the added craziness of fall. Today we’re going to talk about another way to get on top of fall craziness, from routines to charts to peak organization & specifically what my back to school routines look like *Enneagram 1 Alert*

Fall is usually so busy for me. It makes my summer look like a cake walk. I’ve got school schedules, sports schedules, dance schedules, photo schedules and work schedules. If I don’t have a routine, this can all get out of hand really fast. I’m going to walk you through what back to school looks like at my house because I know I’m not the only mom out there juggling all these schedules. I’ve found a good system for me and maybe you’re looking for a better way to stay on top of your back to school, so hopefully this podcast will give you some inspo.

Not everything I do will work for you so adapt it to your family!

Make this busy season a little bit more smooth.

The working-mom life just ebbs and flows.

Finding balance = setting a schedule, setting priorities, setting expectations and outsourcing.

Schedule

This is the first year I have two kids in school all day! If that’s not where you’re at right now and the only time you get to work is during nap time, take a pause and remember that we are all at different places. I’ve been in your shoes and remember when all the breaks I got were nap time. Life changes and in a year, two years, three years – you’ll have a different system.

So my two oldest are in school and my youngest will go on to preschool next month. To be home with my youngest, I’m working Monday-Thursday 9-12 and this is my schedule until he goes to preschool. I have a lot of catch-up to do with my business so I decided that for the first month my kids are in school, I was going to work three hours a day, four times a week. That of course doesn’t mean that’s the only time I work. But those are set aside for uninterrupted work. What’s to learn here: stick to your schedule. Don’t squeeze in clients or make extra work for yourself. You’ll lose balance when you start bending the schedule.

Monday I’m doing computer work to catch up on what came in from over the weekend. Tuesday and Wednesday I’m shooting in the studio and Thursday I’m doing more computer work. When October hits, I’ll add coaching and cut back on shooting. I’ll be working one night a week for family pictures (a huge cutback compared to last year and I’m feeling really good about slowing down). I’m traveling a lot for speaking events and for family trips and fall is just going to be craziness, so having a schedule helps me be proactive. It feels like I’m ahead and makes me feel successful.

Monday – Computer Time

Tuesday – Studio Time

Wednesday – Studio TIme

Thursday – More Computer Time

*only 3 hours a week

Priorities

If you have not set priorities for this quarter. Pause this right now, take some time and think of what you want to focus on this fall. Without priorities, I feel like I’m just treading water and not going anywhere. Priorities are the “why” and will help you understand why you’re even trying to nail down a solid routine.

So this quarter, my priorities are to not be working at all when my kids get home from school, that I’m up before my kids get ready for school and that I take care of myself with my morning routine. At the end of school in the spring, I was getting up way later than I should have and then stressing my kids out as we were getting ready because I was trying to get ready. I want to be good to go so I can help my kids fully and that’s where my morning routine will help a ton.

Some other priorities are to not work at all on weekends and spend one-on-one time with each of my kids. This will probably be the first year in my ten years as a photographer where I won’t be working weekends and shooting family pictures. I have all the fall community activities in my calendar and we’re so ready.

Expectations (cough, cough, charts ;))

So first, some expectations that I have in my house: my kids to do all the basic responsibilities, from brushing teeth to walking dogs and helping with chores. Some of you saw my canva chart that I linked on Instagram a couple of days ago and I’m going to link that again if you finish listening to this podcast and decide you want to give it a go.

I like to use charts because that makes all my expectations crystal clear and helps my kids know exactly what they need to do before and after school and before they go to bed. That’s why I like the chart because it clearly communicates to others what you are expecting them to do. And hopefully it will all turn into habits someday 😉 I also made a chart for my babysitter, not because she doesn’t know what she’s doing (she’s amazing) but to help her and I be on the same page.

Setting expectations with people is so important for a worry-free school year. If people know what you expect, they don’t have to guess what you want. You know what YOU want and what you need but nobody else is in your head, so you communicate what’s in your head. But it in a nice pretty chart so expectations are clear. Charts are the easiest way! The more you communicate, the better it’s going to go. But maybe charts aren’t you thing, so just think about what you can do to clearly communicate your expectations for this fall

Outsourcing

What are we outsourcing? As you can tell, I’m outsourcing babysitting, laundry and housework. Analyze your day-to-day schedule and identify tasks that are stressing you out, that you just don’t seem to find time for or that you just don’t want to do. It is okay to delegate that to someone else. It may seem weird at first, but give it a try!

So there you have it! Every family will be different and things change in different seasons. Just think about what your priorities are and set those expectations and choose what you’re going to outsource to make your life easier, and you’ll have a great back to school schedule.