Bonus-2: Transitioning into A New Season (Ex: School to Summer)

Transcript

1. Bonus-2_ Transitioning into A ... Season (Ex_ School to Summer) Thu, Jul 27, 2023 2:22PM 19:27 SUMMARY KEYWORDS day, summer, adjust, thinking, plan, module, schedule, bedtime, daycare, transition, set, school, anchors, calendar, weekend, rhythm, kids, week, puzzle pieces, vacation 00:00 Let's run through, what are some retransmission looks like, and I'm gonna give you the second if you want to, if you if you're a note taker, if you want to write notes as you're going, if that helps you remember, you can, if not, don't worry, I'm going to type up like a, like a bullet point list. 00:21 So number one, when we're looking under summer transition, we want to think about it still, like the scientists, we're gonna put on our lab coat, and know that the transition time is hard, it's all about experimenting, and they, it's gonna take a lot to find a rhythm, it's good like this, the ending of school is going to feel kind of uncomfortable, because all of a sudden routines are changing, and it's not flowing as well, because you know, you have like this after school activity, or that, you know, end of your celebration, and it's water day at school, or a daycare, or they you have all these things changing. 01:02 We want to recognize that this is going to be a hard time for us. And when we go in knowing that it's going to be hard, it makes it easier that it's hard because we expect that this transition is going to be hard for us, they just are we do really well, when we get into rhythms, and then after a while, we probably get bored of them, and then they start to fall apart. Or it changes and then we got to find a new rhythm. 01:22 So life knowing it's going to be hard for us, we're gonna look at what are the things that are kind of like the preset, if you want to think about it, like your anchors, the things that are going to happen, are you still working? Do you still have daycare hours, anything that's like a regular occurrence, we want to take that into consideration first, as those things are not going to move around. So when I look at those things that are kind of like concreted in, we start there, then
2. we're going to look at our big picture of where are the things changing. For me, I printed out a three month calendar of June, July and August off, I just Googled throughout the calendar, it's all in one page, there's not a lot of space to write. And what I put in there is the things that are going to be happening that are out of the ordinary. So like we have camp this week, or we have swim lessons that week. Anything that's a few already planned when we're on vacation, so I have that up in normally I am not a paper on the wall calendar person, because it changes so much. 02:36 But the key of where it works here is that it's not things that are going to be changing. It's only the things that are the like, preset, um, I won't say in stone, but like mostly decided, like, if you've already booked your vacation, you know, roughly when it's starting and ending, I'm not putting all the details and I'm literally just writing like vacation across this week, or camp across this week. Generally speaking, like those aren't going to modify so I'm not putting like, oh, we have this plate it was somebody Oh, we changed it. Oh, no, no, like not the things that are flexible, the things that are like set in stone. 03:16 Then what I'm looking at is my rest times I have to build these in, you probably have to build these into I'll tell you to do too much, but probably rest is the thing you're not planning for. So thinking about where are the times where you need breaks. Example that week before school starts or the week before the new daycare schedule starts, whatever that that transition week, I don't plan anything for that week. I know that things are going to come up like, Oh, what if we forgot to do school shopping, we're going to be starting to transition like our bedtimes earlier. 03:52 I look at that week as a, like a family reset time. Because, you know, with especially if you have younger kids, they're with you all the time or more than they were and then they go to school or daycare, and then all of a sudden they're not with you. So like making sure that we get enough family time in so that they are their cup is full. When we get into that first week of school. That's really hard for a lot of kids, so kids don't care. But for a lot of kids, that's a tough transition for them. Even if they don't say it out loud. So rest time that week before school. 04:28 Were in the in the calendar. Are we making space for just not doing stuff? Because a lot of times we'll be like Sure I'll meet this person for this. Sure. We'll do swim lessons. Oh, sure. Oh, sure. Oh, sure. And then all sudden, we've got this really full calendar. So where are we making space? They're like, Hey, these are days that we're not running around like crazy people. If you're really good at two thumbs up, you may be able to skip skip that step. I'm one of those people that's like, oh yeah, we can do that. But you know, we can do that and all sudden I realize how much I put on the calendar. So I have to block out those weeks where it's like, we're not doing anything these days.
3. 05:02 And then my next step is thinking about what do we want to have happen in the summer? Um, do you want to go to the zoo? Do you want to have some cool days? Do you want to hang out with certain people? Do you want togo on a staycation for a weekend? And start thinking about? What do you want this summer to look like? 05:30 Because for us, we sit in that now not now, space, a lot of times, we just don't think that far ahead to look at, well, what do I actually want? And then when we get to the end of the summer, we're like, Oh, this isn't we didn't do this. We didn't do that. And I, I really wanted to spend time with this person. But we didn't think about at the moment because it was not now. Right? So taking a few minutes now to think about what do you want it to look like? And also, if your kids are old enough, asking them? What do you want to do this summer? Do you want to hang out with certain people? Do you want to go do certain activities and getting their input as well? And, you know, make sure you give them that? 06:09 Like, disclaimer, that doesn't mean that like everything you say, we're going to do, you can't tell me like, let's go to, you know, on a two week vacation to Bali, no one, you know, like that. Thank you for the suggestion. That's not happening, like, give them some, you know, disclaimer of like, we're brainstorming ideas here, we're not going to do all that. And thinking about like, what, what do we want that to look like? And then now that you've got kind of your rough sketch of what's happening, what is already scheduled, we've built in rest, then we can go back and look at okay, where can we add all these things that we want to do like, if you like for us, like we want to go to NASA this summer, we live like an hour from there. And we've never been so what's a good day that fits for us to be doing those extra activities. 06:57 So that's like the big picture of summer that I look at, then part two is actually diving into where are your rhythms and routines are on a day to day basis. This is where we're gonna look at our matches up with the modules in module one and two, that's Module One is the motivation. 07:19 You may be able to skip that you may not need to like remind yourself why you're doing this. But if you do, you can go back and listen to those in Module two is explaining kind of like the system, like where we're going and how this kind of sets up. If you need those refreshers, otherwise, you may be able to hop right into the number three, which is the obstacles. So thinking ahead, what are the obstacles that are going to come up this summer? Do you have a
4. kid like a teenager who's in that transition of like I was asleep all the time? And is like, you know starting to move out of that little kid phase of getting up way too early? And moving into that phase of I want to sleep till 11am? How are you going to adjust for those changes that are happening? What are the other obstacles that you foresee? Do you worry about holding bedtime firm or being more relaxed with it? Where are the places that you can think ahead and start proactively pondering how you're going to overcome those areas? 08:12 Then looking at module four, is adjusting your anchors. Especially for if you have younger kids. Some somewhat with teenagers, it's a little like, huh, how do I share that with teenagers, you have to have a little more buy in and it's not as much as you dictating the schedule. So in that will be an obstacle. But for Module Three, I'm thinking about your anchors in especially if you have littles thinking about what time are we going to be getting up? Or do they wake up on their own? You know, is that going to adjust your wakeup time? Given that your wakeup time may be shifting? Does that adjust your lunch time at all? Are you like, No, I still want to keep lunch at x time. 09:00 Then you got your afternoon anchor is no longer going to be school but maybe it is daycare or maybe it is your work schedule. Adjusting that one and then your kids bedtime and your bedtime as the last few anchors. How are they going to adjust and having a thoughtful plan of knowing you're not going to be able to control it? 100% But knowing kind of where do you want that to fall? Are you okay with it sliding much later for the summer knowing that you're just going to go back in the like back to school time? Or do you have a kid who's gonna get up at the same time every day no matter what. So you do want to hold that bedtime a little bit firmer because they need X amount of sleep and their body they just don't sleep in thinking about how you want to adjust those anchors to fit that new system. Which, generally speaking for most of us is going to be the meal times it doesn't have to be but as especially with younger kids meal times tends to be vs anchors for you to hold in their day. Then when you think about module five, it's adjusting what you built upon those anchors. 10:09 So thinking about how you are running your days in the school year, most of that will probably be transferable to summer, you're not like throwing everything away and redoing. But are there any adjustments you need to make? So if normally you do laundry a certain way? Is that still going to work for you during the summer? Are you going to have different changes that need to happen based on like, if they're doing baseball, and you got to watch baseball uniforms, you know, multiple times a week? Is that something you need to think about? For like, dinner planning, if you're doing like as your schedule change, you may need to make the changes in how you're planning ahead for dinner. Like for me, I try and always do it. But I would say like, five day four or five days of the week, I remember thinking about dinner ahead of time. And I tried to do that in the morning when I'm prepping breakfast stuff.
5. 11:13 You know, think about like st you're doing baseball, or like soccer or something in the evenings? Do you really have time to cook? If you've got say, you know, games at dinnertime? Like, do you need to adjust your cooking time earlier? Are you doing more pickups? So just thinking about? Like, don't throw everything out and be like, I have to start over? No, to take what you're doing right now. And even if you didn't actually plan what you're doing right now. And you're just flying by the seat of your pants, it's still routine. How can you adjust that instead of saying like, remember, we're not like, I'm gonna wake up tomorrow, a new person June 1, so I'm going to be a new schedule, summer schedule. Think note like, Brandon, let's just adjust what we have to make sense for the season that we're in. So thinking about about all those things, you've paired with your angers? 12:02 Are they realistic for this season? Do they need to be modified? And you can kind of just run through your day and think, Okay, here's what I usually do in the morning, here's what I usually do in the afternoon. If it's in your head, that's fine. If you have it written down, go through the list, whatever, whatever you got. And then you hit the last one, module six, which is adjusting between your anchors. So think thinking about, again, how do you want this summer to look and it's going to it's going to be very different, like this part is going to be very, very amongst where you are depending on how old your kids are, what activities they're doing. But for me, what I had to do is think okay, what are the days that I am going to be working? Where do those fit? What are the times that we're thinking about activities, meeting up with friends. 12:59 Like I looked at now, I'm just sitting here thinking I was like, I had Monday afternoon plan for working and I just realized, like I scheduled the playdate every Monday for my first grader at three o'clock, I'm not working on Monday afternoon, I'm going to a playdate mental notes. This is where we talk through these things. So thinking about where do all those puzzle pieces fit, because remember, we, we have our, when you finish module six, you have all these puzzle pieces that you've set in. And in theory, you should be able to just move the puzzle pieces around to fit for summer, some of them may change, like you may be more loose, maybe you're not working as much, or you know, maybe your work schedule hasn't changed at all, and you still are holding tight to what you were doing before because that still fits where you are. And in that case, it might there might not be as much modification that you need to do. 13:53 But then you're rearranging those pieces around to fit. What are the days where we're going to go do activities? What are the days that I'm working? Where are the days that I need to spend time in the house and I'm going to be doing more cleaning? Am I going to decide that keeping up with the house needs to be spread out a little bit every day, like we talked about earlier where it's you know, things that are really tedious? Are you a person that wants to spread them out? Are you a person that's like I'm just going to like Die Hard in Monday's make cleaning day
6. and I go go home and filling in all those pieces. So like for me what that looks like is what I thought I thought on Monday I'm gonna have to rearrange this obviously, is that Monday was going to be a half work day and then half. 14:34 Like home day, I've tried to do it other ways. And I found that I really need Monday to like, set up my week and like, make sure I have a plan for meals and I do some on Friday afternoons. But I've just noticed that if I don't reset after the weekend, something about it, it just it doesn't go well. So I like having a set portion on Monday to like, remind myself of my plan. Maybe Maybe that's what I'm reminding myself I don't know. And like cleaning up the mess from the weekend because for us, weekends tend to be more busy and full. So like I need time to regroup on Monday, so be half day working and a half day of like, like, I don't even know what to call that I wrote down prep day, it's not really prep, it's more like recovery from the weekend. And then Tuesday is going to be my, usually in the morning, Tuesdays, I have appointments and then do something fun with the kids in the afternoon. Wednesday is my full workday. So I have meetings in the morning, and then meetings the afternoon, pretty much any day for me. My Thursday is like the morning, half is working. And then I've set aside some time on Thursday afternoon to be my rest time. So that's when I'm going to go, like, get a massage or sit and read a book. Because I've noticed for me, like in part of this, all this reflection is realizing that I don't schedule it enough rest time. And that's how I end up at the end of the night. I'm working with an ADHD coach, you're gonna hear me talk about all these epiphanies I've gotten the last month, like I sit up at night, and I'm like doing all my fun things because I went so hard all day that I didn't do fun stuff. And then I feel like at night like this is my time to have fun. And I realized like Patricia, you just need to build that in during the day. Because you're pushing yourself too hard. So Thursday is going to be my designated rest day. And I'm gonna set aside an hour to like, just do something fun. restful, whatever, like whether it's reading a book or like, if I'm making an appointment for some kind of fun spa thing, or I am making time for phone calls with friends like something there. That's my designated time. And then Friday is going to be mostly fun with the kids. But I am going to have that like hour to set aside to look at my week coming up. 17:00 And I, I try to get all that stuff packed into the week, because for us, usually the weekends are like Google going. But if you're not like if that's not you, like maybe Saturday does have blocks for you, maybe Saturday is like heart cleaning day or, you know, fun with the family time. So looking through it like kind of a rough outline. The hard part for us for the summer is that it's not consistent. 17:29 There's a lot more abnormalities with, oh, we have camp this week, or we're going on vacation this week. And when we build that into the plan that we make, that makes it a lot easier to deal with the interruption and the disruptions for us because our brain otherwise is like, but I had this plan and it didn't go as planned. And then we're mad at ourselves because the plan didn't go when really what it was is that we didn't make space in the plan for the interruptions that
7. we knew were coming. So that is the speed adjustment in. And then we did that in about 15 minutes of how to adjust your plan in in that season of transition. And then we'll repeat that same process when we get into the fall to try to get ourselves back into another school year. 18:28 So once you've got your system going, it really is just adjusting what you have. It's not like throw away everything and start again from scratch. And it gets easier like I did mine this afternoon and probably I'm trying to think I have no sense of time. I want to say it was under an hour. My initial debt was like, Oh, it wasn't like 30 minutes I was like no, um, if I think about like writing all the stuff on that three month calendar I did a little while ago so I would say probably hang that in, I think was in two hours. I went through all those steps but it was like over pieces. It wasn't all one time because that's too much for my brain but that two hour planning sets me up for like a really solid expectation for for the summer.