Rhythms + Routines for the New School Year

And they’re off!

The 23-24 school year is officially underway! This year we launched a fifth-grader, third-grader, and kindergartener.

(As a side note: If I think too long about how it’s even humanly possible to have kids in this stage of life, my head starts to hurt and I want to immediately suppress my feelings with a huge piece of chocolate cake. But I digress.)

As with most things, the kids going back to school means a change in seasons. We’re currently in a heat advisory so I obviously don’t mean a physical change of season, I mean a change in life season.

What was once our quiet, unstructured pace at the end of summer is now a season that requires schedules. For instance, we now have to BE AWAKE at a certain time each day. (And by “we” I mean the three angles in the photo above.) And just as much as the kids need rhythms and routines, I need some for the new school year, too!

So, here are a few things we’re implementing this new school year in an effort to reset our goals. Some of it’s for the kids, but a lot of it’s for me as I’m still in a new(ish) season of working from home and I don’t feel like I’ve grasped a good workflow yet.

Rhythms + Routines for the new school year

Routine: morning, after school, and evening Checklists.

One thing that has helped us tremendously over the years is having a morning and after-school routine. Before diving into precisely what this looks like for us, I will say that these routines have most definitely changed over the years. The kids are more independent now and when I worked full-time, they went to the after-school program so we weren’t even getting home until 5. Now, I can pick them up from school so we’ve had to create a new routine on what happens from 3:45 to dinner time.

I’ve also learned to stay flexible with these routines. If we’re all aware of what has to get done as a family, then the exact order and time it takes can be changed. For instance, Colton has about one morning a month where he is just not having it.

Instead of forcing him to do the same routine we always do, I give him some options on what he’d like to do first. This helps him feel like he’s got more say in the matter, and it helps me know that at least he’s moving and he’s not still in bed asking me, yet again, if he has to go to school today. (The answer is yes, buddy. Always yes.)

A few notes about our routines + checklists.

Our checklist for the school morning is the usual: Eat breakfast, change clothes, brush teeth, comb hair, get your water bottle, lunch, or any other items you need for the day ready and by the door.

After school, the kiddos are expected to put their shoes and backpacks away, wash their hands, eat a snack, and complete any homework before they get screen time. I’ve also started implementing a “kitchen is closed” time, which simply means they are free to have snacks until 4:30, and then no more snacks until dinner.

After dinner, we try our best to omit laptops and iPads (which doesn’t always happen), so the kids can either go outside, play in their playroom, or we can hang out as a family. Sometimes the kids have had a long day and a family movie is just what we all need. Then it’s showers, brush teeth, read books (sometimes), and bed. This routine has also probably had to be the most flexible now that we’re into fall sports schedules.

One last note:

If you’re working to establish your own morning, after-school, or evening routines at home, I would highly suggest working backward on time. Here’s what I mean:

The kids have to be at school by 8. We usually try to be there at 7:50 so they have plenty of time to line up and aren’t rushed. In order to be there by 7:50, we have to leave the house no earlier than 7:45, and that means we should be walking out the door and loading up the car by 7:40. Which ALSO means we should be putting on shoes by 7:35. 🥴

It’s easy for me to think that in order to be at school by 8, we only need 5 minutes. But that’s just not how it works, at least for us. I’ve got to leave plenty of buffer room and time to find lost shoes + buckle seatbelts without Mom’s help because we’re incredibly independent over here I guess.

Rhythm: Focus on one cleaning task a day

I am NOTORIOUS for looking around my messy home and thinking I need to clean it all from top to bottom in one day. Oh Lord, I want to. I want to clean all the things and then check all the things off my to-do list.

But frankly, cleaning the entire house in one day just isn’t a good use of my time. (Or probably even a possibility, let’s be honest.) So instead, I’m going to try to implement a “clean one thing a day” rhythm to my fall schedule.

Ideas I’m thinking of:

• Monday: Laundry. Finish folding any clean laundry + have the kids put it away.
• Tuesday: Floors. Scrub the wood floors or run the vacuum.
• Wednesday: Bathrooms. Wipe down surfaces and clean the toothpaste off the mirrors. (Also, HOW IS THERE ALWAYS TOOTHPASTE EVERYWHERE IN THE KIDS’ BATHROOM? I swear the sink looks like an explosion every day.)
• Thursday: Laundry + create a grocery list. Run a load of kids’ clothes and then make a menu and grocery list for the week ahead.
• Friday: Finances + Buy groceries. Neither of these things really pertain to cleaning, but it does help if I schedule them so I’m not trying to figure out where to fit them in the rest of the week.

I’m not sure I’ll be able to or want to stick with this list exactly. It may need tweaking. But I do feel more comfortable picking ONE THING a day to work on instead of a gazillion.

Rhythm: meal planning/grocery shopping

Have you ever tried to calculate the amount of time we likely spend a week on groceries? Just groceries. Between deciding what we’re going to cook and what we need from the store, then making a list, (checking it twice, haha), getting the store to buy the dang stuff, and bringing it all home + unpacking it, I bet this takes up AT LEAST 2-3 hours of my time every week. That might even be on the light end.

Barf.

SO. My goal this season is to streamline the whole grocery buying process. This is why up above, you’ll see that I scheduled specific days to plan groceries and buy groceries. If I can take Thursday to plan my menu for the week ahead and create the list, then Friday to get to the store, and get it all unpacked, I’m hopeful I can save time and make this process more efficient.

For one thing, if I plan a week’s worth of meals, I can just go to the store once a week instead of 3 times a week due to lack of planning. Also, having a list will hopefully save me time when I’m actually at the store so I don’t wander off and buy things I don’t need. (Though I can make no promises. Sometimes things just “jump” in my cart.🤷‍♀️)

Rhythm: Setting better work boundaries

I haven’t done this whole “work from home” thing for all that long. I was only a few weeks into it before school let out for summer and that season was a tad bit intimidating.

In the few weeks between leaving the bank and starting summer, I embraced my flexible schedule to the full. I spent many days not putting myself together and avoided any sort of set work schedule.

Turns out, this kind of planning hasn’t worked well for me. I’ve loved a lot of aspects of the work-from-home mom life, but I’m also realizing that greater flexibility comes with greater boundaries and I haven’t really done the work of setting any. (Emily Ley has helped me realize this in her article about working remotely with kids!)

Make no mistake, working from home is still work and still requires an immense amount of self-control/discipline. I wish this wasn’t the case, but I’ve learned in the past few months that it just is.

I’ve also learned that I feel more productive if I take a few minutes to put myself together each day.

So, I’m spending this new fall season working to iron out a more solid work schedule, as well as an environment that promotes productivity, and getting clear on how I want to show up every day. Flexibility is wonderful and I’m so thankful I have it! But I’m also learning that I have to have boundaries.

Routine: Designating an end to my work day.

Bouncing off of all that “work boundaries” talk is my desire to set and keep an end-of-day work time.

Working from home makes it challenging to shut down my mind and put work aside at the end of every day. So I’d like to create a better wind-down routine. I’d like to be done each day no later than 5:15.

I normally have to pause at 3:30 to pick the kids up from school. We get home, go through our short checklist listed above, and then I head back downstairs to wrap up for the day. Before I leave my desk, I want to create a list of what I would like to complete the next day. That way, I can leave my thoughts about what needs to get done on my planner, instead of in my head all evening.

Basically, I want to put work aside when my workday is done. This is one thing I miss about working at the bank. When I was done with my day there, I could come home and not give another thought to work. As an entrepreneur/work-from-home mom, it feels much harder to shut my brain off. 

Wrapping Up

If you’ve made it this far, I hope you took something away from this rambly list of how our fall looks over here! 😆

With each new season (calendar season or life-change season), comes a chance to evaluate and recalibrate if need be. And this September feels like a lot of recalibration for us. If you’re feeling the same, just know that you’re not alone! I’m sure what I’ve written here will have been tweaked by the time we reach May, but for now, it’s where we’re at.

What rhythms or routines are you planning to implement this school year? Let me know in the comments below!