It's summertime! Here are the rules.
How we put structure in our summer days—and leave room for flexibility + fun.
Summertime is so much fun.
Days by the pool. Freezers full of ice cream and popsicles. Movie nights. Road trips. Outdoor concerts. Summertime is the best. But tbh . . . the flexibility and schedules that float to the wind? That can feel like A LOT. Especially if you’re a parent who also works from home. We all have moments where we like a little spontaneity and surprise, of course. But at our core, I think we all thrive when we have an idea of what we’re doing with our days, our weeks, and our seasons.
At Simplified we try to roll with the summer season by instituting “Summer Mode,” where we try to mold work around our lives, instead of our lives around work. We rely a bit more on email to keep up with everything as we cut down on how often we meet, so our calendars are a bit more open. So obviously, this means my work schedule shifts a lot. And of course, my kids’ schedule also shifts a lot. They’re in school, then three weeks of camp, then back home before they go back to school about six weeks later.
It’s a privilege to have them home with me, for sure. But having to keep such a flexible schedule can be an interesting adjustment—especially if you’re a homebody who enjoys routine and working from home in the quiet. Like me. Which is why, when the kids are at home, keeping somewhat of a structured summer schedule works really well for us.
It’s something we’ve honed together over the years. But we’ve found that having a loose structure for summer days help Mom fit in what she needs to do, while the kids enjoy knowing what they’re expected to do, too, whether that’s chores or screen time or something else they’d like to do. We keep our structure pretty loose, but just having something like it in place brings some calm to our days.
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