Back-to-school is a busy time for many families, and for most families, it marks the beginning of busy weeknights and extracurriculars on the weekends. Getting your home prepped and creating an optimal school year routine in advance is key to making school mornings and weeknights less frantic.
Define Your Goals
An optimal routine requires that you identify your family’s goals for the school year. Take a moment to discuss everyone’s personal and group goals. What academic, extracurricular, and personal goals do they want to achieve during the school year? A great routine will help each person meet their goals and support good habits.
Organize According to Your Goals
Healthy meals, focused family time, academic achievements and sports or music goals can all be supported by a good routine and defined organization within your home. Carve out a quiet spot for students to complete their schoolwork or music lessons. Put any sports equipment in a container by the door to ensure nothing is missed on the way to practice. Organize the kitchen by keeping your spices and ingredients at the point of performance so that home cooked meals are not a chore at the end of the day.
Create a Consistent Bedtime
Young children, teens and adults can benefit from a consistent bedtime routine. Start to establish your Bedtime routine leading up to the school year. Going immediately from late summer nights to early School mornings can be exhausting so slowly work your way up to normal school hours as summer comes to a close. Remember that even teens and adults can benefit from a set bedtime. Realistically, if you are waking up early in the morning on the work weeks and sleeping in late on weekends you are setting yourself up for jet lag throughout the week. Keep every morning feeling consistent and refreshing by waking up at the same time every day.
Post a Schedule
Between birthdays, school field trips, PTA, game days and other extracurriculars, you will want a calendar and everyone’s schedule visible. Create a family command center with a calendar, a spot to post important paperwork, and a spot for meal planning. This will ensure you can coordinate events and meals without overbooking the family.
