My husband and I recently watched The Quarterback on Netflix. In the last episode, after Patrick Mahomes’ Super Bowl win, there’s a scene where Mahomes talks about what it takes to be home with the kids, and his wife says, “Time to clock in, baby!”
I love what that scene captures—the partnership required to sustain big jobs alongside family life and the acknowledgment that you can’t do everything all the time.
Summer felt unexpectedly heavy with three family funerals and the heavy lifting of the endlessly cyclical summer (non)schedule of meals, dishes, laundry, cleaning on repeat. Not to mention multiple weekends of being a vacation house mom (so fun and also so much work when you’ve got to pack your own Le Creuset and sheet pans). Summer is carefree on the outside, but underneath it all, someone’s got to keep the whole thing running.
Before the kids went back to school, I spent quite a few of my morning pages reflecting on the pain points of summer. How do I best steward a new season?
In the last C+C newsletter,
wrote:
Now as I head into fall, restored but still very much the same person, I am asking myself the age-old question—How do I make time for the things that matter to me? Like finishing the novel I started four years ago? Homeschooling my children? Leading writing workshops? Caring for my body, my home, my marriage and friendships?
Looking at the raw materials of my life—my energy level, the needs of my children, and the dynamics of our family schedule—I can see that it’s time to reinvent myself again. After years of forcing my writing into the small boxes of childcare and eventually freeing myself from expectations altogether, it looks like I’m going to be channeling my inner-Ashlee Gadd and rising early this fall, in hopes of pouring some of myself into my work before anyone has the chance to call me Mama.
Systems that worked before aren’t guaranteed to work again. Your needs change, your children’s needs change, as do the circumstances of the world around us.
Fall is quickly ramping up with kids’ sports practices or games every single day of the week, birthday celebrations and the holidays, and with school in session, what better time is there to reevaluate systems?
What’s working this season:
Consistent exercise + getting out of the house (i.e. pilates at a studio)
I’ve been a full-time working-outside-the-home with three kids and now I’m a work-in-the-margins mostly-at-home mom with four kids, one of whom is still an infant. For the years I worked outside of the home, I was strictly a Peloton girl. I savored my limited time at home, and the kids could be next to me while I worked out.
In this season, the opposite is true. I am “on” nearly 24/7 with the kids (see: nursing baby). What I need now is to be “off the clock” on occasion—to get out of the house and to refill my cup.
When a friend posted about a local Pilates studio, I immediately signed up for their introductory offer. My husband agreed that this was a good use of both my time and our money, and now I go to classes three to four times a week.
Whether you call it a keystone habit or a foundational discipline, this practice has been a game-changer for me. I put on a podcast or an audio book (currently: Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun), cruise down the road with the sun coming up over the hills on the east or setting over the ocean on the west, spend 50 minutes working up a glow, and come home with a clear mind and a stronger body.
Reserving an after-school time block
The hours between 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. are dedicated to school pick-up, homework, reading, sports practices, and dinner prep. While I have some flexibility during the day to work while baby naps, I am on full-attention parenting mode during these hours.
Dedicated screen time hours
We experimented with using a visual timer for screen time but then it got complicated with each kid starting and stopping screen time at different times and me trying to keep track of it all. Now the boys have until 3:30 during the week to be on a device (video games or a show), which is usually about 30 minutes from the time we get home. A couple days a week, they don’t get screen time at all because practices and games happen quickly after we get home.
On Saturday mornings, the boys have until noon to be on devices, but they usually have sports sometime in the morning, too. Sundays are screen-free (with the exception of football for fall).
Going to bed when the kids do and getting up at least half an hour early
I’m still not getting great sleep, but the combination of consistent sleep hours and getting up earlier than the kids (but not that early) has been a combo that’s working for me.
Sunday afternoon “work” hours
From 2 - 8 p.m. on Sundays, I’m experimenting with a block of time dedicated to paid work, creative work, family business work, and anything else that requires my focus. I get deep work time and Dave watches football with the kids and makes dinner.
Other things making life easier:
Skipping pj’s—my kids go to bed in their school clothes. They mostly wear athleisure, so wrinkles aren’t really an issue, and honestly, I’m just not invested in how good my kids look going to school.
Free school lunch—In California, free lunches are available in public schools to everyone, and it’s my favorite thing. I only have to pack lunch for my TK-er who is in private school, and one lunch versus three feels so much more doable.
Drive-through pick-up for the bigs—I love, love, love that I don’t have to unload baby and walk to pickup for my bigs. I still have to unload everyone for my TK’ers pickup but his school pickup is staggered, so there isn’t the challenge of navigating through a parking lot full of cars with a stroller.
Paying for full-day TK—yes, my youngest boy could have gone to his brother’s school for free TK, but it would have required being in the car for an extra 3 hours each day, and honestly, it’s worth my sanity to have both that extra childcare time and also not be in the car. Everything is a trade-off.
Saturday night church—I’m so glad we have the option to go to church on Saturday evenings. We start our “Sabbath” on Saturday afternoon and end it on Sunday afternoon after lunch.
Easier meals—We’ve been doing a lot of Trader Joe’s mashups and Green Chef & Home Chef meals during the week. I love cooking, but I need simple in this season. I bought the new Home and Kind Costco One Stop Meals cookbook, and I’m hopeful that will be helpful.
What’s not working:
The whole laundry situation for six people—laundry is … a struggle. I’m teaching the boys how to fold and put away their own clothes, but even then, it feels like we have more laundry than I can keep up with.
Our house stays clean for about an hour after our monthly cleaner comes. Do we have too much stuff? Are we just messy people? Is it just the season we’re in with four young kids? Is there a solution for keeping a regularly tidy home that doesn’t require Mom doing all the maintenance?
Ep. 253: Making Time for What Matters with Laura Vanderkam
These Are the Days (a song that will stop you in your tracks even in the busiest seasons)
Tell me more ✏️ …
What’s working for you?
What trade-offs are you making in this particular season?
Where are you directing your energy?
Tips for the laundry and cleaning situation? 🙃
I really like getting to peek behind the curtain of another family's daily workings! I've been on my own journey as I switched to working part-time/freelance in April after working full-time for most of Zadie's life! It's taking much longer than I expected to troubleshoot and figure out how to best use my time, especially as I'm pulled in a lot of directions. I've actually been using a time log the past several days to find out just where my time is going!
Love this! I’m still trying to figure out the rhythms that will work here. I hadn’t thought about having my kids sleep in their school clothes! That’s a good idea! We’ve gotten rid of a lot of toys during our moves and I kind of feel like we’re right about where we should be now with that, but there’s still plenty to keep clean! For me, it’s figuring out the after school things. One of my kids doesn’t do well with team sports due to high functioning autism. I can see the good in it, and I mean, we’re not bored by any means! 😅 But it’s also tough because the kids’ friends are usually involved in several activities, so they can’t get together to play after school. It’s definitely a challenge to figure things out as a mother, and it seems like the pieces keep moving just when you’ve figured out where to put them!