Back to Reality
Today is the first day of school for our kids!
Many of you have been back for weeks. It’s time we check on you… How’s it going?
Are you finding you have loads of free time? Are you being productive or stirring in wonder with what you should do with your days?
If you’re looking to better way organize your time, today’s newsletter is for you!
Weekly Planning is one of the most helpful tools in our arsenal to get (and keep) our ship together.
We know that time management ebbs and flows for moms. Some days you have a detailed plan down to the minute and some days the plan goes out the window – let it go! Give yourself grace and start again tomorrow.
The key is to have a plan to come back to.
We shouldn’t just count on our busy calendar to manage our week, however. This detail is commonly overlooked.
To be truly productive, we must marry our calendar with our to-do list. If we don’t, we overlook the things that we say we’re going to do but rarely accomplish.
These are things like exercise, self-care, downtime, planning for the evening rush of activities, setting intentions for the next day, getting to bed on time, etc.
They may seem like the obvious things to cut when life gets overwhelming but really the opposite is true. They are the things that help you to stay mentally and physically strong so that you can stay on track.
So be sure that your to-do list items are assigned a day and time on your calendar.
In our Smart Reads this week we also look at the idea of to-don’t lists. What are you lugging around that you could drop from your list?
We also have an article on kids and weekly planning. Help your child thrive by learning this habit at a young age.
Our Podcast Playlist contains an episode on an intriguing concept called the to-do basket and our Insightful Video this week explores 3 reasons you aren’t doing what you say you’re going to do.
Access all 15 of this week’s recommended resources for moms in THE LIST 👇🏽
THE LIST
15 Expert Resources for Moms – updated weekly! 6 skimmable articles that offer perspective on this week’s topic, 8 informative and entertaining podcast episodes to make the chores fly by, and 1 insightful video to inspire you to move forward with grace.
📖 6 Skimmable Articles…
This week’s topic: Weekly Planning
🧗🏽♀️ “Tell me if you can relate to this:”
“When a new week approaches, you feel stressed out because you’re not prepared at all. By the end of the week, you feel frustrated because you didn’t use your time in the most productive way.”
Read How to Plan Your Weekly Schedule for Success by Catherine Beard
🏡 As moms, distractions are inevitable but we can better manage them!
“As moms, we have so much to do and also, so many distractions. We get distracted by our kids, our spouse, our phones, TV, ads. Distractions are everywhere!”
Read 13 Tactics You Need to Eliminate Distractions by Emily Bendler
👨👩👧👦 Get your kids into the habit of weekly planning!
“Naturally, we believe this leads to an obvious next question: if you aren’t a planner, how do you quickly and simply put that minimum level of structure in place to ensure success? What if we told you all it took was 15 minutes per week to be an effective planner as a student?”
Read Simple Student Planning: 4 Steps to Planning in 15 Minutes a Week by Skylar Anderson
🗂 Use a digital productivity app to plan your week
“TickTick is especially suited to timeblocking because it lets you add your tasks directly to a calendar where you can see how much time they’ll take alongside all the other things you have to do in your week.”
Read Timeblocking with TickTick by Curtis McHale
🎗 Plan your time to stay on track
“You can’t say you got distracted unless you know what you got distracted from. That is, without knowing how you want to spend your time, there’s no way you’ll spend it intentionally.”
Read How to Stay on Schedule Even When You Go Off Track by Nir Eyal
🥗 Have you considered a to-don’t list?
“Take a moment to think of a few things you could cross off your list — forever. Shed the responsibilities, habits and hobbies that use up your time in ways you don’t love. Call it your “to-don’t” list.”
Read Is your to-do list making you nuts? Start a to-don’t list instead — with inspiration from author Adam Grant by Anna Phelan
🎧 8 Entertaining Podcast Episodes…
This week’s Grace in the Race Podcast Playlist
📰 Have you heard of the Sunday basket?
“Taking your to-do list and making it a to-do basket instead. One that sits on my kitchen counter, that I fill up throughout the week. And then on one day of the week, you sit down and go through it. In an organized way.”
👸🏻 Does everyone need a bachelor’s degree?
“There are millions of job openings, but there are also many jobs that shut out qualified candidates simply because they don’t have a bachelor’s degree. Today on the show, we explore this phenomenon.
Listen to The Indicator from Planet Money | Enough With Bachelor’s Degrees (9 min)
💡 “Weddings are happening again”
“People are making up for time lost during the pandemic. But the health crisis is not over, and people in different parts of the country are taking very different approaches to that fact.
🤰🏻 No Guilt Mom Strikes Again!
“It never fails. Every year your kid will forget their lunch or their homework. “
😎 Schmigadoon
“Strong is nominated for an Emmy for ‘Saturday Night Live.’ She also stars in the new show ‘Schmigadoon,’ about a couple that ends up trapped in a town where life is a musical and the townspeople frequently burst into song.
Listen to Fresh Air | Cecily Strong On ‘SNL,’ ‘Schmigadoon,’ And Her New Memoir
🧗 Do kids with summer birthdays get the flu more often?
“After struggling to schedule a flu shot for his own toddler, host Bapu Jena went down a research rabbit hole. He discovered that the time of year kids are born has an unexpected and dramatic effect on whether they and their families end up getting the flu. Bapu explains his findings and asks a pediatrician and public health expert what could be done about it.
👨👩👧👦 “In the 90s, everybody had to have a Beanie Baby”
“Not just kids. They were one of the biggest get-rich-quick schemes of the decade. On August 31, 1999, the company, Ty Inc., released a cryptic message that they would retire the wildly popular toys. Instead of fueling a massive frenzy — it revealed the beanie baby bubble was destined to burst.
Listen with your kids to Not Past It | Your Beanie Babies Are Worthless (27 min)
⏭ Failure to Report
“If a doctor is fired from a hospital, the hospital should report it immediately. That’s how problem doctors are prevented from getting hired elsewhere. But the places where Dr. Duntsch operated failed to report him to the proper authorities. If they had, maybe Duntsch’s path of destruction would have been stopped much sooner.
Listen with us to Dr. Death | Spineless | 4 (42 min)
🎬 This week’s Insightful Video…
3 reasons you aren’t doing what you say you will do | Amanda Crowell | TEDxHarrisburg
“Amanda explores how to move beyond mindset-driven defensive failure and into productive failure to succeed at the problems you struggle with the most. Amanda Crowell is a cognitive psychologist, university professor at the Hunter College School of Education, speaker and coach. Dr. Crowell works with teachers, therapists, and mission-driven entrepreneurs to clear away mindset blocks and move into action.”
That’s THE LIST for this week!
We hope THE LIST inspires you to get your ship together and get through your week with grace!
Do you have any go-to tips on this week’s topic … or a take away from The List this week? Leave a reply in the comments.
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Productivity: Give Yourself Grace