June is officially here!
School’s out for summer! School’s out forever…Well, not forever. You remember the song right? With school out do you have plans for your kids?
My daughter who is now at the age where activities fill her schedule has a couple of summer camps scheduled and we have a few trips planned. This summer is shaping up to be very busy. So during this time, I will be relying heavily on my Day Designer Planner which I literally use to capture every event and activity with our family.
If you have been following me you know I use my planner to increase my productivity, by breaking my daily tasks into smaller bite-sized tasks to help me meet my goal for the day. Well, that same methodology is applied to my summer planning for myself and my kids.
Summer Travel Planning
As a full-time working mom summers are not time off so I have to strategically plan my kids’ activities around my schedule. Summers at work are busier than during the school year so this takes quite some planning.
This summer we decided to put my daughter in two-week long summer camps and a vacation Bible school. Yeah, she is busy. And then we add a trip to the grandparents and a family vacation.
We have a busy summer all while my husband and I work.
A few ways I ease the stress of the summer are by:
- Writing down every event in my planner
- Putting important events in Google Calendar and sharing with my husband
- Prepare for big events ahead of time
- Use a packing list for all travel plans
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Write it down
I am already conditioned to put everything in my planner so it just makes sense that I have our summer plans written down. Not only am I writing down the itinerary, but I am also writing down all the preparation leading up to the trip. When I will go shopping for necessities, pack clothes, make kennel arrangements and any other important tasks I need to complete before the trip. That is why I love my Day Designer Flagship planner. The layout makes this super easy to
Add Important Events to Google Calendar
There are some things I just need to make sure my husband knows about. Maybe I need him to attend. Or I want him to know about it in the event I cannot make it and he needs to run my daughter to camp.
I realized about a year ago that just telling my husband wasn’t enough, sending him a calendar invite ensures he knows of upcoming events. This helps us stay on the same page and makes sure no one can say they didn’t know about something coming up.
Prepare ahead of time
I am the queen of last minute. And the one who packs for a weekend trip 30mins before we are to leave the house. I know…it is bad. But I have slowly learned, after having 2 kids that I need to plan ahead of time. And you guessed it, I plan that time on my planner as well. If it’s not in my planner the chances of me actually doing it are very small. So as soon as it pops into my head it is written in the planner.
Packing list
Maybe it’s Army life that has me conditioned to use a packing list for everything. Every exercise or training you have a packing list that you strictly use to pack for the event.
I have integrated this into our family. I have a packing list for myself and the kids. This is the ONLY way I can go on a trip and ensure I have everything I need. Check out my complete no-fail packing list here.
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Traveling causes me so much anxiety! These tips are helpful to lessen the load!!
Oh me too! Implementing these steps has been very helpful, especially when traveling with my kids.
Next week, I am travelling solo for about a month. Your tips are are great reminders and going to help me with planning my stuff. Thank you!
Great! So glad I can be helpful!
Yeah, I have to have my lists and my calendar or stuff gets left behind and stuff doesn’t get done!
I am all about lists. I agree if it’s not written down it doesn’t get done.
This is the first year my husband and I are able to start really planning trips for our family and I started putting everything on a dry erase board in our room so we stay posted on all we have going on. It really does work. We use Google calendars, so I may add that as well as the list of packing items so we can be more prepared. I always find that we end up forgetting something every time when we don’t have a list.
Oh, a dry erase board is a good idea too. We have a dry erase board on the fridge that I put everything on too. Makes it easy to be able to just walk right by it.
A packing list and Google are my travel go to’s!
Yes, I wouldn’t make it out of the house without them.