Planning Your Summer in Stretches
I listened to The Lazy Genius podcast on my walk yesterday. It was the episode on “How to Plan a Summer Day”. Kendra always shares helpful principles on how to frame life while also giving practical advice. Her first two points on thinking about summer gave me good food for thought.
Her first point is that there is no single ideal summer day, and that frustration comes when we think we can repeat that ideal all summer. Summer morphs and changes just as personalities and needs do. If we think every day can look the same, flowing smoothly and bringing life, then we may get hard on ourselves and our families when that magical template doesn't come to pass. The point? Hold expectations loosely.
The second point resonated the most. Create summer stretches. We can’t try to plan the summer as an entire whole, from the end of the school year to the beginning of the next one. It’s too big. We need to make it smaller. Incremental. According to Kendra, “a stretch is simply a length of time that creates some good boundaries around your decision making.” For me, the first summer stretch is from when school ended to when my kids start swim meets at night on June 7th. That will be a 3 1/2 week stretch. So I am creating routines for the kids and me that fall into the schedule we are leading now, knowing that it will change once they compete twice a week. From the time that swim meets begin in June and end in July, I will name that my second summer stretch. Mid-July until school begins in August will be my final summer stretch. Each of these time periods will flow differently and require different planning from me.
Your energy and schedule will change throughout the summer and throughout your life, so you will likely not need the same day in May as you will in August. ~Kendra Adachi
Your stretches could be from school-end until your vacation. Or from Father’s Day until July 4th. If there aren’t any natural scheduling rhythms that you have on the calendar, then you could just pick arbitrary dates. I find that 3-4 weeks feels life-giving to me.
Thinking in terms of summer stretches eased the stress of thinking of summer as a whole. She is right, it’s just too big. Start small. Break it down. This allows room for grace, flexibility, creativity, pivoting. How we live right now at the end of May may not be what we need around July 4th. Right now, we could just look at the month of June and start there. And even smaller would be from now until Father’s Day. I think this way of viewing the summer will allow us to breathe deeper and make better decisions. We don’t have to pile in all the bucket list activities. We could say that we’ll pick a couple for the next few weeks.
I am going to read for a bit, prepare a meal for a friend, and get the boys to swim team. My summer stretches will include a lot of fiction, so I prioritize making space for that! Enjoy your afternoon, friends.
Aimee