Latest / JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain / 264: ADHD Home Survival: Easy Summer Routines That Actually Work

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264: ADHD Home Survival: Easy Summer Routines That Actually Work · JOY LOVING HOME - SAHM, Productivity, Home Organization, Declutter, ADHD Mom, ADHD SAHM, ADHD Brain

• 0:00
  If you are listening to today's podcast in real time, it is June 1st,
• 0:05
  and I'm not sure how you measure summer.
• 0:08
  I guess officially, it's June 21st to September 21st. I think those are the right dates.
• 0:15
  I know a lot of people just sort of measure it from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
• 0:20
  Or for most of us, it's just when the kids are out of school.
• 0:24
  But regardless of how you choose to measure it, summer is upon us.
• 0:29
  We know that our schedule is incredibly different during this time.
• 0:34
  And life changes and the general just sort of what I hope for you is later summer
• 0:43
  nights and later summer mornings and a chance for a lot more coming and going
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  and unfortunately more boredom.
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  But a lot of times we just let the house go and that's okay.
• 0:59
  It should feel different than the whole rest of the year because isn't that
• 1:03
  sort of what summertime is about?
• 1:04
  But if you want some thoughts on how to at least keep afloat during the summer,
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  then tune in right after this.
• 1:15
  A wise person once said, everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its
• 1:20
  ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it's stupid.
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  Well, fish, quit trying to climb trees while getting advice from well-intentioned monkeys.
• 1:30
  It's time to jump in the water and learn
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  how to swim with the current of your life I'm Joy a
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  professional organizer mom of four and fellow
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  fishbrain if you're looking for a place to get understanding encouragement and
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  ideas for your home that actually fit how your brain thinks then I'm glad you're
• 1:49
  here let's ditch the type A advice and embrace what makes our brains and our
• 1:54
  homes unique together we could have a joy loving home.
• 2:01
  Okay, so there are a few different approaches to summertime,
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  and none of them are the wrong approach.
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  If you are, typically this falls under monkey brains, but it doesn't have to,
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  but if you are a pulled-together,
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  plan-ahead mom, because it's amazing how early summer camps fill up,
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  you already have all the summer camps planned out for your kids.
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  You've got, you know, when VBS is and when the vacation for the family is and
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  when maybe you're going off to see grandma and grandpa.
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  And anyway, all those, you kind of have a schedule framework,
• 2:39
  at least, built into the summer.
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  Or you're just busy.
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  Winging it. You're just embracing life as it comes.
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  And right now, maybe the first time you came up for air from the school year
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  and you're like, oh, okay, what are we doing? We could get to the pool.
• 2:58
  Let's see what maybe the library schedule is like. Are there any activities
• 3:03
  that are free at the park this year?
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  And maybe you're going to start piecing together the idea of some activities
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  just to keep the kids in some semblance of engagement.
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  And if you are anything like me, I somehow simultaneously would hit those summers
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  and fully embrace sort of the lazy.
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  Relaxed, not real uptight about anything feeling and wanting them to have a sort of summer chore,
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  set up that would give me the finally where I would like have this time to go.
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  Well, I want them to learn how to do their own laundry, but usually it's just,
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  it's quicker and easier for me to just do it myself or to do it while they're
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  gone or to do it after they're in bed or,
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  and I don't ever make myself take the time to teach them because let's face
• 4:01
  it, it's, it's something that takes twice as long can end with some frustrations on all points.
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  But for some reason in the summer, I would go this,
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  They're not going to learn unless you take the time to teach.
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  So use the summer for stuff like that.
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  So I would invent these elaborate chore charts and point systems and reward
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  systems and schedules and theming and all the things.
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  And it was different every single summer.
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  And I would get all excited about it and try and pump them up.
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  And we would keep track of it for, I don't know, a couple weeks.
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  And then summer would happen. And, you know, like all of the inconsistency we
• 4:48
  fresh brains experience, it would fall by the wayside. But you know what? They did pick it up.
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  And I'm proud to say with all of them having gone off to college and then a
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  few of them off into their own existence, they fully were equipped to move on out.
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  And they knew how to do all the laundries and clean the bathrooms and make themselves
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  meals and do all the things. So it worked out.
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  It worked out regardless of how inconsistently or haphazardly they got introduced to those tasks.
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  But if that's something that you are thinking about and you're like,
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  okay, how could I do some of that? Because it is a good time.
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  And by asking them to do some of that, would that help me be a little more accountable
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  with just at least keeping the house afloat, just some bare basics.
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  So if that's anything you're interested in at all, I'm going to share with you
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  just sort of a sample week that I did once upon a time in the past,
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  and feel free to utilize it as well.
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  The beauty about this type of theming that I'm about to share with you is that
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  you are not asking for strict adherence to a checklist every single day. This is just,
• 6:03
  Each day is a little different. Each day is a little, you know,
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  focused and it allows you to,
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  supervise if you've got young ones in their own task each day without feeling
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  like, oh my gosh, all I'm doing is trying to teach these kids chores because
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  there's so many every day and these kids aren't capable of doing all of it by themselves yet.
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  And if you will give yourself the patience to try something as minimal as what
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  I'm about to share, you may discover over the arc of the summer,
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  that they actually improve in just the six weeks, the 12 weeks,
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  however many weeks you have between now and when school kicks back up.
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  So just to share, I always love an alliterative weekday.
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  So I would do something like we have make your bed Mondays.
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  I don't care the rest of the week, but on Mondays we wake up and we make our beds.
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  And that is something that you would then have time to actually wander around
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  and help them with and show them how.
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  And if that's a day you want to change sheets, so you're actually teaching them
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  how to put on fitted sheets and strip a bed and get it to the laundry.
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  And you can really focus on Mondays being all about that make your bed Monday.
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  Because let me tell you, when they move out into those dorms and they're trying to make a...
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  Bed in a corner against a wall, they're going to appreciate that they did it
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  in a much easier fashion much earlier in their lives.
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  All right, then I would do Tackle the Bathroom Tuesdays, and I would rotate
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  through because I had kids sharing a bathroom, and so they knew like one week
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  they would just be responsible for the sink,
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  and the next week they're responsible for the tub, and the next week they're
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  responsible for the toilet, and the next week they were responsible for just
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  freshing the towels and maybe like vacuuming across the floor.
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  Whatever, because I had four kids, so I could divide that up.
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  Whatever your situation is, your scenario, that might only lead them to like
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  having to face a toilet cleaning twice during an entire summer.
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  But it's something you can slow down and actually tackle and know once a week
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  that that bathroom's getting cleaned. I would call wash day Wednesday.
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  So the way I had my biggest luck with laundry was,
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  was when we didn't try and
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  sort clothes by colors and all
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  of those things because what makes laundry miserable is when you've got this
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  pile of clothes and you're not only folding but you're sorting trying to figure
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  out whose clothes are whose and they all look about the same size so then you're
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  reading tags and it's so again you know the quality of your clothes mine were all.
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  Very easy, not fussy clothes.
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  So again, I'm sharing this with you with a grain of caution.
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  Don't throw your nice, precious, white specialty dress of your daughters in
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  with the red grubby t-shirt of your sons.
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  You get how that works. But if it works well for you, I would just roll through
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  and each kid would do their own load.
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  And I would just start oldest to youngest and they knew
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  the first little wash had to go in when they got up on
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  a Wednesday morning and it would just keep cycling through
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  because then it allows you to take the time to teach each
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  kid here's how you dump the clothes in this is
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  where the soap goes this is all right now we're going to set a timer it's going
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  to be near where you're hanging out when that timer goes off you know you've
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  got to go up and you've got to move it to the dryer and we're going to go back
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  down and set another timer and when it comes out of the dryer here's how we're
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  going to hang clothes or fold clothes or put clothes in drawers, whatever.
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  It gives you that one full day where that's the only thing you have to worry about.
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  You're not going back and also fussing about making beds and you're not going
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  back and also fussing about whether the bathrooms got picked up.
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  That is the beauty of a very loose chore schedule if you're wanting to do some teaching time.
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  And then on Thursdays, we would have what I would call tech-free Thursdays.
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  And we would just sort of re-embrace puzzles and games and more time outside.
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  And if they were going to be in their room,
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  that would be the time that I would kind of nudge a, hey, you know,
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  is there anything in here that you haven't played with in a long time that you
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  know, we can explore since you're not allowed TV or laptop or computer or tablet
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  or phone or whatever the case may be.
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  And it would give you some time to sort through, like, do you even want any
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  of this stuff anymore? It kind of gives you an invitation of decluttering,
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  of rediscovery, of reorganizing.
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  Because I had kids that dropped naps really, really early.
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  But if you can just say, hey, part of Tech Free Thursday, and you can even say
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  it's only Tech Free Thursday from 2 to 4 p.m., whatever window you want,
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  you can say it's also time in your room from 2 to 4 p.m.
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  And if that leads them into reading a book or, you know, straightening up the bookshelf or,
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  you know, discovering that there are a billion things in their room that they
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  don't even care is in there anymore, but they really wish the Lego set that
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  was sitting over here could be in their room so they could do Legos during tech-free time.
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  Whatever the case may be, you know your family best. You can carve this into
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  what would work for that.
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  And then we would just have fun Fridays. And fun Fridays would be where I would
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  try to go find something free to do that was out in the community just to take
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  advantage of our community.
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  There's a sample of something that I would try to have some accountability,
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  some teaching time, and yet keep it as unstructured as possible so summer could
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  just still be about summer.
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  Hope that is helpful. I would love to hear ideas from you guys.
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  And if you have things that you've done and you would love to share and give
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  me permission, I will do a follow-up to this podcast, maybe at the beginning
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  of July, of ideas that you all shared.
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  The easiest way to share with me is you can send me a DM over on Instagram. I'm joylovinghome.
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  You can email me, joy at joylovinghome. and I would love to share your fun ideas
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  because I think we really should in this community start learning from each other.
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  Also, if you're already part of my Facebook community, I have a free one at
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  bit.ly slash joylovinghomecommunity.
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  You can put a post up there, snap us a picture, share what you do with your
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  kids in the summer because I know we'd all love to see it.
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  All right, and then the final thing I've wanted to share with you, If you,
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  as a just fish-brained adult, would love some accountability and kind of get
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  into this theming type thing, I am running what I am calling my six-week summertime
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  sampler series because I love a good alliteration.
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  And what I have done is I put my membership on pause for all of June, July, and August.
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  And I just wanted to do something that was a one-off, kind of a summer camp for us.
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  And so for $10 only it's a one time it will take a payment and it never takes
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  another one it's just a one time $10 payment you were invited into a.
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  Private Facebook group that I created just for this summer. So it will start
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  now and it will end in August and it will never be again.
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  You don't have to worry about anything blasting you from that Facebook group.
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  But it is a week on, a week off, a week on, a week off, which is why it will
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  cover 12 weeks, but it's six activities.
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  It's six weeks where we're actively doing stuff in the Summertime Sampler series.
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  And so what it will be is we are sampling some of the icons of organizing and
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  trying some little projects or in decluttering or organizing around our house
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  based on the theme of that week.
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  And what we're going to do, and you'll spy some commonality of what I used to
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  do with my kids and what I like to just do for myself and I'm inviting you into,
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  is we are having Motion and Maintenance Mondays.
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  And the motion is I will introduce the week theme.
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  We'll start thinking about how we're going to do it within our home,
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  and we will do some maintenance stuff together.
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  So just that we have that body doubling accountability to do some bare bones
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  every Monday in our house.
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  That allows us on Tuesdays to feel free to tackle the theme.
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  So on our Tackle It Tuesdays, there's an open Zoom call from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
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  So that it covers any any time zone that you might be in and you can pop in
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  and out and we will be working in our areas as you wish.
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  You can come for 30 minutes, you can come for an hour, you can pop in for 15
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  and then two hours later pop in for another 15, whatever the case may be.
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  We are working towards our projects in our home on Tuesdays for that theme.
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  And then Wednesdays, I do a work with me Wednesday where I will do a live that's
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  recordable so you can watch it any other time if you want some more accountability as we're.
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  Getting further into the nuance of the project we're doing that week.
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  And then on Thursdays, it's just think about it Thursdays.
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  If there are places you're stuck and you want to submit a picture or you want
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  to ask a question, then I will answer those in a Q&A on Thursdays and then finish it Fridays.
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  I am encouraging us just to post the before and after just to help us celebrate.
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  Again, it's a private Facebook group. It is only shared with the ladies that
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  are in there that are also working in their homes on their own things around
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  the fact that kids are home.
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  So it's loose, it's unstructured, it's easy, it's come in, come out.
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  But because the whole summer is only $10, even if you're on vacation one of
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  the weeks, that's what I'm calling an active week.
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  The recordings are there, you can pop in another week and do it.
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  Or if you loved it and you're like, that was fun and I have six other places
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  I can think of, I'd love to do the same thing.
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  I'm going to do it a second week. There will be other people in there that are
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  active, and you can feed off the accountability of each other.
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  So if all of this sounds fun, if you've thought about trying my membership,
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  but you didn't want to commit to something where $10 was getting pulled every
• 16:23
  single month, this is a one-time, give it a go,
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  sample us for the summer in the six-week summertime sampler series.
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  If that is something that sounds fun to you, I'm going to put the link in the
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  show notes, But let me say it out here for you so hopefully you can remember and do it.
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  So the website is joylovinghome.myflowdesk.com. So joylovinghome.myflowdesk.com forward slash summer.
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  And that will lead you to the place where you can sign up.
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  And I hope that you will. Until next time, continue to choose joy.