Getting Back-to-School Ready: 5 Tips to Get Your School Groove On

By Erika Fehrenbach Prell

Anyone else feeling rusty in the back-to-school department? It has been almost 2 years since school started with a normal-ish vibe. 2 years!!! And, for many parents, you might just be getting back to the office from working at home. Talk about a double-whammy! Never fear...SoulShine is HERE to help you calm the back-to-school chaos and get your groove on. Focus on these 5 tips and you will be on track for back-to-school (and back to the office) in no time.

#5 - Appointments & Such
If you haven’t already, here’s your reminder to do back-to-school clothes, shoes, and school supplies shopping. Don’t forget fall sports needs! Speaking of sports, if you have middle or high school children, they may need a sports physical to participate. While you are at it, schedule any other needed appointments like hair cuts, orthodontist, and dentist. 

#4 - Calendar is Key
Getting organized is often top of mind to wrangle the summer craziness, right? But, where to start?!? The answer? Your calendar! Getting a handle on open houses, meet the teacher day, appointments, sports practices...you know, all the things...starts with a well-organized calendar. Seriously, this will be a gamechanger in calming the chaos all year round! Here’s my system:

• Get a paper monthly calendar, paper weekly calendar, and a phone calendar. You may want to share the phone calendar link with your significant other and any children that have a phone. 
  
• Assign each member of your family a color. Use a highlighter for the paper calendars and the same color for the phone calendar. This makes it easy to see which family member has events.
  
• Schedule everything into the corresponding calendars. 
  
• Prominently place the weekly calendar so all family members can see it.
  
• Bonus Tip: The weekly paper calendar is also a great place to do meal prep for the week, have a to-do list, and list important reminders for family members.
  

#3 - Plan Ahead
Now that your appointments are scheduled and your calendar is in order, start working on planning ahead. Sunday is a great time to do this. Give the calendar a look over, make sure anything new is entered and look at the week. Do meal and menu planning. Consider easy meals like crockpot or air fryer on busy nights, like sports or work events, when the schedule is tighter. Look for other areas to plan ahead like packing lunches, school bags, or sports bags. Assign tasks to family members as appropriate but make sure they know what was assigned to manage expectations. Time spent here always helps keep the chaos at bay.

#2 - Add on 10
Add 10 more minutes to your planned time for everything the first week of school. Go to bed 10 minutes earlier, get up 10 minutes sooner, plan to get the kids out the door to the bus stop or in the car 10 minutes sooner. Why? You are all rusty at this getting ready and out the door thing. It’s going to take longer to do this. You will forget some things. Having a little extra time will give you a cushion to get out the door on time.

#1 - Mindset Mastery
This should not be a surprise...your mindset will make or break the back-to-school groove. When the chaos starts to take over, pause and take a deep breath. It’s going to be okay. You were made for harder things than this. Flip the Script and embrace the chaos...back-to-school chaos means we are actually going BACK-TO-SCHOOL, something we all wanted a year ago. Now, there’s something to be grateful for!

Plus, what happens after you finally get those kids out the door or dropped off? Silence. A moment to think without the bickering, chatter, video games or YOUTube, or incessant “Mom...Mom...Mom”. That, DreamChaser, is enough to get me through the chaos. Here’s to a great school year!