How to Make This Summer Feel Different || The Simple 3-Step Formula for a Better Summer

As I geared up for summer, a unique approach sparked magic in our household. Instead of jumping straight into plans, I started by envisioning how I wanted the summer to feel, incorporating my kids' ideas as well. This strategy created the perfect recipe for a more intentional and structured summer, complete with visions of family connection and adventure. Reflecting on past years, it's clear that self-care played a crucial role in making this summer a success. Keeping these elements in mind, alongside the support of a family meeting to set the tone, ensured that our summer was more than just survival—it was an evolution into an enriching, joyous experience for all. While it may not always be perfect, loving my kids and doing my best is the ultimate goal.

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TRANSCRIPT

Monica Packer: Going into the summer, one of the biggest things I did that may seem so weird because before I started to strategize and plot things and put things on the calendar, I actually got clarity on how I wanted the summer to feel, and I got my kids input on this.

Monica Packer: hi, this is Monica Packer and you're listening to About Progress where we are about progress made practical. Understatement of the century. May is hectic if you've got kids in the home. May is filled with spring sports and a constant stream of school events all on top of your normal already busy life.

This year in the Packer household, we are adding an additional layer. Two of my kids have joined a community musical and so did I, so that now means we also have play practice every weeknight from six to 9:00 PM

things are already so hectic for us that I currently have 525 unread text messages on my phone, and Brad and I are owning up to the fact that we cannot do all of this with one car. So we are finally car shopping for a second car. And that's just adding another task onto our plates.

With me being so very full summer plans likely will be the last thing on your mind, and I get it, but also thanks to this busyness of May, I tend to feel very unprepared moving into the sudden transition to summer in June.

And I have learned the hard way to sneak in even a little preparation into my May for summer.

So, not just June, but my entire summer can go far better with my kids. Today I'm bringing back a popular episode from last year that is super timely for right now. In it I'll share a little foresight that created a recipe for the best summer ever and how you can do this too.

After this aired, I hosted a workshop that is available for you now. It's called the Best Summer Ever Workshop if you weren't able to attend it last spring. I have some good news for you.

You can still access the workshop now at about progress.com/workshops. All of my workshops are currently priced at half off my normal online workshop fee at just $17 because times are tough right now and I want to ensure people can get the support they need. There's a pay what you can option starting at $17 with any extra going towards hosting scholarship spots. So email me if you want to clean one of those. In this episode, you will hear how 2024 was the best summer ever for us. Now, I'll be honest, 2025 after this episode originally aired that summer had a rocky start, but, and this is the truth, thanks to the intentions I set here in this episode, and as part of the workshop I taught, we were able to save our summer about halfway through and end it on a, and ended on a really good note.

I say that so you know that it doesn't have to be the best summer ever to be a good summer,

that's the real goal, but aiming for the best with both this episode and the accompanying affordable workshop is sure to help you have the kind of summer you crave one where you make memories to last a lifetime and have the structure that makes those memories possible.

How I made this all happen the last few years is coming up after a quick break for our sponsors.

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Monica Packer: Summer is fast approaching. If you are a mom who has had summers only about survival, it's time to instead create a summer for the scrapbooks. To help you do that, sign up for my $17. On-demand workshop the best summer ever. Workshop in 60 minutes with me. You'll get clarity on what you want the summer to look and feel like.

Create a personalized plan for realistic routines, rhythms, and household rules to make your summer sing and establish a path to still prioritize self-care. All with the printable workbook. To boot. Go to about progress.com/workshops to get the best summer ever. Workshop today and then watch it when you're ready.

And while you're there, check out my other available on-demand workshops, how to dream again and new rebuilding a relationship with me. All workshops are currently priced at over half off my typical workshop pricing because times are tough, but you still deserve support. Again, get a workshop or two tailored designed for you, especially the best summer ever.

Workshop now at about progress.com/workshops.

Monica Packer: Last summer was the best summer of our lives. I know that's a very bold statement, so when I say it, let me also encourage you to not feel bad if that has not been the case for you. Summers have not always been the best for the Packer household, but I want good summers to be the norm, not just for me, but for you.

So today you will learn how to prep now to be able to say that statement in the future as well. That was the best summer. At the end of the summer of 2023, I brought my kids back to school with this giant pit in my stomach. I felt like the precious time I had had with them had been unremarkable at best, but boring and even frustrating at worse.

I definitely give myself a lot of grace. After all, I was still adjusting to being a mom of five kids, and I was in the early stages of trying to figure out how to be a mom of five while also starting up work again after my self-imposed maternity leave 2023 was definitely a survival year for me, and the summer was no different.

I spent most of my energy simply trying to keep my head above water, and that meant that that summer was about the bare bones of making sure people were fed and watered and slightly managed. But that was it. It was too overwhelming for me to do anything else. Most of our days were very unstructured, unintentional, and home bound.

For me, that's a recipe for not feeling super great. I truly have no memories of our time together in that summer, but I know the way I felt at the end and that I wanted to be able to do it differently the next year. If you are similarly in a survival state right now, then know this. It's not going to be like that forever, and it's okay to own that.

It's not your summer for a super good or best summer ever kind of summer, but good summers are in your not too distant future.

Maybe you are like me at the end of that summer and you are ready in all caps to do things differently. And to have a summer that you will remember for years to come.

A little bit on the potential elephant in the room right now. This episode is directed primarily to those with kids in the home, and if you don't have them for whatever reason, whether you are too young or you've never been able to have them, or your kids have aged out of the home, please don't count yourself out from listening.

The lessons that I will share here are totally applicable to your life to your season, and to your summer too. And I know that no matter what, whether you are home with kids or not, summers create a period of shifts for all people and there's still a way for you to move through it differently so you can enjoy your time better.

With that being said, I'm now going to share the three big reasons why 2024 was the best summer ever, and what I will be replicating this year. The first big reason is that I got intentional. Going into the summer, one of the biggest things I did that may seem so weird because before I started to strategize and plot things and put things on the calendar, I actually got clarity on how I wanted the summer to feel, and I got my kids input on this.

We actually sat down to have a family meeting before the summer began, and I asked my kids and my husband how they wanted the summer to feel that year. And they were very willing to share, and I had my ideas too. And together we collaborated and came up with the feelings connected, adventurous, relaxing, and fun.

With those feelings in mind, we were then able to strategize intentionally about how that could look our answers to that lead into the next big reason. But if we're sticking with just the feelings, one of the things we did is we created a giant summer bucket list of all the many things we could do with our time

that would create those feelings. And we wrote it down on just a regular piece of paper and I taped it up on our family central spot, which is actually in the stairwell going to our basement. So not even like a super fancy place. And having that up with the feelings at the top and our bucket list was so motivating and also a helpful reminder of what we wanted to do.

And it also became a way to track our progress throughout the summer. We would cross off the things that we did as we went. Having that intentional way of looking at our summer also helped us. So we weren't easily swept up in all the shoulds of everybody else's summer. It was about us and what we wanted and what would match those things.

One other personal note about those feelings. For us, it helped us know that we needed to get outside of our house almost every day, being out of our home makes my kids get along better. It does make us feel more connected. It also leads to those adventures and the fun.

And then we also wanted to spend a lot of time relaxing. So for us, that helped us know what our day-to-day life could look like too. So being intentional was one of the biggest reasons why we were able to have such a great time together. The second big reason is that we got structured now because we were intentional about the feelings and what we wanted to do. I knew that in order for those things to happen, we needed some dependable structures in place.

And for us, that meant having routines. And as part of that rhythms, and I'm gonna talk about that more in a moment, that would help us be set up for success. This is where I'm gonna individualize it for you. I know that I work best and my kids work best if we get out of the house most days of the week during the summer, and in order for us to get out and to have that freedom, to have fun together in the morning, and then to have the afternoon free to relax.

I knew that we needed to hit a couple things pretty hard. If we go out of the house and if I have all those chores still left undone, weighing on my shoulders and on my kids' shoulders, we're not able to truly enjoy where we're at or come home and obviously relax.

So because of that, we made sure we had the rhythm of a morning routine still every day. So to do that, I strategized by having certain rhythms that we did the morning, the early morning after they got up was about a very strict morning routine that helped them get ready for the day, make their bed, eat breakfast, do their chores, which for us include, making their bed, weeding, doing their piano practice and their keyboarding practice, like typing.

Then brushing their teeth, getting their hair done, and getting a lunch ready. I have my kids make their own lunch so we can get out the door. And I know that sounds like a lot, but because my kids knew that this is how every morning looked, and it was also so similar to our morning schedule for schools.

It wasn't that big of a leap for us. But if in hearing that, that sounds like a big leap, do what you will and make it your own For sure. But that clear morning routine also helped us so that we could lean into the rhythms of having some responsible time in the morning, in the early morning, and then still leaving around nine 30 or 10 to have adventures for a couple hours.

Then to come home around nap time, which for us is around one. And while the baby naps, everyone can chill and mom can chill too, or mom can work. My work hours tended to be in the afternoons during the summer, then as part of that, after the baby woke up, we could still have chill time or more family time.

We could get out again, we could go to a park, we could play outside dinner, and our usual nighttime rhythm of cleaning up dinner, watching a show together, getting ready for bed, and then going to bed. So for us, that structure was really helpful in having the dependability my kids need, especially my neurodivergent kids, so many of them are neurodivergent who need that dependability.

It took the burden off my shoulders to , always be nagging them about what's next and what they need to do because they knew it and it was all there on a checklist actually, which was really helpful too. . It took the guesswork out of things. We knew what was coming next, and we knew what we had to do in order to do the other things.

That structure really made it possible for us to have the joy, the connection, the fun, the adventure together. . You may have noticed that I use the word rhythms a lot. Um, this is something I did a full episode on that I will link in the show notes to, I believe more in rhythm scheduling than block scheduling.

I like knowing that different periods of the day are devoted to certain responsibilities or categories rather than it being like from nine 30 to 11 o'clock it is this thing. I like having a little bit of that flexibility so it's not so time bound. And again, I'll link to that in the show notes.

So you can listen to it with rhythms in place. The structure actually is more flexible than it sounds. We're able to go with the flow a little bit better while still ensuring we're getting the right things done at the right time and making space for all the other things we want.

The second big reason why we had a great summer was we got structured. The third is that I got supported. I knew that to better show up to this summer, I had to better show up for myself and again. Other prior years where we did not have great summers. I know it's because I was overwhelmed and stressed out and just trying to manage all the responsibilities and take care of the kids that I lost myself along the way, which actually made me show up not as myself to those things.

Going into last summer, I wanted to really ensure that I was prioritizing the most important self-care habits that would help me feel like myself. And for me, self-care habits are actually pretty basic. It's about exercising in the early morning before my kids are up so that I have time for myself.

It's also about making sure I have times in the afternoon to work. Also including time for myself. I'm very sensitive to all the sensory input I need to have quiet and I need time to myself in order to have fun too. And then the nighttime habit for me that was really important was making sure that I had me time at night as well.

Can you get, my biggest thing is about having my own time, but that's again, so I can be so connected and enjoy my kids so much. And I really feel like I did that. I honored my needs and I met them the best I could, which wasn't perfect, but it was better than prior years. And because of that, I had more to give from and we had a great summer.

So those three big reasons were we got intentional, we got structured, and I got supported., I'm gonna share next how I'm going to replicate those things for the next summer right after the break.

Monica Packer: You are not bad at habits. You've just been using the wrong method. My first book will be published this fall. It's called Sticky Habits, A Woman's Guide to Reclaim Happiness Ditch Perfectionism, and Create Habits That Last. It's set to release September 8th, but you can pre-order the book right now for three special bonuses.

This book is not about. Doing more. It's about building habits that survive real life, creating routines that flex instead of break. Letting go of perfectionism that keeps you quitting and learning how to keep promises to yourself. Again, even on hard days. In a world of self-help. That too easily ignores the invisible labor women carry. That changes everything because women must do habits differently. Sticky habits will teach you how to do so. Please pre-order the book now and check out the special pre-order bonuses by going to sticky habits book.com that's linked for you in the show notes.

I'm so thrilled for this book to be out in the world. It is several years in the making and I know it will change so much for you. Again, go to sticky habits book.com to pre-order the book now.

Monica Packer: This segment actually may be pretty short because I could sum it up in one word, and the word is ditto. Ditto. Uh, basically I'm gonna get intentional and structured and I'm gonna ensure I have the support that I need. So let me actually break it down a little bit more. I know for sure we are going to start with a family meeting to get clarity on how we wanna feel

and the memories that we want to make and that can all inform the structure I need to have in place. I'm sure I'm going to need to tweak that structure. Last year, one of the things that helped in keeping the structure in place was I had those checklists printed off. So I'm going to update them, make sure they're printed off, I like to laminate mine. I just have a little home laminator so that my kids can use a dry erase marker and check off their squares each morning. I found that was really helpful, so I wasn't trying to mentally keep track of what kids were doing and they could also have that joy of checking things off and tracking it themselves.

Um, so I'm just gonna update that and make sure that is gonna work for our family. Also, as part of the structure, I want to ensure that I'm being clear on what our rhythms of the day need to be like. Now my kids are getting older. My, my older two may wanna hang out with friends more in the afternoon.

And so I'm gonna have to tweak if our normal plan of chores in the early morning, getting out in the mid morning, relaxing in the afternoon, family time in that. Late afternoon to evening is gonna work for them. We need to shift that a little bit. I'm thinking they're still gonna wanna join us on all the adventures in the morning, even if we go to a place that is not totally up to their mature standards now, like a kids museum. But, uh, I wanna also give them that freedom to hang out with friends or do other things at night if that's what seems good to them. And that's part of the flexibility too, that I think can come with structure. And considering structure. I also know that I need to have those work hours in place.

I have a big thing coming this fall that I hope to tell you about soon, and I have other big things coming as well, including, opening my doors to coaching, uh, in the fall. And, uh, working on the podcast of course. So because of that, I am making sure that I have a sitter set up for three afternoons a week from one to four, and I'm gonna really honor those work hours.

And also, when my babysitter isn't here, I'm gonna let the kids know it's quiet time, play on your own time, or even play with a friend time while mom works in the early afternoons. I just won't schedule coaching calls and interviews during those days, but I'll still intend on sitting down to do that.

One big thing that I know needs to be a little bit different this year is that I want to do a better job prioritizing my own rest, my word for the year. Was calm and I don't feel like I've done the best job of that. It's been really busy and because my toddler stopped napping and he's back to not napping again, it's been really difficult for me to get my work done in the time that I have it with a sitter while she's here.

And so I am working like any opportunity I have, including on the weekends. So. I would like for that to be a little different during the summer. And because of that, I also know I'm going to need to do things different in terms of the podcast and maybe limiting my coaching clients more, and all that stuff.

I really want to ensure that on top of having an hour. Of work time at bare minimum when my sitter isn't there. I also want to ensure that I am dedicating time to play games with my kids, like board games to read to myself, to read to my little kiddos who like to be read too in their early afternoons too.

One of my biggest motivators for replicating the best summer ever is that my oldest is turning 14 years old this summer. I'm actually recording this a day of my second oldest turning 12 and thinking of, the truth that I have four summers left with my daughter at home and six summers with my second oldest son.

That gives me a lot of perspective and motivation to ensure that I prioritize taking the time upfront to. Plan out the best summer we can. And with that though, I'm already right now giving myself a lot of grace. I was talking about this with the client the other day. That owning for myself that my job as a mom isn't to be a miracle worker.

It's to love my kids. We are gonna have a great summer. We're not gonna have a perfect one. There's gonna be fighting. I'll probably yell my kids at some point and feel bad about it. We will mess things up. We'll have days where our plans totally. Get thrown out the window and that's okay because the big picture is that I love my kids and I'm doing my best to show up to them and to this time that we have together.

Are you ready to have the best summer ever?

Just a little note from Monica from the future here and the last airing of this episode, I told you here about the live virtual workshop I was hosting the Best Summer Ever workshop. That replay is available for you now at about s.com/workshops for only $17. So go sign it up and you can watch it on demand, meaning on your own time when you're good and ready, and maybe in bits and pieces, so that way you can gradually feel more prepared.

For the transition to summer.

Let's go back to the episode. I hope this episode gave you the hug and kick in the pants you need to grow. I'll now share the progress pointers. These are the notes that I take so you don't have to, and those on my newsletter, get them in a graphic form each week. They're really simple today to have the best summer ever. One, get intentional.

Be clear, going in on the feelings you need and the memories you want. Number two, get structured. Define what rhythms and routines are needed as a household to set you up for success. Number three, get supported. Ensure you have good self-care habits in place for yourself so you can show up.

Here do something challenge this week is to get intentional. I think that's a great place to start. Get clear on those feelings that you want, and again, to help you figure this out in much more depth and also way more practically. Join me in the best Summer Ever Workshop This podcast is listener supported. Members of the Supporters Club. Make it possible for my work with about progress to be free and available to all. There are three levels of exclusive benefits. For more time to more content with me, I would love to invite you to become a supporter by going to about progress.com/support, and you can always support the show for free.

Make sure you have subscribed and share the show with a friend, leave a review, and really importantly right now, please follow me on YouTube and watch the podcast there. Thank you so much for listening. Now go and do something with what you learned today.