You know those times when you’ve been really busy and you feel like you haven’t had enough concentrated time to do the things you want, both in the way of relaxation and in getting things done, but then you have an afternoon off from your usual job (work, student, mom, whatever) and there’s so much pressure to make the most of it that you end up doing nothing? Or you kind of half relax, half get productive so at the end you feel neither rested nor that you completed anything?

It happens to me all. the. time. I am terrible for this. J will take the kids for a morning and I’ll be home by myself wandering the house with indecision. I feel like I need to choose the most important task and because I can’t decide what that is I don’t know where to start. So I decide maybe I’ll just enjoy this time to myself instead but then I can’t decide if that means reading a book (and which book?!) or watching tv (but I can’t just channel surf?!) or blogging (but which of the dozen posts do I write?!) and then, oh just forget it there’s laundry that has to be done and the breakfast dishes are still on the table so I’ll just use my time doing the usual and face that familiar dissatisfied feeling when the kids return.

Add to this the fact that we are at a stage in life when our kids are still young enough to be home with us all the time and don’t really have structure built into their lives through school or other activities. Besides naps (and with Norah they actually make me less productive because I am constantly starting and stopping activities to deal with her frequent naps) it’s up to us to determine what their days look like and, trust me, toddlers do not do well with endless unstructured time.

Our summer is just beginning and we both knew it would most definitely end up being one, long string of days just like this if we didn’t make a plan. For us it wasn’t about making sure the summer was all rest or all productivity, but rather saying up front what each day would be about so we didn’t have to make that decision over again every morning. We want to come to the end of the summer and not wonder where the days went. Good intentions could easily come to nothing.

There’s also the issue of wanting to do the fun stuff Vancouver offers for families and kids (the shots in this post are from one of our favourite summer activities, an early morning on the beach at Stanley Park last summer) but always finding out about something going on after the fact or spending all morning in indecision and getting frustrated. We’ve got a lot of elements at play – J’s summer classes, travel, a frequently napping/nursing baby who is still up at night, toddlers, prior commitments and a need for some non-kid time – so this is what we came up with:

• We drew our calendar on our chalkboard wall. Usually a shared Google calendar works for us when J is at work but with both of us at home a lot right now (he’s on parental leave), we liked having something visual we can both walk up to and reference as we are working/talking/coming and going.
• We wrote in ongoing commitments. J’s soccer games, church, community group.
• Monday is Project Day. We needed a day for those bigger projects that we’ve been wanting to tackle but always get delayed in favour of the daily tasks. So we’ve made a list of things we want to get done this summer (clean the car, sew blackout panels for our bedroom, set up the balcony for summer, wash all the walls and windows, etc.) and each Monday we’ll cross off as many as we can before the kids run out of things to play on their own and try to toss their toys out our ninth floor window again.
• We chose a “day off” for each of us. from about 8-5 on our day we’d be off duty from the kids and free to do things we need or want to do on our own. We both have some time to ourselves other days (when J takes the kids to the park or when I do bedtime on my own so he can go play soccer, for example) but having a pre-arranged day means we can make appointments or plan longer activities. J plans to do things like his classwork, appointments and maybe go golfing. Because I’m nursing Norah I can’t go far for long but I plan to do things like have coffee with friends, take a spin class at the YMCA and meet with a personal shopper at Top Shop to help me work on my post-babies wardrobe.
• We’re doing a weekly date night. Just a late dinner after the kids are all in bed at one of a dozen amazing local restaurants we’ve been wanting to try. We’re doing a date night trade with John’s sister and brother-in-law so we always have babysitting lined up.
• Friday is Family Day. We spend time together and with the kids lots during the week but Friday is our day to make sure we experience what Vancouver has to offer for families in the summer. It won’t be a s busy as the weekend but is sure to still have lots of activities happening and if we don’t plan these days we always regret things we’ve missed or realize we’ve spent all week in the house. Free drop-in art classes, petting zoo, u-pick berry farms, the beach, the pool. Making memories is the name of the game.
• Once a week we’ll meet up with friends. We’ve just come through a pretty intense season of life with three under three including a newborn. It’s not over yet and new challenges will come but we’re ready for hospitality to be a bigger part of our life again and to spend time with some friends and families we’ve been meaning to have over. So once a week we’ll do a meal and invite some friends. Our place is small and we only have four chairs but we believe we have what we have so we can share it.
• Leave the rest open. It sounds like a lot but there’s actually several evenings and couple days that are unscheduled and this is intentional. The schedule is there to facilitate rest as well as productivity but it’s not meant to take the summer out of summer.

So far this schedule has been working really well for us. Last week J deep cleaned the kitchen (we’re talking behind the oven, inside the fridge and freezer, the works) and I was able to pick fabric and complete one blackout panel. We went on a date to The $4.95 Warehouse (we’ll call the vibe intentionally trashy but actually a welcome casual and affordable addition to Gastown) and enjoyed dinner without kids for the first time since Norah was a newborn.

But we also learned our lesson when we didn’t plan ahead for our family day, told our kids we were going for dim sum and then ended up disappointing them when our poor planning made it impossible. We also realized we needed to set a budget for family day so we know if we can go for lunch or buy passes to an event and avoid the frustration when we have different ideas of how much we will spend that day.

What does your summer look like? What are some of your goals or things you want to have experienced, learned, tried, completed before the warm weather begins to cool again?