We are hitting the midway point of August, which means every mother I know (including me!) is starting to feel like she’s running out of time. Whether your kids have already started school or the clock is ticking on that back-to-school countdown, this is a moment when we all start to feel a lot of pressure around summer ending. There are seasons of parenting where you feel like you have precious little time, and this is certainly one of those.
And it’s not the only one. There are times when you feel a particular chapter of your children’s lives coming to a close, or you are getting ready to transition out of a job that you’ve been in for a while. Maybe you’re moving from one home to another or one city to another. In all of these seasons, there is a strong desire to make time expand.
So don’t worry, you’re not alone. And I’ve got you on this. I have a simple framework that you can use to shine a spotlight on key moments so that they feel like time expands around them.
If you want to make these days matter, especially as we’re in the final days and weeks of summer, here are the three things that you want to do first.
Plan the things you want to do
Get these activities and experiences on the calendar with dates and times. Why? Because that invokes your sense of anticipation. When you have a plan – when you’ve called your shot and said “this is what’s going to happen” and it’s on the calendar – then you connect to that very powerful emotion of anticipation. Having something planned on the calendar allows us to amplify everyone’s enjoyment because we are looking forward to it.
Make sure these experiences are out of the ordinary
It is much, much easier for us to honor these moments when there’s something a little bit extraordinary about them. It doesn’t have to be a trip to Disney World, but there has to be something about it that is out of the ordinary…enough that it becomes memorable.
Take time to reflect on those moments
And this is really how you shine a spotlight on them so that they are seared into your long-term memory. Examples of this might be journaling about the experience. Or it might be that you make a scrapbook or a simple photo book of the experiences that you had.
This third point is key because sometimes you’ll find yourself in a bit of a negative frame and you’ll be saying some variation of the following:
“Well, this whole summer went by and we didn’t do anything.”
I would challenge you that the absence of reflection is making you feel that way most of the time.
So go ahead and give this framework a try. And whatever you do, don’t try to do 100 things in the next couple of weeks. It’s far better to do fewer things and really make each one count so that they can be a part of your memories of this summer. And remember, this framework isn’t just for the rush of back-to-school season. Use it for all these fleeting seasons of life to really make moments matter with the ones you love the most. That’s my wish for you.
