26 : Summer Threw Off Your Schedule? 5 Steps to Reset It

Summer is great for the pool days and the slow mornings, but it's (normally) terrible for your routine.

Between vacations, gatherings, extra time with the kids, and half the childcare you had during the school year, the structure you worked hard to build can easily fall apart.

In this episode I walk you through the exact 5-step checklist I use to rebuild my summer rhythm from the ground up, starting where it always starts: the morning routine. We'll map your week, lock in your "on the clock" time, work backwards to your wake-up time, and set up a habit tracker that keeps you rooted in reality.

Plus an inside look at my own summer schedule!

HABIT TRACKER

APP WORKOUTS

BLOG POST for this episode

EP 02 : How to Create A Morning Routine

EP 12 : Weekly Snapshot - How I Stay Fit and Productive as a SAH + WFH Mom

EP 14 : 7 Reasons You Keep Quitting (And How to Finally Stop)

EP 15 : Stop Winging Your Mornings - How To Use AI to Build A Routine That Actually Sticks

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Can you tell I love talking about rhythms and routines? That's a theme of this podcast I've come to find, both in podcast episode downloads and just hearing feedback from regular podcast listeners. The episodes on morning routines or habits have been some of your favorite episodes, which works out so well because I could talk about my morning routine or just routines in general every single day and probably not get tired of the topic. So today we are talking about reclaiming a summer routine, even if your schedule has gotten flipped upside down. You know, when the kids are in school or when you're not traveling as much, it's easy to keep the same routine. But when the kids are home more, when your schedule might change a little bit, maybe on Fridays, you now work from home and you're normally working in an office Monday through Friday, but summer has a more flexible schedule. Whatever that looks like for you, we are going to find a way to reclaim that rhythm, reclaim that routine in today's episode with five simple steps. And then at the end of today's episode, I'm going to give you an inside peek into what my summer schedule will look like based on what time I need to have my morning routine completed because of the time that my husband leaves for work. And then also working that around the days that my oldest son is in daycare. So let's dive in. I'm your host, Carly Kaikendal, and this is The Daily Penny, the podcast about building sickening consistency through everyday habits. Being occasionally great does not get you very far, but being consistently good is what moves the needle forward. Every time you follow through for a workout, a meal in motherhood in your finances, in your business, or in your life, you're putting another penny in the jar of the person you want to become. One penny doesn't feel like much, but those daily deposits compound over time. This show is about fitness, nutrition, motherhood, money, business, and the systems that actually hold your life together in seasons when motivation is gone. Whether you're building habits, rebuilding confidence, or just simply trying not to quit, you're in the right place. Let's add another penny in the jar. The reason I can talk about routines and rhythms so much and never get tired of it is because I have seen how much having a morning routine has changed my life personally. And with the summer season, obviously summer is great in a ton of ways, but it's harder to navigate in other ways. So the positives of summer are obviously the great weather, going on vacations, spending time at the pool, going to extra gatherings, extra time with your kids. All those are great things. The things that make it maybe a little bit harder to stick into a rhythm is just the lack of structure, the lack of a routine, but then also not as much child care. That can make it harder to find a good rhythm within your day. And notice how I mentioned more time with your kids as both like a great thing and a challenging thing because both of those are true. But a lack of routine, it does make it really difficult to stick to the habits that you say you want to either establish or keep. And so that's why in this episode, we're going to establish your summer rhythm from a weekly perspective. And we're going to approach that starting with our morning routines. And listen, I have not always been a morning person. So trust me, there is hope for you even in the summer months. So me personally, I was forced into an early morning routine in the fall of 2018. So I am coming up on eight years as a morning person. And I can say with full confidence that I really don't think I'll ever look back. So if you want to become a morning person, I'm not kidding. You can literally just go to bed tonight and decide tomorrow I'm becoming a morning person. And I want to also remind you that when you become a morning person, that doesn't mean waking up the exact same time, seven days a week, or even the exact same time throughout different seasons. Like your routines can change with the seasons. I know that mine do because just a few episodes back in episode 12 of the podcast, I walked you through my entire week. I laid out what my days look like between like when my husband leaves for work. So based on his schedule, my schedule works around his as when it comes to when I work out and where I work out each day, whether that's our home gym or going to the public gym. And then I talk through the days that I have child care versus the days that I don't, and what days that I work on my business throughout the week. So that episode was released back in February, and now it's June, and my entire schedule is shifting again. So for those who don't know, my husband is an offensive coordinator for a local football team here in Alabama, and high school football is so serious here in the South. Like they operate like a college would operate. And but as my husband, he always has to remind me, he's like, and I'm just gonna say it like he says it, this is just what winning teams do. Like, this is what we signed up for when we wanted to be part of a winning program. And so, like, I know that. And in the fall, obviously I love going to the games, but I'm like, dang it, y'all work a lot of hours, and I have to work around it. But you know, we we make it work, right? So I do work around his schedule when it comes to what time I work out in the mornings and what I'm able to do or what I'm able to work on, and then get help from him in the afternoons when he gets home. So that is all gonna lead us into step one of our summer routine checklist, which is to write down your weekly work calendar, or if you are a stay-at-home mom, write down your husband's weekly work calendar. So, what I mean by that is maybe there are certain days that you or your husband work in the office, and then there's some days that you that you work remotely from home. So your morning routine might start earlier or later given those circumstances. For me this summer, my husband is going to be leaving the house at 6:15 a.m. Monday through Thursday, and then he has Fridays off. So maybe you or your husband work from the office Monday through Thursday, and then you're working from home on Friday. So maybe that morning, meaning Friday, you could start your routine a little bit later because you have a little bit more margin because you're not having to commute to the office or he's not having to commute to the office. So you're not having to get ready as early and you're not having to pack a lunch to eat outside the house. So step one is just to write down your weekly work calendar if you work out of the home. And then if you're a stay-at-home mom and your schedule can kind of revolve around your husband's schedule, write down what his work schedule is for the week when it comes to is he going into the office or are you going into the office, or are there days that you're working from home? Write down that schedule from a weekly perspective. Step number two is to establish your daily on the clock time, meaning the hour that you are held accountable for something other than yourself, whether that be the kids or whether that be work. So for me, what I mean by on the clock time, that's the time that I need to be back to my house because my husband has to leave for work. So I need to be home with the kids. Obviously, I'm not gonna leave a four and one-year-old by themselves at home so that I can finish my workout at the gym. That's just not how it works, right? So I have to be home before my husband leaves. But maybe for you, the on the clock time is the time that your kids get up for the day. And once again, this might be the same schedule for you Monday through Friday, but we still want to write it down just to allow ourselves to dump all of this out of our brain and put it onto paper. Because sometimes we feel like, where am I gonna find the time? But then when we just brain dump everything, we write it down, it just brings everything more into reality versus us creating these problems that don't even exist yet, or maybe making things a bigger deal that when we write it down, we're like, oh, okay, like I actually can carve out like 30 minutes of my day to prioritize a morning routine. So maybe your husband is like a huge help getting the kids ready in the morning. And so maybe your on the clock time is when you are leaving the house to take them to daycare or take them to the grandparents' house during the summer as you are heading into work. Whatever that looks like for you, write down your on the clock time for Monday through Friday. That was step two. Step three is really going to be based on step two. So, based on that on the clock time that you established, I want you to work backwards through a list of things that you want to complete before your on the clock time starts. So, this is all of the things that you want to do within your morning routine. Maybe yours is going to be a very abbreviated morning routine. That's totally fine. You don't have to go all in with a 37-part morning routine. You can just really start very small. But just to kind of throw some ideas around for things that you might want to consider, maybe that could be a morning devotional. So, like reading some type of devotional material or maybe reading your Bible. I know that I love listening to a daily audio Bible. Sometimes when my morning is a little bit more compressed and I'm not sitting down to read. Maybe you just want to have a cup of coffee in silence before your workout, or just a cup of coffee and then going and getting some steps in before the day starts. Maybe you want to get a full, full-blown workout in. You want to shower, you want to get ready, you want to pack your lunch for the day. But get realistic on how long these tasks are going to take you. Okay, so you might be doing a 30-minute version of a workout that day, but you can't just factor in the 30 minutes. You need to factor in getting the equipment out, potentially loading the barbell, maybe you're traveling to and from the gym, all of those things, they might only take a few minutes, but when you add them all up, you know, it could be 30 minutes that you need to factor into your morning routine to take into account all of those little things that we really don't think about during our day. And I've said it before, I'm gonna say it again. Showing up to the gym with your workouts already planned for you makes that so much more efficient. And if that's something that you need, I'm gonna link to my app subscription in the notes below. They're the workouts that I follow on a daily basis. That's what you see me post on stories. I literally walk into the gym, I open my app and I press start and I do the workout from top to bottom, just like any other app subscriber does. And even though I'm the one that creates the programs, I really cannot tell you how much that saves me, especially when I have a more compressed morning or when I'm walking downstairs to my garage gym and I can already hear the kids starting to get up for the day. I'm like, okay, this is gonna be a compressed workout. The kids are probably gonna be jumping in with me, but at least I'm not having to think about what I'm doing. I'm just following the workout from top to bottom. So if that interests you, we have two options. We have a three-day program called Foundations and a five-day program called Split. Like I said, I'll link to that in the show notes. But back to my point on things taking longer than you might anticipate. Once again, be very realistic here. And maybe y'all are gonna think I'm crazy when I give y'all an example of what I've actually done. So maybe you even need to kind of like run a few test days just to see how long things take you and get a good average of what that time is. And I've realized how some people hear me say that and they probably think, okay, chill out. Like, why are you tracking everything down to the minute? And I don't know what it is about me, but I'm obsessed with knowing how long tasks take me on average. So for example, and I'm really exposing myself. So I have timed myself like several days in a row. This is like a long time ago, but I timed myself for several days around in a row when I was applying my makeup. And I found out it takes me right at nine minutes on average to do a full face of makeup. So now if I'm in a rush, but I have 10 minutes, I know I'm like, okay, cool, I can for sure do my makeup before I leave. And I know maybe you don't want to take things that extreme, and that's fine. But there are some of you who are listening and you're thinking, no, Carly, I probably actually need to do that. So you're welcome. There's an idea for you to start tracking your daily tasks so that you have a better idea of how long things actually take you versus how long you wish they would take in an ideal world. And all in all, consider leaving yourself a little bit more margin than you think you may need, because rarely do things go according to plan. So that was step three, which is to list all of the things that you want to complete before your on the clock time starts. Step four is to back in to your wake time. So based on step three and the list of things that you want to complete before you're on the clock time, add all of those time estimates together and then back that into what time you need to wake up. So let's just say that your on the clock time is 7 a.m. because that's when your kids get up. So you need to have all of your morning tasks completed before then. I want you to map out those time blocked tasks from you know end back to the beginning. So let's say that the last thing that you do before your kids get up is get ready for the day. So your hair and makeup. Let's time block that first. Let's say it takes you 30 minutes to do your hair and makeup. Then I want you to time block your shower because that's what you're gonna do right before you do your hair and makeup. Let's say you take a quick 10-minute shower. Before your shower is your workout. Let's just give you 55 minutes to do that between getting things set up, possibly a quick commute to the gym, and then doing the actual workout itself. And before that is some type of morning ritual if you want to do that. So, like Bible study, devotional coffee. Let's give that 25 minutes. So, based on all of these time blocks, this entire routine would take you two hours. But you need to wake up at 5 a.m. because your on the clock time is 7 a.m. So that's how you're gonna work your way back in to what time you need to wake up. So, once again, this includes 25 minutes of devotional coffee and Bible, 55 minutes of a workout and a possible gym commute from start to finish, 10 minute shower, 30-minute hair and makeup. So step four was to back into your wake time based on all of those morning tasks that you want to complete. And step five, our final step, is to track your habit streak. I'm going to link to a free downloadable habit tracker for you in the show notes. It's nothing fancy, but it is something that's already created for you and it's really going to show you whether you are or are not doing what you said that you were going to do, okay? Because you're going to shade in a box for every day that you follow through with this summer reset routine. Okay. This is a way to visually see your consistency or lack thereof over the course of an entire month. And it's perfect because we are at the start of the month. If you're listening to this episode right as it's released, and like I always say, we must stay rooted in reality if we want to change or maintain our health or physique. And a visual habit tracker is a great way to track your current reality. And I often feel like summer is a season of more fun and flexibility, but it doesn't have to also be a season where our health and routines take a major backseat. Okay. So making this tiny circle, like filling in this tiny circle each day on your habit tracker is just this little small reward. But it gives you immediate visible proof that, like I said, you did what you said you were going to do. And these little small wins, shading in this little circle, is so important because most of the habits that you are prioritizing in this morning routine, they have more delayed payoffs, especially if it's the workout approach, you know, those have delayed payoffs. So you're not going to see the immediate results of one morning workout. You're not going to see the results of that right away, but you can see that little circle shaded in right away. And that's going to give your brain just this instant like checkbox, hey, I did that, you know, and the craving to shade in that circle day after day is really going to take off, take on a life of its own. Because regardless of whether you actually want to do that habit, you know that doing it is going to be good for you. And then you get to shade in that little circle. And I swear it's a productivity hack because it's really going to help the all or nothing mindset because I want you to take the approach of never miss twice. So instead of maybe let's just say you miss a day. Okay, let's just not take the approach of like, oh, screw it, the month is ruined. I just want you to look at the week and say, okay, I missed once, but I'm not gonna miss twice. Because one miss, like missing one time in a week is 100% understandable. Life happens. But if you miss two days in a row, it could potentially be the start of your habits heading in the opposite direction that you really want them to. So the never miss twice mindset is a good approach. And having this visual habit tracker where you shade in these little tiny circles is going to keep you rooted in reality because, like I said, you can see from my month perspective whether you are really following through or not following through with what you said that you wanted to do. So those are all five of the steps. And while a lot of my podcast episodes are centered around productivity and working towards goals, I also want you to just schedule in fun this summer. And I literally mean schedule it in. So weave time into your week to play with your kids in the backyard, take your kids to the pool, go to the playground, take an outdoor walk as a family, like lots of things that are gonna give you some time out in the sunshine. So now I'm gonna give you some insight into what my summer routine is going to look like. So my husband Eric has summer workouts with the football team Monday through Thursday, and then he's off on Fridays in the summer, which is amazing. Early on in the spring, when I was walking you through some of my schedules, at that point he had to leave the house by 5:15 because they had 6 a.m. workouts in the spring, which is you know off season for them. But this summer, thank the Lord, he does not have to leave at 5:15. He leaves at 6.15. So I get an hour back into my mornings. And I plan to have my alarm set for between 4 to 4:30. And some days I might not wake up until 5, depending on like if we had something going on the night before, a little bit later into the night. But most mornings I will be up between 4 to 4:30, waking up to my alarm. I'll do my regular morning ritual of Bible reading or listening to the daily audio Bible while I drink my coffee and eat my pre-workout snack, and then I'll go do my workout. And currently my workouts take anywhere from 35 to 50 minutes on average, and I'm trying to get back into the routine of doing mobility a few days a week and sitting in the sauna a few days a week. Those things have taken a little bit of a backseat, if I'm being totally honest. And those are two things now. I don't say I don't want to say that I absolutely love doing mobility, but I know it's kind of that another penny in the jar mentality where I know it's benefiting me and I know that I will, it's like playing the long game. Like I know I will benefit from it on down the road, and I just have kind of let it take a back seat, unfortunately. And the sauna, that's something I love to do, but you know, there's just only so many minutes in your morning. And lately I have been sleeping in just a little bit later than I was when I was getting up at 3:45 a.m. when Eric had to leave by 5 15. So the only days that I plan, this might be a little bit gross to some of y'all, but others are probably like, no, I absolutely do this. Um, the only days I'm gonna shower before I get the kids up are the days that I do more cardio-intense days or like conditioning days where I'm gonna be getting really sweaty. Other than that, I'm just going to be showering at night because on the days that I lift, I really don't sweat that much. And I'm already planning on being outside with the kids a lot in the summer, and so I just don't really want to be taking two showers a day. And so I'm just gonna wait and take the shower at night if I don't really sweat during my workout. So I will work out and then I will get my kids up at seven and we will go about our day. So Rafe is my four-year-old, he has an abbreviated summer program. It's a six-week program, and he's only gonna be there from nine to two two days a week. And then Vance, the youngest, he's one year old, one one year old, one year old, one year old. I don't know how to say that. He's gonna be home with me full-time still. He will start a program in the fall, but he's still at home with me full time. Um, but the days that that Rafe is at daycare is when I plan to stack a lot of my work for the week. And Vance has been taking a short morning nap and then a longer afternoon nap, but I'm gonna attempt to switch him to one long nap from 10 45 to 145 so that I can hopefully get a three hour. Work block on the days that Wraith is at school. And I've also mentioned this in my newsletters. I can't remember if I've mentioned it here on the podcast, but I recently hired a virtual assistant and I've been giving her a few tasks here and there and kind of onboarding her. And over the next few weeks, I'm hoping to have her take a full five hours of work off my plate each week as well. And then, like I said, Eric is off on Fridays. So I plan to also stack some morning work on that day each Friday, and then make the afternoons just more family time since he has the day off. And I am intentionally only sending Rafe to daycare or like his abbreviated summer program two days this summer because, you know, they say like they're only little ones. And I have felt that more than ever lately. And so I know for a fact it's going to be a big challenge trying to fit all of my work in while having my childcare essentially cut in half. But um, I'm also not afraid to hire a babysitter some weeks if I feel like I need it for just a few hours to knock some things out. So I also have that in my back pocket. And we got a community pool membership. So my plan is to spend a lot of time there with the kids this summer as well, without feeling like I'm just super behind on tasks. So I know like with my current one-on-one nutrition coaching, I'm not taking any clients right now. Like I'm at full capacity for what I can handle this summer, especially with limited, limited childcare. And so I'm just gonna kind of manage my current workload on, like I said, less than half of the child care that I'm used to. I have to admit this. And if you've been listening to the podcast, then you are like Carly Duh, we know this. But um, I tend to be a little bit of a productivity slave. So I think that being forced to fit more into less hours so that I can then spend more time with my kids is actually going to be a really great thing for me. So that wraps up my week at a glance for what it's gonna look like this summer. But I also wanted to insert this here in case you're new to the podcast. Um, if you can't tell, I'm very passionate about a solid morning routine, and I have recorded a few separate episodes on the subject of morning routines or just habits in general. And I want you to go back and listen to those episodes. So I'm gonna reference them here and I'm also gonna link to them in the show notes. The first one is episode two, which is titled How to Actually Become a Morning Person: Nine Proven Tasks That Make Early Mornings Easier. That is the second most downloaded podcast episode to date. So a lot of you really loved that episode. The next one is episode 12, which is called Weekly Snapshot, How I Stay Fit and Productive as a Stay at Home Work From Home Mom. Like I said, this episode is where I walked you through what my week looked like from this past spring when my husband had to leave the house at 5.15 every morning and I was waking up at 3.45. Um, it just gives you an inside look on how I structured my days to make time for a solid morning routine and to spend time with my kids to manage my workload as an online fitness and nutrition coach and then going on daily outdoor walks, making dinner, the to and froms of everything that kids involve, right? So that was episode 12, the weekly snapshot. Episode 14 is not specifically about mornings, but it's more so just about habits in general. And it was another very popular episode. Episode 14 is called Seven Reasons You Keep Quitting and How to Finally Stop. Like I said, it's not specifically about morning routines, but it's 100% tied to habits and discipline in general. So it is a great supporting episode for someone who's wanting to establish a new habit of earlier mornings. That was episode 14. And the last one, episode 15, is called Stop Winging Your Mornings: How to Use AI to Build a Routine That Actually Sticks. That episode walks you through a script to dump into AI and you can edit it to mirror what you need it to look like. And the blog post for that episode gives you that exact script that you can copy and paste and dump into AI and then edit, like I said, for however you need it to look like when it comes to your specific schedule. That's all for today. Don't forget about the free habit tracker. I'm going to link to that in the show notes. And if you need to offload your workout planning for the summer so that you can have more brain space and less wasted time, I'm going to link to my app subscription in the show notes as well. And if you love this podcast, I would love it so much if you could leave us a rating and review. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, keep adding another penny in the jar.