How To Organize Your Busy Summer Schedule

Today, I want to share tips for how to organize your busy summer schedule. Most of us struggle to stay organized or follow any kind of routine in the summer. That’s just how summers usually go. And that’s a good thing. That probably just means your having a great summer. Even though your weekly and daily schedule are far from typical compared to the rest of the year, it’s still possible to put together a weekly plan to live your fun eventful life and still get essential tasks done.

If you’ve read much of my blog, you know I’m very routine-oriented. I just like having a daily and weekly routine to get things done. I usually plan my week with a specific day for each task such as cleaning day, errand day, etc.

At the beginning of June, as I was looking at my calendar for the summer, I realized this summer is unusually busy. I was wondering how to get through it, enjoy it, and still get important things done. I knew if I tried to follow a schedule that works the rest of the year, I wouldn’t get everything done and it would just be very frustrating.

Just for the summer, I decided to change my typical schedule and routines to a more flexible schedule. Instead of trying to follow a typical, ideal weekly routine, I’m planning my week by prioritizing. Today, I’m going to share with you how I’m doing that. Hopefully, it will help you to re-think how you approach your time in these busy summer months and how to organize your busy summer schedule.

How To Organize Your Busy Summer Schedule

Plan your week using time blocks. To read how to do this, click here.
Each week, write in all work hours, events, and appointments. This includes everything that must be done at a specific time.
On paper, list all your tasks for the week in priority order. See below for how I usually prioritize my week. *
Start with each task in the list, beginning with the highest prority task, and fill in each available time block from Monday to Sunday. As much as possible, try to do your highest priority tasks early in the week. Then do your lower priority tasks after that, which will be later in the week.
If your week is full every week and lower priority tasks keep getting pushed out, you might need to make them a higher priority the following week to make sure they get done at least every other week. For example, cleaning your house could get done less often, but it still needs to get done eventually.

* How I usually prioritize my week:

Events, appointments, and other time specific things
Miscellaneous errands. (These can usually be conveniently done on the way home from appointments)
Preparing for upcoming events. This would include things such as birthdays, vacations, weddings, family get-togethers, or anything that requires some preparation on your part. ( See below for how I organize event prep.) *
Phone calls
Budget and bills
Grocery shopping
Cleaning, organizing projects, and home maintenance

*How to organize event prep:

Make a checklist for each event in the summer that requires some preparation on your part. On your checklist, be sure to include when you need to do each item.
Each week, when planning out your week, look at each checklist to see what needs to be done that week for each upcoming event.
Spread out your event prep tasks so that you work on each event a little every week.
Try to combine event prep tasks with your usual tasks, as much as possible. For instance, do birthday shopping while doing other errands.
Check off each completed item and congratulate yourself for getting so much done!

Each week throughout the summer, approach your weekly plans using this system and you will:

Enjoy your summer events.
Enjoy preparing for events with an organized system.
Live your life, knowing you’re getting your highest priority tasks done.
Be less stressed about lower priority things not getting done.
Remember this is for summer survival. You can get back to a regular routine in the fall.