School’s out and summer’s here! For many of us, summer signals a new slightly more relaxed schedule – time off from school or work, weekend or week-long trips and fewer regular commitments. Despite the lack of structure, summer can still be a great time to get some of your organizing projects done. Start your summer off right by creating your summer project list. This should be a list of a few – no more than 5 – projects that you want to complete by the end of the season. It can be whatever you want, but I recommend choosing projects that give you some enjoyment to capture that spirit of summer fun!
Start with a brainstorming session. Jot down all your unfinished home or personal projects, or things you’ve wanted to do but just haven’t made time for. If you have kids at home, you might include some projects that can involve your kids – such as curating their art and schoolwork or donating outgrown toys and clothes. If you have a chunk of kid-free or distraction-free time, consider tackling a tougher project you’ve been avoiding – cleaning out the basement, tackling boxes you haven’t opened since you moved, etc. You can reward yourself with dinner and a nice cold drink after your hard day(s) of work!
Here’s my list (so far):
- Catch up on family photos. For me, this means whittling down our digital pics to the best (I do lots of deleting!) and saving them in our cloud storage with a folder for each month/year. My next step is creating a hard-cover family photo album using Shutterfly for each year – this isn’t hard since I’ve already edited our collection to the best. I’ve kept up with this process for the most part, but I’m a bit behind this year, so I plan to catch up this summer.
- Creating art/schoolwork binders for my kids. We wrote more about curating kids art/schoolwork last week, so check out that post if you missed it.
- Working my way through the pile of books on my nightstand. I’ve ramped up my reading this year – which makes me really happy – but in my enthusiasm, I’ve collected a small pile of want-to-read books. I plan to make my way through that pile this summer!
I may add one or two more home projects, but I’m trying to keep it small and realistic and recommend that you do too! Happy summer!
