It's been the first week of school in our community, and wow, it's so easy to forget how much work and overwhelm that brings with it for parents. From forms to purchases to routines to design and so many messages with important details coming in apps, emails, and flyers - it requires a ton of capacity. If you work with parents of school-aged children, be gentle with them in the coming weeks. If you are a parent of school-aged kids, what can you set aside this month to make things a little easier?
Psst- be sure you read to the bottom because we've got a book giveaway this week!
Emails You Can't Deal with Immediately - I got a question from one of you (hi Meaza!) this week about how to deal with emails that you need to respond to but can't yet (because you're waiting on something, because you haven't yet done the work you need to do to respond, etc.). I made her a 2-minute video to describe how I handle that situation in both Outlook and Gmail. You can watch it here.
Back to School Family Reset - my friend Rachel does a back-to-school family reset every year around this time, and last year she did a workshop about it that I attended. I got excellent ideas from it, and I was thrilled to see she's doing it again this year! It was so popular that she's offering 2 different times this year - one next week and one the week after. Imagine starting the school year with your whole family on the same page - screen rules, morning and evening routines, breakfast menus, chore plans, even what to pack for lunch. Go ahead and register (it's free!) because spots are limited.
Easy Dinners - you might remember that we switched this summer to getting 2 Home Chef meals each week so that my kids could each cook one meal per week during this slower season. It went really well. But now that we're back in school, we need an even easier option, so we've pivoted back to Cook Unity for 2 dinners a week, which are chef-cooked and you just warm them up. They add diversity to our diet because the options are rarely things we'd make on our own, and are always delicious and super easy for those intense nights when everyone's going different directions. We've got chicken enchiladas and lobster ravioli coming this Sunday to our porch, and we're glad to be back in this rhythm. My friend code JEA9412850 will get you $50 off if you want to try it.
When You're Overwhelmed By the World - This recent episode of The Lazy Genius podcast was a great quick listen if you're feeling deeply concerned by the state of the world and the constant barrage of bad news (like I am). The tips are super practical for applying Kendra's "lazy genius" principles to this particular challenge.
Keep Scissors in the Closet - I love a good tiny tip, don't you? Here's one for you today - if you're not keeping scissors somewhere in or near your closet, consider it. It's so helpful to fix a string hanging off your clothes or cut off a tag when you buy something new. If you have other "unorthodox" places where you keep things to make your life easier, hit reply and tell me about them!
Last Friday's Most-Clicked Link:Jamie's "grid" strategy for planning his workday - by a mile more than any other link! Y'all loved this tip as much as I did.
Get Organized This Fall for Peace & Productivity The cohort is rapidly filling and closes 2 weeks from today!
Book Giveaway
We reached 16,000 subscribers to Friday Five this week! We will drop down (probably by a few thousand) again in a few weeks, because folks who don't open my emails are automatically unsubscribed after a month or two (I like to keep the list fresh with engaged folks). Still, every time we reach another 1,000 mark, we'll do another book giveaway! Click below and 3 of you will win a book of your choice.
Enter here and I'll randomly pick 3 of you and send you a book of your choice to celebrate reaching 16k Friday Five subscribers!
