Hello, fellow tinkerer 👋 -

Happy Wednesday. School starts TOMORROW so that means I'm buried in backpacks, laundry, and other details before the big day.

This year, I have one high schooler, one middle schooler, and one elementary schooler so that means THREE different schools are emailing me on the regular. Please pray for my sanity.

1) Reflection:

The start of the school year usually comes with a big shift in our routine. It's an entire production to get three kids out of the house.

Whenever we go through big routine changes, it's easy to forget that change is hard. Even if it's a change we have chosen. Even if it's necessary.

Give yourself some time to adapt to a new routine. I'd say at least 30 days, but sometimes even that's too short, depending on how big the change is.

Allow yourself to feel out of sorts. Allow yourself to feel a little stressed. Eventually, you'll ease into the new routine.

2) Product:

I use an app called Reflect for note-taking and the makers of Reflect released a Chrome extension. When you open a new tab in Chrome, you get a beautiful dashboard with things like the year's progress, your calendar, and the weather.

I particularly love the year's progression. It's a gentle reminder of the passage of time (as opposed to looking at the calendar and thinking, "How is it August already?!)

You can customize the dashboard depending on what you want to see. Click here to add the extension to Chrome.

3) Tip:

I'm a big fan of digital calendars (my Google calendar is color-coded). BUT I also have a giant whiteboard calendar in my house. This is for the kids: it gives them a visual of what we have going on — especially my youngest, who is seven years old.

Do I love updating two calendars? Not really. But I also recognize that my kids function much better when they know "the plan." Plus, it visually represents what we have going on that month.

Want more ideas?

→ If you're a solopreneur, here are some ways to tame your workload.

→ I've become a big fan of standard operating procedures. Here's how I keep mine organized.

→ I thought this article from the Washington Post on "algospeak" was really interesting.

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That's it for this issue of Tinkering! See you again in two weeks.

Cheers,
Anna

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