Ways I Help My Future Self

When I was telling a dear friend about formalizing/creating “Type A Mom” – a space that gathers all the things I’ve learned during a decade of parenting my three kids and how I use my experience as a Hollywood movie executive to streamline the behind-the-scenes work of modern-day parenting – she said something that was such a lightbulb moment for me. She said, “Oh I get it! You’re helping your future self!” I smiled, because yes, she was right, that is a lot of what I am doing, and what I hope Type A Mom can do for parents – create systems and foundations to help their future selves be ready for whatever parenting situation is thrown at them.

Much of what I do for my family, and what I’ve been writing about here and on Type A Mom’s Instagram (@type__a__mom), seems to fall under “ways I help my future self,” so I thought that I should start laying out some key things I do to help myself. I can think of many examples for how I help my future self, so this feels like the start of a few articles under this same topic! For now, I am starting with the top eight ways I help my future self.

This list is what helps/has helped my future self and I hope it can also help your future self spend more time enjoying your family and less time focusing on the work of modern-day parenting!

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8 WAYS I HELP MY FUTURE SELF

1. Follow My Dinner Meal Planning: I have a system where I do not “meal prep” (I can’t ever find enough time on a Sunday to cook for the entire upcoming week and I’m definitely never alone in my kitchen to concentrate on cooking all that food!) but instead I “dinner meal plan.” What dinner meal planning means to me is that on Sunday (after I’ve filled out the upcoming week’s activities on our wall calendar aka “Map of the Week”) I make plan for what each weeknight’s dinner will be and I write it down on the wall calendar. I take into account what food I need to use up in my house and what I realistically have time to cook each weekday. In this way I help my future self by doing the intense thinking about dinners just once for the week and then each day I simply follow my plan and make what I’ve written down. I have found that this style of meal planning takes away the stress of staring into a fridge every night panicking about what I actually have time to make that people will eat! Plus, a wonderful bonus to this planning is it also helps not waste what food we have, we can track when things expire and we can eat them before then, and therefore we won’t waste time and money buying extra food when we already have plenty available at home.

2. Add Details Into the Family Digital Calendar: I have a family Gmail account that is on my phone and my husband’s phone. Each person in the family has a different color calendar under that main family email calendar that shows their appointments and activities. Setting up and using the family digital calendar is a way I help my future self, but specifically, the major way I help my future self is when I add in an appointment I add every detail that someone will need to cover that appointment. Details like where to park, the name of the coach, what uniform items to bring, what time it exactly starts and ends, etc., help my future self immensely because either I can just follow what I listed in the appointment or my husband (or other caregivers) can follow what is there and not have to ask me (or whomever added the appointment) how to handle that activity!
3. Run the Dishwasher Every Night: My husband and I load the dishwasher every night, and we run it. Even if it’s 2/3 full we run it, but we don’t wait for it to finish and unload it late at night. In the morning we come in to a fresh start that is ready for the breakfast and lunch packing chaos. We never have to frantically wash a lunch box to be ready for that day, or a spoon because we’ve run out and the kids are having oatmeal, because we can just grab the clean item from the dishwasher. It’s an effort at the end of the day to load the dishes and run them, but having all the dishes clean and available the next morning helps reduce the sometimes stressful morning rush.
4. Input All School Holidays into the Family Calendar Before the School Year Begins: I’m writing this at the end of June and my three kids (ages 10, 8, 4) are going to two different elementary schools this fall. That means a lot of different days off, different start and dismissal times, different parent teacher conference dates, different school performance dates, etc. Usually around the end of June the next school year calendar is available, so this is when I add all those dates into my family’s digital calendar. I give myself until mid-July to get this all inputted (I usually do a few months at a time while sitting with the kids in their rooms as the fall asleep) and then I don’t think about it again unless there is an announcement from school about a change of some sort. This really helps my future self because I can relax knowing that all the school dates are in the calendar so it will be rare that something will surprise me – I can look weeks or months ahead and see when the kids have a day off or an early dismissal and I can prepare and not have a last minute panic!
5. Prep Laundry for Folding Before I Wash It: For me, the most annoying thing about laundry is folding it! So, to help my future self, when I put things into the laundry basket I always put them “inside right” – aka I put clothes into the laundry the way I want them to be ready for me to fold. This small effort has been so helpful because it cuts down on my folding time and therefore lessens how I annoyed I get doing it😉 Plus, it’s easier to see stains on the kids’ clothes when they’re inside right and I can spray them before putting them into the washer!
6. Plan Packing Kid Lunches the Night Before: Morning breakfast and lunch packing is often chaotic and pressured because the kids usually have to be out the door fully prepared for their day by a specific time. To help my future self reduce some of that stress, I do a couple of things the night before to prepare for packing lunches:
   1. Fill water bottles and put them into the fridge.
   2. Put snacks that won’t spoil (pretzels, dried fruit) into lunch bags so that part is done.
   3. Think of a plan for each kids’ lunch (my three kids like different things because of allergies/age/preference) and write it on a Post-it note – then I just follow that “menu” the next morning instead of wasting precious time panic-staring into the fridge trying to conjure up something they’ll eat!

7. Buy Holiday Clothes Early: Thanksgiving comes really quickly after Halloween and then right after Thanksgiving are the winter holidays which are filled with many family and school events that require fancier clothes than what my kids’ usually wear. There are great clothing sales at the end of October and this is when I buy my kids’ holiday clothes because usually none of the outfits from the year before still fit! By buying those special occasion (and therefore rarely worn) clothes at the end of October I can get them on sale and I can make sure they arrive in time to try them on and exchange/return as needed before Thanksgiving arrives. That is definitely a way I help my future self!
8. Create a List of Backup Plans: I posted on Instagram about how wonderful lazy days can be with kids at home after a busy week at school or after the end of the busy school year. But, I also know the reality of kids getting cabin fever on those days and how I can then turn into a referee instead of a fun coach, and how that isn’t enjoyable for anyone! So, on those cabin fever days I turn to my “Lazy Days Backup Plan” list. I have a “notes” document in my phone that I’ve built which lists different activities we can go do and the times these things are open and what food is available at each place. Setting up a backup plans notes document helps my future self because if I’m in a cabin fever moment with my kids I just look up my backup plans ideas, quickly choose one that works for our day, and we go – it’s a huge help on those chaotic days when I have no bandwidth to be creative about where to go and what to do!

Those are eight of the “Ways I Help My Future Self” and I hope they can help your future self too. As I reviewed this list, I realized that a many of these ideas have me doing the “heavy thinking” ahead of time and I acknowledge the extra effort that carving out time to do these things can take. But, I’m a decade into parenting and after much trial and error, I’ve found these “ways to help my future self” worth that extra “ahead of time” effort. For example, on the mornings that my kids are fighting putting on sunscreen so it takes three times as long to get them out the door, I am relieved that I can quickly fill my kids’ lunchboxes on autopilot by using my Post-it note menu. It’s my hope that these ideas and ahead of time planning can help you handle those unpredictable and sometimes intense moments of parenting with extra energy - if you’ve helped your future self by planning what can be planned ahead of time then I hope it leaves room for more bandwidth to react to inevitable real-time issues that arise.

Please reply to this email to let me know if you have questions that I can help you with as you streamline the behind-the-scenes work of managing your family. I’m here to help!

Xo, Amanda, your Type A Mom friend