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I don’t know about you, but summers have a way of slipping through my fingers. June starts with the best intentions, and then suddenly it’s Labor Day and I’m standing in my kitchen thinking, wait, what did I actually do this summer?
This year, I decided that wasn’t happening. This stage of life has a way of making you pay attention to how you spend your seasons. After years of managing everyone else’s calendars (family schedules, work, all of it), I finally sat down and asked: what does my summer look like?
And it starts with a ritual. A real one. Here’s exactly what I did.
Step 1: The Brain Dump (Don’t Skip This One)
Before you open any calendar or planner, just dump. Get a fresh page and write down every single thing you want to do, feel, accomplish, or experience this summer. Not a to-do list. More like a bucket list that doesn’t have to be perfect.
Mine looked like: a weekend getaway we’d been talking about for two years, finally finishing a home project we’d put off, real time with my daughter now that she’s stepping into her own next chapter, outdoor dinners, getting back to walking every morning.
Don’t edit yourself. Just get it all out.
I’ve been doing this in a lined leather journal because I like having one spot that holds all my planning, not scattered sticky notes on the refrigerator. Something with space to write freely, not just check boxes.
Step 2: Pick Your Three Main Priorities
Here’s where the magic happens, and where most people skip too quickly.
Once you have your brain dump, read back through it and circle the three things that would make this summer feel genuinely different. Not the most impressive. Not the most productive. The ones that would make you feel like yourself at the end of it.
Mine were: spending real time with my daughter now that she’s in this new chapter of her life, getting serious about my morning walks again, and making actual progress on a home project instead of just planning it.
Three. That’s it. Everything else on your list is a bonus.
Step 3: Build Your Monthly Calendars
Now you can open your calendar. Pull up June, July, and August, either physical or digital, whatever you’ll actually use, and start placing the non-negotiables first.
The trips. The celebrations. The events you can’t miss. Get them anchored before you start filling in the everyday stuff. When you can see the whole summer laid out, it stops feeling like a blur and starts feeling like something you designed.
I like having a visual wall or desk calendar in the kitchen for this. Something I can actually see. A wall calendar like this one works so much better for me than only keeping things in my phone, because when it’s visible, it actually exists in my brain.
The Tools I’m Using
If you want to do this alongside me, here’s what I’d grab:
- A good planner or undated journal: this one, something you actually want to open. Not the one you bought in January that lives in your junk drawer.
- A visual calendar for the kitchen: this one, seeing the whole summer at a glance changes how you plan it.
- A set of nice markers: Staedtler double-ended markers, 36-pack, this sounds small, but creating with colors you love makes you actually want to do the planning. Don’t underestimate this.
You Deserve a Summer You Designed
I spent a lot of years in survival mode. Managing everyone else’s needs, keeping everyone else’s schedules. This is the chapter where I get to be intentional about my own life, and summer is the perfect place to practice that.
This ritual takes maybe 30 minutes. Pour yourself a coffee, sit somewhere quiet, and do it. I promise you’ll feel the difference immediately.
Next in the series: Why I’m Finally Putting Myself on the Calendar This Summer →
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