Cara Harvey 00:00:03 Welcome to the Purpose Driven Moms show here at A Purpose Driven Mom, we believe that it’s possible to manage your home, work on your personal goals, and grow and scale in online business. Most productivity tips out there tell you to hustle more and make you feel shame about not being motivated enough. And we’re here to dispel this myth. I’m Kara Harvey, and I am on a mission to help work at home. Moms realize that they have the power to go after their dreams, take care of themselves, and manage their home without perfectionism, guilt, or having to sacrifice their sleep. If you’re ready to shift your thinking around productivity and get some practical tips to help you manage your mom life. Toss your earbuds in while you fold the laundry. And let’s do this! Welcome to the purpose of our Moms Show episode 472. Today, I’m going to give you a framework for the August Power one hour that you can use to set up for a successful fall, a successful back to school. I don’t know when your kids go back to school.

Cara Harvey 00:00:59 My kids, actually, they go back to school the 25th of August. So we’re preparing for it. Some people in the community have been talking to their kids. Go have already started right back to school is here. I am going to help you today. Feel more together, feel more connected and less frazzled when it comes to school. Every year, August 1st hits right and I’m like, oh my gosh, the summer went so fast. I’m feeling behind. I can’t believe we should go back to school shopping. But I realized if I could just take one hour focused, I could actually go into the back to school season with less stress and a better plan. And that’s what we’re going to do today. Show notes for this episode are going to be at a Purpose Driven Mom com slash podcast for 72. All right. Now a power hour. You might have heard the phrase before. It is a focused hour. This is uninterrupted 60 minutes. And before you tune me out and you’re like, Kara, everybody’s home.

Cara Harvey 00:01:54 It’s summer. I don’t have it. I want to encourage you to find it. I want to encourage you to head to the library, to the coffee shop to ask for help from your partner, from an in law, from somebody in your village to get an focused, uninterrupted 60 minutes. It is going to help you reset. It’s going to help you plan and it’s going to help you prepare. Okay. You do not need five days. You don’t need three weeks. If you could really be focused in this intentional time. Now here’s the thing. The distractions throw us off. My kids are my distraction. We have nothing for August. We had a couple trips planned that got canceled. At this moment when I’m recording this, it’s the end of July. I’m not sure what August is going to look like, except what I do know is my kids don’t have camp, which means I’m going to be very distracted, but I’m going to do my best to get this hour into my own power hour.

Cara Harvey 00:02:43 Okay? And you can as well. The fall is really overwhelming for us moms. It also is kind of like our Super Bowl a little bit. You know, we talk about January 1st and September as being our time. And we’ve been talking about this in the Purpose Driven Moms club, which if you want to come check us out? Go to a purpose driven mom call. You need a $10 pass and just come once a week to see what we’re all about. We’re just talking about this the other day about how the calendar is split into four chunks. But in reality, for us moms, it’s really like trimesters, right? We have from January to summer, all of summer, and then from September to winter break. This is our busy time of year. That shift from loose summer days right back to packed schedules. It can feel jarring. I’ve really enjoyed our summer so far. It’s been personally a lot happening, but we’ve been able to carve out some really great routines. My daughter and I, we spend our time together at night.

Cara Harvey 00:03:38 We have the most fun evening routine, and this is one of the things in my power. I want to figure out how I can keep this going even with our busy nights. We start with a little face wash. My daughter is nine so she’s very in her skincare era, which means face wash and lotion. And I’m in my 40s era of like, let me put three layers on to work on these fine lines and wrinkles. I was struggling to find accountability with my skincare and my daughter was like, I’ll do it with you, mommy. So at night we do our face, and while some of the serums are soaking in, we do a ten minute yoga stretch or less 5 to 10 minutes. Because again, I’m in my 40s now and I don’t know about you, but I find if I don’t stretch before bed, I wake up so sore. So I now need to take time to stretch before bed. And then while that next layer soaks in, we read a chapter, sometimes two if she can convince me of a book.

Cara Harvey 00:04:24 So so far this summer we finished The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe. That was our first and we are almost done. We’re a little over halfway done with The Lightning Thief, Percy Jackson, which is, oh my, I don’t know what took me so long to read this. It’s so good. So we read together this evening. Routine, though, works for us now because my kids don’t go to bed till like nine 3945. Right. We have summer nights. I’m not as worried about us getting up in the morning because even if we have camp, my daughter is away at overnight camp this week. My son is at a basketball camp that’s five minutes from my house and doesn’t actually start till nine. We have more time. Now I’m thinking, how do we shift this? How do we go back to still having this 30 minute evening routine when she now has cheer practice? Right. That doesn’t even end till 830. We have Girl Scouts. My son has baseball. Like, how are we going to do that? It is jarring and hopefully I listen to my own advice here and put less on our plate in the fall, because I have found that that has been the key to really enjoying and having this time together.

Cara Harvey 00:05:24 Right? But then there’s also the new routines, the new school schedule, the calendars, the holidays, as soon as we hit September, I think our mom brain is immediately like, and it’s almost Christmas, right? Like, we just go there and now we’ve got that load back on us of planning the back to school paperwork, the meal planning. I, you know, my kids, like I said, they had a couple weeks off of camp where they needed like a lunch. They did a half day VBS last week, so I didn’t have to pack up lunch. My daughter’s away, but I have to pack my son and my this week and next week. They both need lunches. Man, it’s nice not packing lunch right now. I have to go back to packing lunches, getting them to be okay with the transitions, worrying about that. You know, my son is going into second grade, my daughter is going into fourth and my oldest is going to be a college freshman. So the emotional load of are they okay, what’s going on? Especially with my daughter.

Cara Harvey 00:06:15 The pre puberty, puberty stuff like the emotions are high. What is it going to be like for her. It weighs on me right. You are not only just managing the logistics, but you are managing the emotions and the expectations, right? So no wonder Fall and Back to School feels heavy. What if instead we make this plan? All right. So we’re going to go through the step by step five parts of your August power arc. Have you been wondering how you can make AI and ChatGPT a tool you use, and not something that overwhelms or irritates you? I know I did not want any part in the AI when I heard about it a few years ago, but now ChatGPT has become my personal assistant. I have put together 40 of my favorite prompts specifically for moms to help you manage your schedule, break down your goals, create meal plans, and more. You can go to a Purpose driven mom AI prompts and grab these absolutely for free, and start using the ChatGPT tools for good and helping your day feel lighter and better.

Cara Harvey 00:07:18 That’s a purpose driven mom. I promise. Again, if you can get the time, cool. If not, these things can be done in 15 minute chunks, which is obviously what I teach because we can’t always get the time. So take this with best goal. You get an hour and you’re able to sit and do it. Better goal is you do it in small chunks okay? Part one is always the reflection process. We have a five step process we use where we go through what’s called the reflection pyramid, which I’m going to encourage you to do for your summer. Okay. You’re going to go through and I’m going to go through the reflection pyramid now, and then I’m going to ask a couple more questions to pull some things out for you. Okay. What were your highlights of your summer? We always do this because it’s important to anchor in the win, in the positivity. Even though, like I mentioned, this summer has been challenging for me with family stuff going on, my immediate family, I have so many wins there, right? I then want you to go through and ask yourself what the hard parts are.

Cara Harvey 00:08:14 What have been the struggles? What have been the things that did not go well? What felt hard for you? Okay, that’s important to just recognize. I tried to do all these things this summer. This is what was challenging. This is where I’m at. I then want you to write down three pieces of gratitude. Three things you’re just grateful for at the time with the kids, maybe. And for me, honestly, my gratitude is like the extra time with my kids. My gratitude is also the weeks that they were at camp where I can sit and batch out. My plan this week is to record the next six podcast episodes so I can get ahead, because I will not have any quiet space to record in August. So if it’s not done this week or next week, it’s going to be a challenge to get done, so I’m also grateful for that. What about you? Two things that you’re proud of. Two ways that you showed up and one lesson you learned. And then I want you to look back in summer and ask yourself, are there things that we didn’t get to? Because again, it’s August, so maybe your summer is over.

Cara Harvey 00:09:05 Maybe it’s not. And what would you like to take into the fall? So for me, this is that evening routine. I love spending time with my daughter. Like, we sit up there reading our book and giggling like, if this is not girlhood, right? Like we are having just such a wonderful time together, I want to make sure that we take this into the fall. Write down those things that you’re like. These were great things. I take walks with my son and my husband. Actually. He walked with my son two miles this morning. My son is going to be eight at the end of the summer. Actually, I cannot believe it. We were joking this morning at our team meeting and I saw this meme or whatever, and it was like no parent on Facebook couldn’t believe that their kid is any age they are turning. And I was like, true, because every time there’s a birthday, I’m like.

Cara Harvey 00:09:48 I can’t believe it, right?

Cara Harvey 00:09:50 But he’s gonna be eight.

Cara Harvey 00:09:51 My husband took him for a walk this morning. We’ve been doing more of that. I want to make sure we take that into the fall. What about you? Okay, so take a ten minutes to chunk to reflect. All right. I want you to ask yourself, what do I want to keep? What do I want to let go of what has worked and what hasn’t? This will help you make a plan for September and beyond. All right. Part two of our Power hour is calendar prep. Now we have a command center that we love and that we use. It has our calendar. We keep like meals on it, where all the post-its or the sticky notes and the thumbtacks of all the papers. Okay. We also use a Google calendar that works. I want you to pull out all the calendars, school calendars, sports schedules, big days. Now again, school might have already started for you when this episode comes out. I think it’s closer to the end of August, so my kids will have already started.

Cara Harvey 00:10:33 So I’ve already done this activity. But the sooner you can do it, the better. Go through the school calendar and make sure it gets on all the places you need to get to. So for me, I did this in July early July because as a Girl Scout leader, I need to plan out our Girl Scout meetings and I need to do it based on the school schedule, because we meet Mondays and there are so many Mondays off of school. But also I need my daughter’s cheer schedule, which is knock knock knock. What I’m waiting on now to get. We’ve knocked on our com schedule for the winter and I’m like, I need this, right? Pull those things out. Put them on your calendar, your family calendar. Look at that sports schedule. Ask yourself, what day of the week are we doing things? Big dates again. My son’s birthday is coming up. One of the things my husband and I need to plan is when we’re going to go down to visit my kid at college.

Cara Harvey 00:11:14 Now, homecoming is like a very big deal at his school. I think my husband is my stepson and my husband, his mom, are probably going to go down for that, but I would like to also like have a trip where we take the kids down. When do we want to do that? Like those are the big things we need to start planning. He’s going to be going down to Atlanta. We live in Philadelphia, so he’s not coming home for Thanksgiving break. We have family down there, thankfully, but he’ll be home for winter break. So maybe we go down like what does that look like start to block off now. Non-Negotiables. Look at the dates. What are the days that you know you might need some help? So my husband is in a couple community groups that he joined this year. So he now has meetings going into the school year. He didn’t have last school year. He’s on a school board for one of the charter schools. He now has all these other commitments.

Cara Harvey 00:11:54 He’s thinking about applying for school, like to go back for his PhD. So there’s a lot that we have to like, navigate around. Also, my kids schedule my daughter’s on a different cheer team. Her practices are different times. Okay, I want you to go ahead and at least September, if not September through December. Do the calendar now. Now again, I put all the kids off dates in my calendar. Now I put all of my son’s my oldest, like when he has break, etc. all those go in our Google account now, but I want you to at least look at September, if not beyond, and check those things that are like potential sticking points, right? Those ones where you’re like, I know I’m going to need help these days. I know we can’t do these things. I know we wanted it. We didn’t get to go camping at all so far this summer, and I don’t know if we’re going to be able to swing it with everything we’ve had go on.

Cara Harvey 00:12:39 We had some hiccups that threw off our schedule. Do we want to do fall camping? Right? Can we do fall camping? Because my daughter has practices on Sundays. I don’t know. Like, these are things we figure out when you look at September’s calendar. I also want you to take one buffer day. That is a nothing day. You will thank me later, right? One day where you’re like, we have nothing. Maybe it’s a whole day where you’re like, I’m off work, too. That’s always a bonus. It’s rare that I’m able to find a complete nothing day of no work. I typically take Thursdays off of work, and if I choose to work, you know, then I will. And if not, then I don’t. But I try to make sure my kids have one nothing day as well, especially multiple kids. If you know that multiple sport schedules, once everything starts, sometimes, like we’re out almost every night of the week, we try to keep Fridays open, but it fills up quickly.

Cara Harvey 00:13:28 So kind of go through and make sure you at least have that one day for your kids as well. And remember, we’re also managing their transition. It is a shock to go from whatever we feel like doing summer right? Less, you know, everything’s just a little blurred to now we have to be here any dinner at this time, and we have to be at this event. And the rushing and the nervous system is high. And like all those things, give your kids that as well, especially those first couple weeks of school. Try not to jam too much stuff in is like something we’re doing for my son, his birthday, September 5th, and we want to go out and celebrate. He’s not having a party. He wants to go to Kalahari, which is like an indoor waterpark, and that’s what he wanted to do. So we’re going to do that for a couple days, one day or two day for his birthday celebration. And I said to my husband, I’m like, I think we should just do it early.

Cara Harvey 00:14:13 Like in August, my husband is able to get more days off in August. He could not not get any days off in July at all. So August he’s able to get like a weekday off. I’m more flexible with work, you know, we’re able to do that early. And then on his birthday, which happens to be a Friday, we’ll probably invite like some local family over for cake and pizza and like, that’ll be it because it’s going to be really challenging to be like school starts the 25th. Oh, and then it’s your birthday and now we’re taking a trip and like there’s no settling. So trying to plan those things, you know, is helpful if you don’t already have a shared family calendar. Please do. Right. We have a big one that we keep. I think I’m probably the only one who looks at that one, but me and my husband share a Google calendar and it is just we have to. We absolutely have to. And then can I give you a pro tip? Because this is the rule we have in our family that we stick to 90% of the time, unless something else comes up and it’s if you are last to add to the calendar, you are responsible for child care.

Cara Harvey 00:15:09 So if, for example, I have book club on the calendar, which means my husband is in charge of the kids, I’m going to book club, right? Like so if I have something on the calendar, he knows that. And or if he has a meeting for one of the things he does on his calendar. And then I go to add something. I mean, either of us can still do it, but you need to find childcare. You know, I need to call my mother in law. She was so thankful for her. You know, she lives about a half hour away. She tends to, you know, come over or get a babysitter or, you know, I’m very thankful that I have a really great village of friends. So if I need somebody to just, like, watch my kid for a day or a couple of hours, not a full day, but like a couple hours. I am not able to do it. But you’re in charge and that works so good for us.

Cara Harvey 00:15:48 Because I can take my husband. You have this meeting, but my thing was on here first. You know, unless it is something that is like, really pressing and he has to do it and we can’t figure it out, like, one of us will be flexible. But that tends to work because it shares the ownership a little bit. So just pro calendaring tip. I want to pause real quick and tell you about one of my incredible friends, Denise, and what she’s doing over at her site. Denise, if you’re looking to declutter your busy mom mind and your home, you’ve come to a place. From juggling family schedules, meal planning, budgeting, and more, this is going to help you get all the solutions in one spot. Listen, Denise is a mom of three. She understands what it’s like and in this digital age, downloading all of your thoughts and your plans to your mind onto paper can make it feel like it’s 1997, right? But we know what it’s like to have a clear head.

Cara Harvey 00:16:35 You can get planners, tools, and her incredible app where you can organize all of your kids photos, artwork, and more. If you’re trying to keep your space cleared and get rid of the paper clutter, you’re going to want to check out all that this has to offer. Her app has been a game changer. I will get pictures sent over from the teacher and I don’t want to lose them. I don’t want to forget about them so I can store them in the app, label them first grade Isaiah and go back to them every single year. She’s got a solution to keep the kids memories in a place, and not all the paper drawings of the Pokemon that I don’t need anymore. Her Class Keeper app is a game changer. No more piles, no more glue guns to make scrapbooks, and your mom guilt for not having it all beautifully organized. I want you to go over to a purpose driven mom. That’s a purpose driven mom keeper that’s gonna link you over to all of niece’s free printables to get organized in your routines together.

Cara Harvey 00:17:30 All of the incredible journals and planners she has, and her incredible Class Keeper app. That’s a purpose driven romcom keeper. All right. Part three of our Power Hour is a gold check. I want you to go back to your 2025 goals. I want you to look at the ones that you plan for yourself and go through and kind of categorize them. Which ones do I want to continue working on and move into this next season of life? Which ones have I accomplished or made progress on? Because sometimes it’s not so much about did I complete the goals? I made progress on them, and I’m okay with if I’ve made progress on something, but I didn’t quote unquote achieve it. Am I okay with blessing and releasing that? Because that’s column three. Which ones don’t work? Which ones are not the ones that I’m going to put on this last trimester of my day, knowing what’s happening, knowing that I’m now that I’ve done my calendar, that I’m moving into busy sports season, busy school season, back to school for me, I’m the registrar for our town’s Girl Scouts, which means I help form all the troops.

Cara Harvey 00:18:31 So back to school season for me is not so. I am at every back to school night. We have six elementary schools. I am registering kids like I have a lot going on that it’s often hard for me to say, do I still want to go for this goal? So, for example, I said I wanted to get back into running this year. I did run A5K and I said, I want to do a ten K. I’m blessed in releasing this goal. I just don’t have the time for it. It really isn’t something I feel like I want to do anymore. I’m okay with that. Which goal still matter? And then I want you to pick just one. One personal goal and one family goal. So there’s a difference there. I work with a lot of moms and there, you know, my goal is to declutter my house. Cool. That’s a home goal. My goal is to have game nights with my kids. Great. That’s a family goal. What is one personal goal you want to do for you? A book you want to read? Exercise of craft.

Cara Harvey 00:19:20 Friends you want to see? Like what is something you want to do for you? Just make sure that that’s on there and stick with that for the next 90 days. Because what we’re about to go into is the wild back to school and end of year sprint. I’ll be hosting my end of year planning workshop in September, and it always feels early, like, oh my gosh, how are we playing at the end of the school year? And then we get there and I’m like, nope, we should have done it earlier, right? We just finished up a couple weeks ago, my back to school school year sanity one day workshop event. And at first, a lot of moms were like, I’m not ready to think about it. I don’t want to do it. We have the event on July 31st. By the time you start thinking about back to school, it’s sometimes feels too late. You want to do it before it’s pressing. Okay, I want you to pick these goals now, knowing what’s about to happen.

Cara Harvey 00:20:03 You’ve just looked at your calendar, knowing what’s on your plate. Okay, the next part is a reset on your routines. We’ve worked on a couple new routines this summer brushing teeth before bed, making your beds, putting away your backpacks and lunches which I don’t know why. Like, my kids just never did that. And so I’m very happy that we did that whenever they had camp. And then also shoes. It was like, if you don’t have camp, like your shoes need to be in the bin, please stop. Flop in your shoes. When my kid will literally walk in the house and just like, kick his foot and a croc goes flying. I don’t know if this happens to anyone else, right? Like shoes go in the bin. Right. And we had a fourth one and I can’t remember what it is, but those were the three ones that were like. No, those were the three. Those are the three we worked on in July. Now, as we move into August, I’m going to pick a couple more routines, because one of the things I noticed last summer when I reflected and thought about this summer was that we lose a lot of our routines, and then it feels like it takes forever to get them back on track.

Cara Harvey 00:20:55 When school starts. I want you to revisit your routines now. Look at the morning, look at after school, look at dinner routines, and look at bedtime routines. Ask yourself which one is my biggest sticking point for the next week for September, and you’re just going to work on one to optimize because stuff’s going to happen in the morning, right? Stuff’s going to happen at night, but you just want to really have one focusing okay. So ask yourself like where do I keep saying I don’t have time? Things feel frazzled, right? So for me, our mornings I’m not as worried about I’m worried about getting up on time. But I think that’ll fall down like fall together. I’ve kept my own personal morning routine In pretty much all summer, even though it didn’t happen at the same time because it was a rhythm, right? I may not have always gotten up at 530 6:00, but I still did the same things. Our bedtime routines, I feel like are pretty solid, so I’m not too worried about those, but that after school routine I know I want to work on them.

Cara Harvey 00:21:53 I want to reinforce putting the book bags away. I want to homework. I don’t know what fourth grade homework is going to look like, right? So getting homework done. My kids have not done homework all summer. We’ve read. My daughter plays the cello, so she’s practiced her cello once a week with all the other stuff we need to start doing. And we have to do with urgency because we have sports. And so if we have to be out of the house by 535, 45 to get to a 6:00 sport, we not only need to have dinner, but get homework done because they’re not home till late. So I know that’s the time I’m focusing on for September. Our big focus is that 3 to 6 block. So what is yours? Once you’ve picked it, make a plan around one routine and then when you’re ready, move to the next one. You could pick one a week. You could really focus on one a month. Don’t try to do them all at once. Okay.

Cara Harvey 00:22:40 And then the next part is I want you to think about prepping and resetting your space. So plan out one area that you’re going to reset for this upcoming week. And then each week pick a different one. Your planner your command center. The kitchen. The flat surfaces, my kitchen table. My poor kitchen table is just a catch. All right? Now, currently on my kitchen table. I’m just thinking because I just mopped. So I was like, just in the kitchen there is an undone Lego Perla beads that are half finished but not created. There’s drinks that we brought home from a graduation party yesterday that just need to, like, go in the fridge. I think we pretty much we still have some mail and don’t don’t quote me on this, but my son’s breakfast plate is probably still sitting there and it’s like noon, right? Because we’ve been using our kitchen table as a catchall, and because we’ve had less urgency all summer, I haven’t felt the need to be as on top of the kitchen zones.

Cara Harvey 00:23:29 Okay, so maybe kitchen zone your flat surfaces. How about your school supplies? Do you have a homework section for them? My kids know where they can find pens, pencils, crayons, markers. Like do you have that? If not, pick one so that your environment can support your success and not support your stress. If you know that for me, that kitchen table, I know we need to reset it and just start working on, we don’t we? You know, school year us was 15 minute pickup at the end of the night. Kitchen table got cleaned off. Okay. Summer US tends to be like, well, mom, I’m working on this puzzle. I’m halfway through this painting project. Like, it just lives there. We can’t exist like that in the school year. And and sustain. That’s going to be stressful. Okay, so pick up one and go for it. All right. Here’s what you’re going to do in your power hour. Let’s recap them. You’re going to start with reflecting.

Cara Harvey 00:24:20 You’re going to prep your calendar. You’re going to check in on your goals and pick one. You’re going to pick a routine to reset. And then you’re going to prep and reset one of your spaces. Now the planning piece you can do in an hour, you could probably sit through this episode. Pause me. Do the planning. Pause me, do the planning. Now you have to implement. Okay, so you’ve got your plan. And if you were able to do unfocused dope, if not, sit and do it in chunks. But remember, it’s not about doing all of it. It’s about picking what your priorities are for now and moving forward. If you know you’re like, I need to take 15 minutes to reset this space, I need to look at this routine, okay, go through and pick those things so that you can feel less stressed. Show notes for this episode are over at a purpose driven project for 72, and if you need help on this, come join us in the Purpose Driven Mom Club.

Cara Harvey 00:25:08 Right now we our doors are closed, but you can get a club pass. There are only $10 and in that past you can join any call you want this week and get support. You can get co-working. So if you’re like, I want to work on my power hour uninterrupted. Come to our co-working call this week for $10 and literally do this with accountability because I’m going to be like, what did you do? What did you do for this 15 minutes? What did you do? And we’ll work on it together, right? Come and go to a purpose driven mom.com/club pass to see what the schedule is for the week. I want you to have a wonderful rest of your day. Enjoy what you can. If you have any summer left, and know that the plan you do now is the self-care you’re giving yourself later. You will thank yourself immensely. Have a wonderful day! Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Purpose Driven Mom Show. If this episode served you in any way, we would really appreciate it if you headed over to wherever you listen to podcast.

Cara Harvey 00:26:01 Hit that five star and leave a review and a rating. That’s how more moms can find us and we can grow our community. If you had a tip or an make sure you come over and tag me at a Purpose Driven Mom on Instagram and share it with your friends. The best way for us to get this message out there of less hustle and less shame and more intentionality, is for you to share it with people you know need to hear it. Thanks for listening. We appreciate you and I can’t wait to connect with you more outside of the podcast.