with Cara Harvey
Feeling like summ
Is your home feeling more chaotic now that the kids are home for the summer? In this episode of the Purpose Driven Mom Show, Cara Harvey welcomes professional organizer Janelle Azar to share practical, family-friendly strategies for creating a home that feels calm, functional, and organized all summer long. From busy entryways to overflowing countertops, Janelle explains how simple systems can reduce stress and help moms stay ahead of the daily chaos.
Together, Cara and Janelle explore why every item in your home needs a designated place and how observing your family’s natural habits can help you create organizing systems that actually stick. They discuss easy ways to manage common clutter hotspots, including shoes, backpacks, paper piles, and everyday drop zones, while emphasizing routines that are simple enough for kids to follow.
The conversation also dives into organizing the kitchen, creating kid-friendly snack stations, and teaching children responsibility through age-appropriate systems. Janelle shares practical tips for managing paper clutter, maintaining flat surfaces, and building daily reset routines that keep the home running smoothly without striving for perfection.
Finally, Cara and Janelle discuss the importance of balancing organization with realistic family life, including establishing routines before screen time and helping children develop habits that last beyond the summer months. This episode is packed with actionable advice to help busy moms create a home that supports their family, reduces overwhelm, and makes everyday life feel more manageable.
Click here to download the episode and save it for later.
Watch the full video on YouTube here https://youtu.be/X3iv9bwzJv0
01:18 Meet Professional Organizer Janelle Azar
02:23 Why Summer Creates More Clutter and Overwhelm
03:56 Organizing Your Entryway for a Stress-Free Summer
06:42 How to Create Categories That Actually Work
09:03 Getting Kids to Follow Organization Systems
13:46 Solving the Never-Ending Shoes and Socks Problem
16:13 Resetting Flat Surfaces and Managing Everyday Clutter
18:50 The Best System for Tackling Paper Clutter
22:26 Organizing Your Kitchen and Summer Snack Stations
26:38 Why Routines Should Come Before Screen Time
29:46 Final Summer Organization Tips & Free Survival Guide
an
This episode is brought to you by
1. Free weekly checklist link here.
2. Join the waitlist for the Purpose Driven Mom Club at: https://apurposedrivenmom.com/club
3. The 15 Minute Formula: How Busy Moms Can Ditch the Guilt, Say Yes to What Matters, and Conquer Their Goals here >>> https://the15minuteformula.com/free/
If you like to share your thoughts on this episode:
Leave a comment below this blog post
Ask me a question or submit a guest request in this form here
Share your key takeaways and tag me @apurposedrivenmom
… please take a minute to support the show by:
1 | Are you subscribed to my podcast? If you’re not, make sure you head over and do it now so that you don’t miss an episode! Click here to subscribe on Apple Podcasts!
2 | While you’re there, I’d love an appreciate if you’d leave a rating and review! These allow other purpose-driven moms to find the show and help grow our community! Just click here to review, select ‘Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” and let me know your favorite part of the podcast! I’d love to feature you as our ‘Review of the Week’.
3 | Make sure to join our Facebook Community and continue the conversation about the episode
Cara (00:00.206)
Welcome to the Purpose Driven Mom Show episode 520. Today I am giving you a sneak peek back into our Purpose Driven Mom Summit that we did in May. This was such a fun interview that I did with Janelle Azar, where we talked all about how do you get your home organized for the summer. And I know that it’s still midway towards the end of the summer, depending on when your kids go back to school. But the tips she gives are life-changing. I literally left this session and was like,
Wrote my list down of all the things I want to do to get my life more organized. So I’m excited to go back and share this with you if you didn’t get a chance to hang out at the Purpose Driven Mom Summit. I hope you enjoy these tips. You can connect with Giselle, Janelle over at the links in the show notes at a purposedriven mom.com slash podcast five twenty. This first session is about getting your space together. And I’m so excited to have Janelle here to help us figure out how we can have an organized mom.
Summer. Like, doesn’t that just sound beautiful? Janelle, how are you today? I am so happy you are here. Personally, I feel like every time I pick a topics and speakers for the summit, I’m like, yes, I need this. Like I desperately need this and I cannot wait to learn from you. So for anyone who is not connected with you before, can you just tell us a little bit about you and your family?
Janelle (01:00.206)
Good morning.
Janelle (01:18.978)
Yeah, absolutely. my name is Janelle Azar. I am a professional organizer and I have been doing this for eight plus years now, and I’ve been helping hundreds of families, specifically moms with their kids. And I’m based in the Metro Detroit area.
Cara (01:37.238)
Awesome. What drew you to this organizing world? Because it’s like some of us maybe, I don’t know, are you naturally organized? Were you helping other people? I’d love to hear what made you say, like, this is how I’m gonna help impact moms.
Janelle (01:49.548)
Yeah, I you know what it’s a it’s a complicated like roundabout way, but the basic part of it, I am naturally organized. I do love that aspect. I spent 20 years in retail and I love working with people. I love making things look pretty and just being able to help people navigate transitions that happen in their lives, whether it be kiddos going through school or moves or whatever that may look like.
And I’ve really enjoyed every aspect and I’ve learned so much along the way and I can’t wait to share today with you guys as well.
Cara (02:23.406)
I know, I feel like so. Our approach today, I think we’re gonna kind of go like maybe a little bit room to room and help moms figure out how they can feel more organized this summer because I don’t know, and in the chat, let me know too, like the stuff. And I I said this the other day, we have a pool, so it’s like the pool stuff, and then the sports stuff, and then we’re going to the beach stuff, and it just exists in all the places. So overwhelming, right? It is so much. I feel like summer has extra stuff. Do you agree? Like, why is it that way?
Janelle (02:44.749)
It’s
Janelle (02:52.472)
Yeah, I do feel like summer has extra stuff. And I feel like part of it is because we’re in constant motion and movement throughout the summer. And especially for things that are coming into and out of the home, there’s always so many different activities that happen this time of year. Even though the kids are out of school, there’s still a lot of moving pieces and things that are happening. I think because a lot of things like
School lets out and we have this romanticized idea of what summer should look like. lazy days, sleeping in, total freedom. But reality sets in and you know, kids start to fight more or have some meltdowns, or they’re like, Mom, I’m bored. Like, what’s next? What are we doing? So it’s really important to try and have some predictable things still in place.
and have some of those routines going. I like to think of a more of like rhythm versus routine. I think kind of changing the idea around what that language sounds like. It doesn’t have to be so rigid in the summer.
Cara (03:56.622)
to talk about some spaces in our home because I feel like a lot of us have these drop spaces. Like as soon as we come in, I would love to like walk through a house a little bit and be like, how can we give some tips for different areas? And I want to start with this entryway, right? Whether you call it a a mud room, whether you have just like I don’t have a mud room. So this is my problem, which I’d love I can’t wait to hear your tips on this because it’s just our living room, right? Like there is that entryway space that holds the coats and the shoes.
And all of those things. Why do you feel like that is such an important place that we focus on this summer and totally like all year round?
Janelle (04:35.148)
I think this is important and I can totally relate to where you’re coming from. Not only do I not have a mud room or an entryway point as well, I also have a lot of clients that don’t have that experience and they come in through a front door. I think this is an important space because it’s again the entry and exit point. So you’re constantly coming in and out of here and it sets the tone for your entire day. Whether you’re rushed in the morning and you can’t find what you need, or if you’re coming home from work or coming home from activities.
And it’s chaos, it truly affects how you think about your the rest of your day, how you talk to your kids, how you unwind. So when I think about the entry point, I’m thinking about how can you protect your peace of mind as you’re coming into or out of your home. And when you don’t have a functional system at the beginning or an exit point of your home, clutter keeps moving, it keeps flowing into your home and it migrates.
So things wander around backpacks, shoes, permission slips, speech bags, all of that stuff. And I think going back to what I said earlier, kids are constantly in and out of that space. So I really feel like this is a good space to create some launch pad. And if you don’t necessarily have a good designated space or a lot of space to work with, you can do some very simple things. Something as simple as some command hooks or hooks on the wall.
Hooks are always going to be something that are great for kids because anything that’s overcomplicated, kids are not going to follow or want to do. So make it very simple. A small shoe tray on the floor, thinking about what that looks like to collect some shoes as soon as they’re coming in. Maybe a single basket to collect pool bags or any kind of bag for like summer camps or daily activities. Just dedicating some small space within that area that is your entry point.
And I also think too, really think about the categories that you need to have near the entry and exit point for yourself and for your family. Because sometimes there are things that you don’t need there that are already residing there, or there are things that you need to put there that are somehow traveling to other areas and getting lost.
Cara (06:42.392)
Okay, could we talk about that category piece? Cause I think that’s really important. because I find that stuff is just sometimes everywhere. We tell our kids like clean your room, but if they don’t have a place to put their cars or their Legos, then like they don’t know how to clean their room because there isn’t a designated space. And that like always stood out to me. And I realized that sometimes that happens because it just overflows. How can we figure out like,
what these categories are and how do we get started with creating them? ‘Cause I think this is a really good one for the summer is creating spaces and categories of like this is where these things are. But when we’re so overwhelmed with the amount of stuff everywhere, how do we get started with like making that type of system in our home?
Janelle (07:24.894)
One of the first things that you should look at is what’s already currently residing there. What are some of the natural tendencies of things that get dropped by the front door? What are the things that you need on a regular day-to-day basis? Like just creating like a a bullet point list of these are the things that I see or that I need or that my kids need and seeing what those things are. so I think that’s a good starting point.
Cara (07:48.396)
when it’s stuff is everywhere and we don’t know like where to put it, how do we just get started with making that system?
Janelle (07:54.914)
I think the other part of that is I’m a big believer in everything should have a home within your home. When things have a space, people know what to expect and where to find the things. And when there’s not that structure or ability to put something away where it belongs or find it when you need it, that’s when the chaos starts to ensue. So really in incorporating that into your space and making sure that you have designated homes for things.
And then also it’s about explaining the system to everybody. If you create a system that works for you based on how you organize, that is very different from the other people that are living in your home. It’s very different from your kids or your spouse, your partner. So it’s also about having that conversation. And I think that’s a big key when we talk about anything that it comes to organization, routines, there’s gotta be communication that comes along with that.
And also the inspect what you expect. You are talking about clean your room. That’s super vague. We need to be very specific about what we are telling our kids.
Cara (09:03.968)
Yeah, and I wanted to ask that because I see a question in the chat too. But like I have the thing, but my kids don’t use it. So can we dig into that a little bit? I love this, like, cause I I always joke, like, I’ll be like, all right, mom says we’re doing all the family meeting and I change stuff, and then they’re like, What are you talking about? Right? Like, there’s no follow through with it. So I wonder, like, how can we get our family to use the systems? Yes, it’s like talking, but talk a little bit more about that inspect piece, because I think that’s something that
falls off sometimes. We make these things and we’re not always checking in. So can you tell us more about how to do that?
Janelle (09:36.694)
Yeah, that’s absolutely so true. A lot of times when I talk with parents and we’re talking about like the things that they’ve set up already or the routines that they have, they’re talking about how, well, we set these things up, but nobody’s coming to the table, nobody’s taking part in it. I always like to say keep it very low friction, keep it very easy to understand. The more you complicate a system and make it, you know, lids on things or stacked, you know, 20 bins high and they have to get to something at the bottom.
Or if they have to, again, going back to the hanger example, if they have to hang something on a hanger for it to be put back into the system correctly, that’s going to be very tough for kids. We want something that’s very easy to understand and for them to do. It needs to be at kid level too. So, you know, you need to think about your audience, like kids that are, you know, in preschool or that five to ten age.
Let’s make it very, very simple. That’s very different than dealing with kids that are over eleven years old or teenagers. And then going back to practicing that routine. I mean, just like anybody, it takes time to develop these habits. So I always encourage to, you know, walk through the system and again back to the inspect what you expect. And
Setting the example, like you’re supposed to be doing this too. So you need to show them what this looks like and be part of the routine with them. It’s gonna take some time, it’s gonna take some muscle memory. These growing pains eventually start to produce the routine and you do start to get there. But there’s also the aspect that sometimes you do have to adjust. And if things aren’t working, you need to look at that and consider: okay, what’s broken here? Where is the step missing? What are they not connecting?
I’ll give you an example that I thought of this morning, also thinking about natural tendencies. Where do things naturally happen? In the shower, my husband likes to put his razor on the the shelf in the shower. And I have this beautiful little container where you could put the razor and hang it up and it just sits there and you can grab it. And he never puts it away, ever. And it drives me absolutely crazy. But his natural tendency is not to put it away. It’s to put it on this shelf in the shower. So I have to adjust my expectation that that’s where it’s naturally gonna.
Janelle (11:47.434)
lie. So what can I do to create some organization or some containment around that so I don’t have to clean that ledge of the shower every
Cara (11:55.07)
That’s so smart to think about. I always talk to people about how decluttering and and organizing are two different things, right? Like they’re not the same thing. But a lot of times we think, well, if I’m gonna do it, I have to have the pretty containers. And we buy these things and we try to get our lives organized without this step. Like the and this is something when I say we, like I’m pointing my hand at myself too. Like I’ll say, I want to do this thing. But I don’t ever take the time to pause and ask, like, what’s the natural flow of this? Like, where do my kids
throw their shoes normally? Where are the lunch bags going? Like what is the natural flow and creating a system around that instead of you know, square peg, round hole, me and girls reference, like trying to make fetch happen. I just like that was my light bulb this morning of like I’m making it so much harder on myself because I’m not just pausing and being observant. Do you find like this is a common thing people do?
Janelle (12:47.552)
A hundred percent. I I do think that when we are organizing, we’re not considering everybody’s tendencies and we’re not considering how everybody looks at organization because it is vastly different in households. I am constantly negotiating between, you know, the spouses and partners and kids and trying to find a happy medium. And it can be challenging, but it is super helpful when you start to think about the natural tendencies of people and try and
And make that the focus of your organization. And I want to go back to what you said about the decluttering and the the pretty bins, because I say this is one of the number one mistakes that I see people make when they’re organizing a space. They want to get to the fun part, which is always getting the the bins and the pretty stuff and making it feel organized. And you feel more organized when you buy these things. but that’s not what’s gonna get you there. It is actually going through the process of decluttering, editing, and letting go.
Cara (13:46.902)
Yeah. I love that. All right. Actually, well, let’s pause and get to Amy’s question because as I walk through my house, I have this same issue. Now we have this puppy who has decided he likes socks too. So now we’re getting better at putting things away. But this is such a common thing. Like again, thinking the summer, like socks and shoes everywhere. And at first, I’ll tell you what I tried, and then I’d love any suggestions. So we had a couple places people could put socks and shoes, and then I like getting annoyed because they were everywhere. So then I went down to one place and I’m finding
The socks and shoes are still everywhere. Like it didn’t solve my problem. And my kids, they’re still putting their shoes where the bin used to be, just on the floor now. Like they were so bought into like that’s where my shoes just go. So they keep natur speaking of natural tendencies. So what do we do with something like this where we’re trying to retrain this behavior of like you can’t have your stuff everywhere? And I think depending on your kids’ age, this is different. But also all kids need like we we know like
We have common spaces versus your room is what we say. If it’s a common space, like you have to put your stuff away. But my kids, there’s it’s just everywhere. So help us moms out ’cause like we’re we need we need this right now.
Janelle (14:56.95)
So I think this kind of goes back to talking about what are those routines? Again, not feeling overly rigid, not constantly nagging about things. So what are the expectations? What are some different things that you can set up? And this is where I think that coming into the space of what are the things that we need to do on a daily basis or regular basis to have some structure with our kids? And again, like what are those things and making them very specific and talking about what those are.
So socks, I don’t know what it is with kids in socks. They’re everywhere. They’re under the sofa. When I move a sofa, they’re, I mean, on in the rafter. Like I can find socks in every single square foot of a house with kids. so I do think that that’s part of that routine and chore that we want to talk about with kids. And having that be something that is on a regular basis, whatever that may be for you, if that’s your pain point where you’re constantly finding things like that throughout the home, let’s
Let’s show some accountability on a regular basis, on a daily basis with these types of things and incorporate them into your routine. So if kids are getting up every morning and doing some basic things like brushing teeth, making your bed, getting dressed, like go find all the socks in the living room right now.
Cara (16:13.016)
Yeah. Yeah. I think that that is such it is such a pain point for me. Like I feel like my kids just put socks everywhere. So as I think about the summer, I’m like, this is a routine I need to add in because I realize as you’re saying it, like I just haven’t enforced it enough. Right. I’ve like nagged about it and been like picked up your socks, but I haven’t created a system. So I love this. all right, speaking of pain points, we’re walking through the home. Can we talk flat surfaces? Because they just take up the paper and everywhere it’s summer.
Kids are home. My kids are crafters. They’re builders. We’ve got the Legos and the actually yesterday was Memorial Day and it was rainy here. So my kids decided to have a Memorial Day party for their stuffed animals. But because of the dog, we can’t keep stuff like out. So they closed the door and they did it in my office. It was cute and I loved it and it was creative. But I was like, why is there so much stuff in my space? Right. So I would love to talk about any tips we can give the moms on the flat surfaces that collect.
all the things and how we can create some good systems around that too.
Janelle (17:13.408)
I I like to call this surface abuse. That’s really that’s really what it is because I tell you what, sometimes flat surface they’re the first to go because they’re clear, they’re easy, you can drop and go. Again, I like to go back to setting up the expectation of what that looks like. And what does that mean? Because I think when it comes to organization, one thing that I really want to emphasize with people is this is not about having a Pinterest perfect home. Real people live in your home.
People are doing daily activities, thing people always ask me, you’re an organizer. Your house must be so perfect. no. We really live here. There are things that happen throughout here. I think the one thing that I will continue to go back to is does everything have a designated home? I think that’s really important to think about. I can’t tell you how many times that I’ve run into the situation where
There’s not necessarily a storage piece for something or there’s not a way to contain something. So it lives everywhere. It it heads off in every direction. So one of the things I would definitely suggest is what are you missing? What is falling onto these counters? Because usually what that means is it may not have a designated home. And if it does have a designated home, what are your reset routines look like? Do you have something that is a regular basic reset that you do on
daily basis, a weekly basis. And it doesn’t have to be anything big. It could be as simple as five minute reset and everybody jumps in and helps out. It could be once a day. It could be once every other day. It could be on the weekends. It can, you can make it look like whatever you want it to look like and whatever works for you.
Cara (18:50.254)
Yeah, I like that. Does everything have a home? And I think when I go through my house, it’s like something I’m gonna keep in the back of my mind when I’m like looking at this, like where is the home for it? Because if there is no home, then it just exists. Can we talk paper then real quick? Because I feel like paper has so many homes. There’s so many places. And we talk a lot about this in my program. Like paper decluttering is a nagging thing on people’s mind all the time. Should I keep it? What should I do with it? Where should I put it? Where does it live?
Help us out. What are we doing with all this paper? I’m a thrower away, which like my husband cannot stand because he’s like, Where’s the paper? Like this is the man that keeps I’m looking at like twelve, you know, boxes of any tech he’s ever gotten, right? Like, you know, we’re very opposite in that way where I’m like, I want to toss it, but then I can’t find things and there’s the panic. So what tips can you give us for the paper that exists all over our home?
Janelle (19:40.558)
So I love this question because paper, I’m very passionate about paper. Paper will never go away. As digital as we are, there will always be paper in our lives. So how do we manage that? And to your point, Kara, I will say usually when I deal with people, there’s always a tosser and there’s some savers. It’s again coming back to finding common ground for those people. So when it comes to paper, I would ask you, are these things that you want to
digitize. How do you want your system set up? Do you need the physical paper or do you want it to be more digital so you have access to it a different way? So, first of all, I would want to know that when we’re talking about paper. Let’s focus on physical paper though, because that’s usually what we’re dealing with as it comes into the home. Again, what kind of systems do we have in place? One of my favorite methods that I have is the Sunday basket. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, but just for anybody who’s not.
It’s a great place where you can have one bin or basket where your paper collects throughout the week. And then at the designated time during the week, you go through and you address the things that are in there. So it gives it a spot, it gives it a home where you can find everything. And then you don’t necessarily need to deal with everything at that specific moment because I will tell you our attention spans are grabbed in every direction, every minute of the day.
You can set it aside for a designated time and you’re guaranteed to find the things in one location. So instead of tossing them or then getting lost, it’s coming to one spot. Yeah. So that’s one of the things that I like to share with people. It’s a great system. And then you can build it out however you want to, whether you want to keep it or toss it, you can kind of go from there.
Cara (21:24.428)
Yeah, that’s helpful because I think a lot of times it’s always like, I don’t know what to do with this. I don’t know where to put it. And again, I feel like, you know, it’s so funny because whenever I talk to people, I feel like there’s always like a some sort of through line. And I feel like my through line here today is like, does it have a designated spot? Right. Like I feel like that’s like like when I’m thinking of the things I’m taking away and I’m like taking in my notes is recognizing that so much of my clutter issue is that there isn’t a designated spot for stuff. And that could really
helps. So that’s some good paper tips. All right. We have one more major drop zone, if you will, that we need to cover in the kitchen. Right. The kitchen is in almost every home, probably the main space people exist in. And depending on your kid schedule, like it’s snacks and food and running and water and just there’s so much there that I think it can feel really overwhelming. So I’d love to give the moms some advice on how they can keep their kitchens functional without it feeling like everything’s all over.
And it’s just like an open store and all those kind of things that tend to happen in the summer.
Janelle (22:26.456)
So I would say the one thing with kitchens is wherever your main section of food is, whether it be a pantry or a big cabinet, let’s kind of direct children away from that area. We want them to be in a separate area when it comes to their snacks. So giving them a physical zone that is identified as where they go for their
their snacks. I would say that’s one way, first and foremost, to kind of separate out a specific space and give them a designated zone, whether it be for things like smaller kids, like just, you know, cups and like little plates and, you know, small snacks, to kids that are teens who can prepare meals and kind of do things on their own, creating a zone specifically for them where if things kind of get a little messier out of whack, you know that this is their space that they need to maintain and take care of.
Cara (23:19.828)
Or I like that. Because I was telling my kids today, I think I just went and got snacks and they were done. And then they’re fighting over there’s only six in a pack and that the and I had this many and I had this many. And I was like, I’m gonna lose my mind this summer with snack auditing. And so one of the things I was like, maybe I’m just gonna like I don’t like to micromanage their food, but at the same time my wallet says we cannot run through all the snacks like on day one.
So I kind of am thinking about what you’re saying about this idea of like their summer snack area of like eat and you’re done, dude. Like here’s your food. Like learn how to ration. I don’t know what to tell you.
Janelle (24:01.474)
Absolutely. I I have a mom client of mine who has three kiddos. They’re all very similar in age and they each have their own designated snack bin to help them like choose what they want to put in there. And then again, back to the conversation, what does that look like when you’re talking to your kids? Hey, listen, this is what you get. This is what you get for the day, for the week, for whatever. You can choose how you want to eat it. If you eat everything before nine a.m. and this is all you get for the day, I mean, that’s that’s on you.
So giving them putting some of that responsibility back on them a little bit and also incorporating them into what goes into those bins so they can really understand what that looks like, putting some limits on it, putting some boundaries on it. Because there’s nothing worse when you go into the kitchen and you just went to the grocery store and all the snacks are gone.
Cara (24:49.408)
Yes. This was I I had this thought this morning because my son just found my son is a little picky. So he just found like a granola bar he likes. He like at a friend’s house and I like, I’ll buy any honestly, if he likes anything, I’m like, I will buy it. And he is literally almost the entire 10 pack in like two days. And I was like, my God. And it cause of course they’re like fancy gluten-free. I’m like, duh, you can’t do this. But one of the things I did once, and I don’t know why I got off the routine, was I gave them a snack budget and like gave them money.
And we went to Aldi and I said, This you have ten dollars to buy yours and these are yours and things like that. so I think I might get back to that in the summer and like really include them like fruits and veg, like go ham, whatever, but all these like other ones. And then going off that, I just had this other idea of we have a lot of kids in and out of the house, right? We’ve got a bunch of kids in the neighborhood, our house tends to we have a pool, so it tends to be that. I’m thinking I need a designated space for guest snacks, right? I’m feeling so inspired this morning because I’m like, this is gonna solve.
A few of my problems, I think. Yeah.
Janelle (25:48.526)
I love the idea because that’s really important to think about too. If you’re the house that kids are coming to, obviously you’re gonna have snacks for the kids. Kids are gonna get hungry. You’re gonna wanna have something to provide to them. One of the things I set up with one of my clients is we have like a specific tray where they put out like, you know, all those bag little snacks and kids could just grab and go throughout the day. And it’s near their pool area and it’s really easy to access and the kids know that’s where they can go to grab what they want. So I think that’s really smart.
To bring that up.
Cara (26:18.97)
Yeah, thanks. I have was like I always say like some it is also for me because I have all of I’m I’m a mom like everybody else, right? I have three kids home and I’m trying to like figure out how to make it happen. okay. I’m trying to think if we have touched on did there any big things summer wise that we haven’t touched on that we want to make sure we I feel like we covered so much.
Janelle (26:37.902)
I think the one thing that I would touch on is screen time. Please. I know I think there’s something coming up later in the summit about that as well. But I will say this kind of also goes back to helping establish those routines that we’ve been talking about. and I I see it so much when I’m working with kids because I work with kids directly a lot. And when kids are on the screens, they get that dopamine hit, they get that.
Cara (26:42.409)
Yes.
Janelle (27:04.758)
like real, like exciting. This is fun to do. I really love it. And they get sucked into it. I mean, we know we’re adults, we do too. So for them to transition out of that into daily chores, daily activities, that is a struggle. And I see it all the time. So I really like to talk about routines before screens and what that looks like for kids because I do think that that’s important because screens are just constantly in our lives. and I think that if
We go about allowing kids to have that privilege before doing any of the things that we talked about, those basic baseline necessities of, you know, getting ready for the day, getting breakfast, getting teeth brushed. It’s really hard to get them back on track.
Cara (27:47.584)
Agree a hundred percent. We used to I used to be really good at this. And then things get busy and we’ve gotten off. And so I am actually so excited for like a reset this summer because my youngest, he’s eight, is like up at five thirty. He’s up before me. And we I was like fighting it. And so we finally set some routines where it was like, I get you want to watch TV, but you need to have breakfast, brush your teeth, and get dressed first. And then I do not care. Go ahead, have your screen time before school. And my man loves a good chart.
He likes getting his stuff done and he does it every day like he’s good, right? And so I’m my daughter, we have different issues that with that we have to rein those back in. But I think about summer and going into how to incorporate that is such a big piece on my mind because we have my kids are mostly home this summer and it’s a lot more relaxed. So I f I am also putting on my list to like audit those routines, particularly also because I want to add in some more chores. I want to add in some more.
Things where they’re organizing and keeping their rooms together. They’re eight and ten, like they’re old enough to be doing more. So I love this as well. I we’re reading the book How to Break Up With Your Phone in our Book Club. I don’t know if you’ve read it. I’m on day, I don’t remember, but I just had to delete a bunch of my games and apps, and my phone is so boring right now. And I’m so happy because it is. It is like that dopamine hit. And we notice the behavior changes in kids. We notice the behavior changes in in us too. It’s
And the fighting, I think too, just going back to getting the kids to help. If again, I’m like, go pick up your socks and my kids on their tablet or watching TV, the fight is so much bigger than if they had done their thing first. And I I think it’s so smart.
Janelle (29:26.946)
Yeah. And I would say also keep it very visual for kids, like what these routines and checklists are, because that way you can refer back to that instead of always being the bad guy. You could say, what’s on your chart? Like, did you check it off? Is it done? And then it also gives them that visual aid to remind them that these are the things that need to be done before they get this reward.
Cara (29:46.894)
Awesome. Janelle, this was so good. I feel like there’s so much more that I can ask you, but we’re gonna put it a pen in it there. I shared all my aha’s as we’ve been going through. Drop your aha. Like what was your big takeaway from this session? What’s something you’re gonna implement? And I want you to head over and you can get the organized summer survival guide for mom’s absolutely free. Thank you, Janelle, for that. it’s linked over on her page. All her links are over there. Janelle, thank you so much. This was so fun.
Janelle (30:13.482)
Thank you, Kara was fun.
Cara (30:14.966)
Yeah, Chanelle, thank you for kicking us off at the summit today.
Janelle (30:17.816)
Thanks guys. Have a good one.
Cara (30:19.32)
Thanks. Bye.
Are you ready to go into your week feeling less frazzled and more in control?
You need this checklist to help you set up your week, save time running around and plan out time for you!
Follow @apurposedrivenmom
Copyright © 2026 A Purpose Driven Mom · Theme by 17th Avenue
Leave a Comment or Question! I'd love to know what takeaways you had from this post!