Cara Harvey (00:00.078)

Welcome to A Purpose Driven Mom Show, episode 528. Today I am sharing with you my evening reset because I think, especially here in September, we need it. My evening reset method has changed a little bit over the years. I used to have a couple few different components in it, but now with my program On Purpose You, I was filming our electives. So the way On Purpose You works is there’s a core curriculum, there’s 101 levels, we have it set up like a little university.

On Purpose You University sit it in there. So we have it all set up together that you go through the School of Clarity, the School of Momentum, the School of Alignment, and then you can pick up a major online year or an elective. And what’s really special about this program is that each semester, I let the current students vote because you can cancel at any time, right? So the current students vote on what the next curriculum is. So the fall curriculum, the first thing that was requested was a morning and an evening routine elective.

So I’ve put together some really great videos from guest experts, some stuff from the archives, and brand new material. And I’m actually sharing with you the evening reset method that I came up with that is going to help you reset your evening, go from doing to being. So you can also turn off your clock and have more connection at home. You can join on purpose you anytime. It’s only $27. You will not only get the entire core curriculums, all the one on ones, but you’re gonna get this mini course on morning and evening routine. So heck, if you even just want that, join for the month, watch it, and

You know, I’ll see you next month, or maybe I won’t, but come and check it out. Go to apurposedrivenmom.com/onpurposeyou. I hope to see you there. And I hope you enjoy this episode. Check out how you can maximize your evening routine, make things work better for you, and feel calmer in the mornings. Let’s talk about the evening reset. I firmly believe that your evening routine is one of the most routines that you can have. And we’re gonna talk about why. And I’m gonna give you a framework if you’re feeling like you get to the end of the day and you’re like,

So much to do. I don’t even know where to start. Or like, is this going to make a difference? Hopefully this will help you. All right. So tomorrow morning starts the night before. No pressure and all, but I do believe it. I feel like the stuff that we do in the evening will allow our mornings to be smoother, will allow things to feel lighter, and will allow us to actually get the things done that need to get done so that in the morning I’m not finding the sneakers and signing the papers, right? I’m handling those things.

Cara Harvey (02:11.668)

That way I can go to bed feeling equipped for the day and not waking up feeling behind. But I need to be clear because a lot of times people go into their evening routine and they’re like, it takes me hours. I have all these things to get done. The goal of an evening routine is not to do everything. Like you’re not gonna finish it all. You’re not gonna do everything on your list. I know that a lot of us want to get to our evening routine and we want to close up the day, but then you’re like, I have all these things that aren’t on my list. I have all these things that have to get done.

I didn’t finish this today. Myself, I have things that I’m already like, when is that gonna finish? Right. The goal is just to make tomorrow easier. That’s what I want you to think about. How can I make tomorrow easier? If you keep that question in the back of your head when you’re crafting your routine, I think that you’re gonna feel so much better. All right. This is our four part evening reset. We’re gonna reset, we’re gonna prepare, we’re gonna connect, and we’re going to rest. I know, I know. And I’m gonna go into each of these, but easiest way to look at it, right?

Closing out our day. I think a lot of us do this. So we’re gonna get this part in. Make tomorrow easier, being present with the people. And I know we’ll talk about this in a second. We get to the connect like slide on this, but I know that it’s hard. I know that you’re doing a ton of things and your schedule’s all over. One of the things that we’re transitioning with this year is my daughter does competitive cheer. And the team that she’s on, there’s mostly middle and high schoolers. My daughter’s in fifth grade. Very pleased, very happy for her. Like, yay, but.

So on Wednesday nights this year, starting this week, she practices from seven to nine thirty on a school day, which I’m already like, my gosh, right? Like that feels I want to be in bed, right? Like that feels really late for me, let alone for her. So the time that we have to connect, like, you know, it becomes a challenge. And when we get to that section, I’m gonna give you some tips for those parents, sports parents, activities parents who feel like your nights are just, you know, and then resting, transition to your own downtime. Now I wanna tell you some tips before we jump in.

Here’s the thing about your evening reset. A lot of times moms get it in their head, like I do that when the kids go to bed. And I used to be like this when my kids were littler and they went to bed earlier again, 9 30. I’m like, come on now, right? But even now, like my kids go to bed if they’re not at activities between nine and nine thirty anyway. When my kids were younger and they were going to bed seven, seven thirty, eight, I had a whole evening. If anyone else’s older kids, again, my kids aren’t old, they’re nine and and eleven, but you know, you get teenagers and things like that. Like your evening is later.

Cara Harvey (04:37.102)

So they’re staying up later, which gives you less time in the evening. And this becomes this conundrum of like, I want to wait till the kids go to bed to do the thing. But here’s the deal. If you wait till the kids go to bed, where’s this rest for you? Where’s your transition? When do you go to bed? So I want to also change your mindset around when you do your evening routine that it does not have to be at the very end of your night. It does not have to be once your kids go to bed. I start.

My evening routine around six o’clock or even five, depending on the night and the activity. Sometimes we’ll, you know, we’d have sports and you have to be somewhere at six, we eat dinner at five. I start my evening routine then. So I just want to be clear about that. Your evening routine can be whatever time you want to start it. If you’re choosing to start it when the kids go to bed and at nine or 10 o’clock, that’s your choice. But I just feel like a lot of times we get stuck in our head that it has to be a certain way or it has to look a certain way. And it completely doesn’t.

It can be whenever time you started. So these things that I’m doing in my four-part evening reset start around six o’clock. I start doing them at six and I don’t finish them till 10, but I’m not doing them the whole time. That is the key here, right? I’m not actively working on things for four hours. I’m doing them in chunks and I’m doing them in spurts so that I can get them off my list. And I want you to think about your evening reset that way as well. If I had

Half an hour could get all these things done straight, I would do it, but that just isn’t the reality of our lives. And when we leave them to the end of the night, things often get missed because we’re tired. We don’t want to get them done. All right. So before we jump into some examples of each one of these in this reset, prepare, connect, and rest are four parts. I just want you to know that you can do them whenever you feel like doing them, right? So what are we doing when we’re resetting? This is the closing out the day. The question here is what needs to be reset before tomorrow?

And I’ll tell you, this is the one I start as soon as dinner is done. As soon as dinner is done, we’re getting the dishes loaded, we’re doing a quick pickup. All these things are happening. Now, there are some days where we rush right from dinner to an activity. And if we’re rushing right from dinner to an activity, it just might not happen, right? It just might not all fit in together. And so some days I do it a little bit later, right? So I want you to think minimum effective reset. It’s not a deep clean. It’s not.

Cara Harvey (06:58.924)

I get it all done. It’s what is the minimum things I need to get done. Always for me, it’s a kitchen. The kitchen is our go-to area. It’s my first to pick up. So I think, all right, kitchen reset. Let’s get it done. The dishes. I’m a big proponent on loading your dishwasher every night because then when you wake up, you’re not feeling behind. And you know, I had to have a conversation with sometimes with my husband about this because he sometimes will meal prep, especially like on Sunday, like once I’ve already gone to bed. And a few times he left like dishes in the sink, and I woke up to like, and he meal preps like

Buffet style. So there’s like a lot of dishes. And I was like, my friend, like, what are you doing? So last night he was like, all right, I’m gonna stay down here and finish my meal prep and stuff. And I was like, reminder, dishes already loaded for the night. Please make sure that they’re done, right? Because I’m not trying to wake up to dishes in the sink. Does it happen every day? No. Does it happen most days? Yes. Because then in the morning, my job is to empty the dishwasher and load it throughout the day, not empty and load. All right. So dishes.

Quick, I said living room, but you choose your own adventure. Like, what’s the area with the highest traffic, most flat surfaces, putting things back where they belong. Tell your kids, hey, like go head on out. If this belongs to you, go put it where it belongs. The other thing is always check in tomorrow’s schedule. This is something I do with my family. We look at the schedule together. They’re probably tired of hearing me talk about the schedule, but I do not care. We will look at the schedule. We will say, This is what’s going on tomorrow. This is what we need to be prepared.

Again, I’m gonna give my daughter’s chair example again. This is the uniform you need for this practice. Go lay it out. I have my kids make sure their clothes are laid out. That was really funny. We were getting ready for school. Today was the first day of school, actually, that I’m recording this. And my daughters picked her outfits out for the whole week. My son, not so much. And I was like, let me pick something out then for you to wear. Because it’s like the first day. Like I, you know, don’t want you to, you know, whatever. So I said, Can I pick it out? And he said, No, I’m gonna pick it out. I just don’t care what it is. And it was so interesting because I was like,

But if you don’t care, why can’t I pick it up? He’s like, because it’s my choice. And I was like, all right, then go pick it out right now, though, because I want to make sure you have enough stuff. And this happens a lot for us in activities. You need to make sure that the thing is clean and things like that, right? Clearing any obvious clutter. That’s really important. And again, the question, what will make tomorrow morning feel easier? We’ll talk about this in a second with preparing for the next day, but that’s always our question here, right? All right, now setting up tomorrow.

Cara Harvey (09:18.482)

I love it. Move tomorrow’s decisions tonight. I just mentioned clothes, backpacks. So this year, I think they said the kids aren’t gonna bring their Chromebooks home, which I love. So we don’t have to worry about that. But what needs to go in the backpack for the next day, right? Like do they have a specific activity? Do they have show and tell? Do they have a homework assignment that needs to get in there? My kids have snack at school. So part of also what they’re helping with this year is packing their snack. So I’m gonna have them pack snack the night before. But Kara, it literally takes a minute.

To put a thing of pretzels in a bag and put it in the book bag. Yep, but it’s one less thing to think about. Don’t think about the time the task takes. Think about the mental load. If there’s homework that needs to be done. And again, I mentioned lunches, right? Make whatever you can make out of the lunches, have them set aside. When I get out of my group or we get a busy night and I don’t make the lunches the night before, morning Kara regrets it. Especially because you’ll see in the morning routine videos, like my morning’s tight. I like to sleep. So I sleep as much as I can.

To still get in a workout and a shower. And like I do as like it’s tight. So because of the tightness, I want to take anything off my plate. Again, looking at the calendar, looking at the activities, laying things out. Where are your cleats? Is your baseball bag packed? Have it all done. And the goal here is just to wake up what’s knowing next, not make decisions. That’s the goal. Now, I just want to remind you: you’re not everyone’s personal assistant. Enlist your family to help. They can help.

reset things. They can help put things away. Even I had to remind myself this morning, my kid could pick out his own clothes, right? He could. I don’t need to be the one doing it. The other two pieces, and this is new in my evening routine philosophy here, is this connect piece. And I found that as my kids are getting older, we have just less time together. We just do more activities, busy things, friends, etc. Your evening shouldn’t just be about getting things done. It should be about your family. It should be about the people that matter. It should be about connecting.

Whether it’s via the phone with someone or in real life, trying to have dinner together, having those touch points where you’re talking about your day. Again, like I’m not gonna have enough time with my daughter on Wednesdays because you’re right, she’s got her cheer practice pretty late. I’m sure she’s not gonna wanna talk after practice, or maybe she is. We’ll feel it out. So beforehand, after dinner, before we go to practice, can we spend a little bit of time together? Reading is always a big one for me. My daughter loves to read too. So we do a read aloud. We actually haven’t picked our book.

Cara Harvey (11:43.49)

For this school year, we always pick a couple books that we’ll read and I’ll read a chapter to her. Or sometimes I like to read, she likes to read. We’ll just sit together. It’s my favorite in her bed and read our books, but like not talk, but like our feet are touching and that’s enough. And it’s well, I love it. So can you do books together? Just a quick conversation about their day. I’m trying to do this thing this month where one of my goals is 15 minutes just one-on-one with each of my kids each day as just a touch point without tech, with you know, just like.

Let’s just connect. Now, do we get more than that? Sure, but there are days where we don’t. So we need to be intentional. Family game time is always a favorite one. Just sitting together, keeping those routines. Make sure you have connection and touch points with your family, with your kids. It’s just a good pulse check. And it also allows you to remember that the evening isn’t just about a to-do list. It’s about the people too. Now, our final piece of our reset is rest. Yay, we get to go to bed. I said to my kids the other day, man, you know, mommy loves to go to bed. And

I know as a kid you hate going to bed and you are with me, but when you become a grown-up, you are gonna love it too. This is your transition from doing to just existing. This is the being. Make a window down thing. You don’t have to do everything, right? This isn’t an exhaustive list, but do something for you. Wash your face. This is my big one. Like I wash my face before I go to bed. I listen to my book. I’d like to do some stretching.

You can reflect if you take your wine down, shower, read your book. A lot of times my rest sometimes will just be my other touch point with my husband because we his schedule’s as busy as mine. So like sometimes we’re just passing ships, get in the kids’ places. So we try to like watch a show together and boom.

Yes, you need to go to bed and you need to get off your phone and go to bed at a good time. You also means me, walk into myself. Rest is part of your evening routine. It is not a reward for finishing a to-do list. Rest is part of the routine. You don’t have to earn it. So have something that allows you to transition. Now, key component here is knowing when to stop. It needs an end. Because if not, then the goal is complete the to-do list, not make tomorrow easier.

Cara Harvey (13:51.192)

So what needs to happen? And this is where when you’re starting out with this, just pick one or two things. You do not have to do everything on the list. You don’t need a reset and a plan and a connect and a just pick one from each column, maybe. And that’s what I wanna work on. And in your workbook, you’ll see I’ve got kind of like each of the columns out. So you can list what you’d like it to look like ideally.

And then make it a choice board. Be like, all right, tonight what are we working on? With the goal to build up to it, right? What can wait till tomorrow? Sometimes there are things if I don’t get the lunches packed, like I can do them in the morning. Can someone else help? Remember those people in your home? They can do it too. What am I doing? Because I think I should be doing it, right? You have to create a stopping point, whether it’s a time or a task. Hey, I’d like to get two things from each of these sections done. Once I get two done, I’m done. Or I could do more. You don’t have to do every single one every night either.

Right. You could just pick one from each of the four. And the goal is maybe you do them all by the end of the week, however, you want it to look. And when it’s done, it is done. A routine without a stopping point is just another way we keep ourselves busy because the to-do list never ends. So you need to keep working on it. All right. I hope you’re taking a lot from this section. I hope you’re taking a lot from all of the experts sharing their morning and evening routines. Now take this reset framework. And what I want you to do is pick one of these things, maybe to start incorporating right now.