Back-to-school checklist for creatives

Mother of Copy - 2 Sep 20

I’m a writer. My husband is a teacher. In fact he has just gone skipping out the door for his first day back. My daughter returns to nursery on Thursday and my sons’ school opens next Monday. This is all kinds of exciting for everyone.

And in this excitement I am not going to do what I do every year and relax too soon. Because usually, after a whole summer holidays of everyone being at home, I am so thrilled at the prospect of getting some time to myself to write, that I race ahead to the first day of term and forget all the things I was meant to do in the days leading up to it.

And of course, this year I am even giddier after 566798 years of lockdown.

Which is why this year I have made a list. And although it’s pretty dull I thought I’d share it with you. Because it’s not about the list. It’s about what the list will give you…

And what the list will give you is time and headspace. It is a lot easier to get on and do the thing you’ve been longing to do for months if your head isn’t full of all the things you should be doing as you prepare for the first day of term. So here goes:

• Childcare. Are there any days when you won’t be able to drop your children off or pick them up? Do you need to book the before and after school clubs? Have you checked all inset days for the academic year ahead and made the necessary arrangements?
• What have you promised your children that you would do this summer holidays that you haven’t yet done? When can you reschedule?
• Are there any Covid rules you need to know before school starts, such as different entrances or pick-up and drop-off times?
• What caused you stress on the first morning of term last September? How can you make sure that doesn’t happen this year?
• Payments for music lessons, breaktime milk, dinner money
• Name tags – a black Sharpie pen works just as well as iron-on or sew-on tags
• Things you might need to buy – pencil case, book bag, lunch box and tupperware, PE bag and full PE kit including spare trainers, water bottle (squeezy ones like this are the only ones that don’t leak), school shoes, socks, trousers that actually fit, school wellies and waterproofs
• Any dentist or optician appointments lurking in the calendar? Do you need to book any?
• Have you checked the school start date and time for each of your children? Have you checked it twice? On the school website?

I think if we’re creatively inclined we don’t spend as much time as we should on things like schedules, routines and checklists. But they are the ‘how’ of a creative life. Especially if you have children and no longer have the luxury of forgetting to do the boring things as you plough on with your creative stuff.

By figuring out how and when to do the workaday jobs efficiently, we don’t just make time for creative projects, but room inside our brains for them too.

If your children are returning to school this week, good luck. If they’re not, I wish you even more…

For more visit www.motherofcopy.co.uk

Mother of Copy

I’m Helen; writer, wife and mum to three young children. I grew up on a smallholding in Wales, my husband was brought up on an Irish dairy farm, and now we’re raising our kids on a school farm in England. We're original like that.

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