Hello and welcome to Best Laid Plans.

This is your host, Sarah Hart Unger, and this is the podcast where we talk all things planning and planning adjacent.

Welcome to your Back to School episode. You know that some of the episodes I do

are reviews and some of them are Q&As and some of them have guests, but this is a concept episode

because I feel like the back to school season just deserves all of the attention that we can give it.

Now, for me, my kids are going back to school about a week or two from when this is going to air.

I recognize that that is early.

There are different calendars for school in the United States, and I'm sure around the world,

kids in the Northeast don't usually go back until after Labor Day, but the farther south you go,

the earlier school seems to start, and mine are usually back in the middle of

August, as they will be this year. Now, we are not going to talk about COVID and masks and all that,

because there are plenty of podcasts where you can learn about that. But instead, focus on the fun

surrounding back to school, because even with a lot of uncertainty, there are still some wonderful

things that we get to embrace and enjoy about this new season. No one can take away the joy

of school supplies. So my kids are entering preschool, second grade, and fourth grade. And so there is a lot

to think about this year. In fact, this is actually the start of a whole new quintile to me.

That is how much of a new beginning it feels like. You guys remember quintile one is the beginning

of the year. Quintile two is spring break. Q3 is summer, which is winding to a close. And Q4 is

the start of back to school. To me, this one feels the most similar to New Year's, like, it's a fresh start

and new beginning, and I'm very grateful that we have that available to us in the middle,

really the two-thirds into the year, because I really need one right now. So we're going to be

thinking about refreshing various things. The first is kind of the routines we use, both at the

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