Hello and welcome to best laid plans. This is your host Sarah Hart Unger, and this is a podcast

where we talk all things planning and planning adjacent. Today we are going to talk about

quintile number four. Now most of you who are listening

to this podcast have heard about my quintile system, but just for those that haven't, I prefer to

divide the year into five rather than four to better reflect the rhythms of the school year since

as a parent, they kind of determine so much about how my life goes, and it just feels

more natural as someone who has gone through school herself. So quintile one is January to

spring break. Quintile two is spring break to the end of the school year. Quintile three is

summer. Quintile four is the back to school season all the way until

Halloween, October 31st. And then quintile five is reflection season from November 1st to

December 31st, which I just feel like deserves its own quintile. So I need it. All right. So

we are about to, in my neck of the woods, enter quintile four.

And it's an interesting one to think about. In many ways, it's kind of our most jarring quintile

because it comes after quintile three, which is summer, which tends to have a more relaxed feel to

it. Even if your kids are not in school, there's just something about summer that is slower.

I haven't done this experiment, but I bet I get like 20% fewer emails during the months of, say,

June and July compared to September, October.

There's just something about summer where things slow down a little bit.

And then Q4 is the like, slam on the gas, school is starting, routines into place, new stuff, new rhythms, new everything, et cetera.

I actually also notice, I know a lot of people do their biggest spending of money during the holiday season.

Nope.

I do it during back to school because there's just a lot

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