Welcome back Mindful Time Trackers. These last weeks have been an adventure of testing out new ways of going about your week or even your day, and also of noticing how these make you feel. What a journey it has been.

If you’ve been following along, you have done a lot of hard work. Give yourself a huge pat on the back and acknowledge, or see, that you accomplished something big. It takes a lot of dedication to make any kind of change in your day to day life.

This week is about noticing how awesome you’ve done, and about noticing how organizing your time differently (or at all) may have made you feel. Take a few moments to just sit and think about this, or make a drawing, poem, anything that you think expresses that.

Now take a moment to notice how it was to make Mindfulness part of your schedule, or something that you have planned in as a regular part of your life. Was it easier to practice that way? Was it harder? How did you feel after you practiced? If you didn’t practice, think of what would have made you want to practice more.

With all of the reflection and Mindful Time Tracking you’ve practiced, you are ready to keep Time Tracking on your own! If you feel like you need a refresher, just start back at the first Mindful Time Tracking Practice, or the one that was most difficult for you until you feel ready to take the next step.

Student Tip: The ongoing challenge is to schedule one Mindfulness practice in your planner, calendar, or phone reminders every week! You can write it all out at once if you’d like, or test your planning skills to add it each week when you plan out your schedule.

Teacher’s Tip: It might be helpful to demonstrate adding an ongoing event to a calendar, planner, or phone reminder system so the kids have a visual understanding.

Remember we become Mindful experts by practicing. Good luck Mindful Time Trackers! You’re going to do great.

Last week you reflected on what worked and what didn’t work so well from your Mindful Time Tracking practice. You then took one or more practices and kept using them this week to see how it went. Take a moment to notice how your second week of Mindful Time Tracking went. Did it go better or worse than last week? Maybe it was better because you got to choose what worked best for you. Maybe it was worse because it was annoying to write things down. Remember, it gets easier with practice- so we will keep practicing!

This week we’re going to practice using our Mindful Time Tracking skills by adding something to our schedules. The practice this week is to try Belly Breathing or a Flower Petals Body Scan from our recent 3×3 Mindfulness Challenge just one time. This is a way to build in time for  your Mindfulness practice by putting it on your Mindful Time Tracker (schedule). This will also help you practice your Mindful Time Tracking skills of writing the reminder down and remembering to look at it.

So go ahead and choose either Belly Breathing or Flower Petals Body Scan to practice this week. Pick a day and time where you don’t have anything else scheduled, and write down “Practice Flower Petals Body Scan” or “Practice Belly Breathing.”

Use the tools that worked best these last two weeks to help you remember to practice, and to check your schedule in the first place!

We’ll check in next week to see how it went. You’re going to do great.

Hello Mindful Time Trackers! How was it for you to organize your time on a calendar or in a planner? Take a few moments to reflect on your experience, and notice what your reactions are.

Here are some questions for reflection:

• Was is easy or hard?
• What was easy or hard about it?
• Did one part of the system (calendar, planner, phone reminders) work better or worse for you?
• Did you notice yourself getting annoyed or frustrated using these ways of Mindful Time Tracking?

Part of Mindful Time Tracking is to notice what happens when you use one way or another. It is to become an expert at noticing: what works, what doesn’t, what could be a cool thing to try.

If something worked well for you, you might try it again next week. If something didn’t work well for you, you might still try it again to give it another shot- or just let it go. Remember, we are always learning. This practice is just a hands on way to make the most of our learning abilities by organizing our time.

Keep using whatever method worked well for you (or giving one that you’re on the fence about another shot) and we’ll check in again next week for the last part of our Mindful Time Tracking series.

Remember, we practice over and over to make habits. So it’s okay if it practice before this might seem normal or easy to you. You’re doing awesome!

As the beginning of the school year sets in, you might find yourself scrambling to adjust back to your school schedule. Summer break to the start of school is a big change: from long, mellow days, to many periods or hours of learning. It makes sense that this could be hard for lots of people, even your teacher! So we’re going to talk about some ways to practice Mindful Time Tracking to help make the transition into the school year as smooth as can be!

Elementary Students:

• Ask your parents if you can start a calendar together with important school days, like tests or field trips on it.
• Get some arts and crafts supplies like stickers or markers, and make your calendar super awesome! This might be fun to do with your brothers or sisters, or your parents too.
• Look at your calendar at the beginning of each week to see what it coming up! If you need help remembering and have a phone, ask your parents to put a reminder on there. If you don’t have a phone, ask your parents if they’d be willing to help remind you.
• Just like all of our Mindfulness practices: the more you practice, the better you get!

Middle School and up:

• Buy or make a calendar to plan out your month, or week if you’re really busy. Dry erase boards can be nice so you can make changes and wipe it clean whenever the next month or week arrives.
• If you have a planner that your school gave you, start using it! They are super helpful for… you guessed it: planning!
• Planners can look a little boring to begin with- if yours is like that, make it super fun and eye catching so that you actually want to look at it. Choose things that reflect who you are, like stickers, metallic colors, glitter, you name it!
• Put really important things into your phone too. The nice thing about using your phone is that you can set alarms and sounds to go off that remind you of what you need to do and where you need to be.
• Set reminders on your phone to look at your planner and calendar at least once at the beginning of each week. That way you know if anything important is coming up.
• Just like all of our Mindfulness practices: the more you practice, the better you get!

If you already do these things, awesome! If not, try them out and see what works best for you!