Memorial Day (and the unofficial start of summer) is only two weeks away. But that's enough time to do some planning.

One of the handiest things you can do is to develop a summer routine. Your summer routine will allow you to complete essential tasks (grocery shopping, laundry, keeping the dust bunnies from staging a revolution) while still being able to enjoy the good weather and the more relaxed pace.

Step 1 in developing your summer routine is making a list of everything that needs to be done and how often it needs to be done. For example, making beds and doing dishes are daily tasks. Things like grocery shopping and mopping might be weekly. The frequency of some tasks may depend on your household. I live alone, so a weekly laundry day and bathroom cleans work. In a large household, laundry might be biweekly and bathroom cleaning daily.

Step 2 is deciding who does what. This is easy in my house since the dog isn't good with chores. In most households, everyone over 5 should at least be responsible for their own bed, bedroom, and clothes as well as sharing in overall household chores in a way that is age-appropriate. Your 8 year-old probably shouldn't be doing the grocery shopping or mowing the lawn, but there is dusting and table setting and helping with meal prep (tearing lettuce for salad, husking corn, etc. do not require a high school diploma). People can keep the same chores all summer or rotate every week or so.

Step 3 is assigning tasks to a specific day and time of day. I like to do as much as possible early in the morning. It's cooler and I can spend the long evening hours walking or lying in the hammock with a good book and a tasty beverage. If all goes well, the only tasks I leave for the evening are grocery shopping, evening meal prep, and usually laundry. If you have teenagers, the idea of sorting laundry at 7:00 a.m. on a summer morning may be treated as blasphemy.

Step 4 is documenting your decisions. Until a routine becomes second nature, it helps to be able to see it. Also, writing things down (on a white board, on newsprint, on sheets taped to the fridge) lets you revisit the task list after a few weeks, tweaking as necessary. It may turn out that you don't need to do laundry as often — or that you need to do it more often because of dirty play clothes. You may have forgotten an essential or two. Don't be afraid to tweak as you go along, but keep the basics as intact as possible. that's the skeleton for your routine.