Keeping Your Family’s Schedule Organized
Use these simple tips to plan your monthly family calendar of routines and activities and keep the whole family running smoothly for the new year.
From playdates to budgets to school activities, there is a lot to keep track of when you have a family. Whether your family is large or small, keeping on top of your schedule can be extremely overwhelming. If you are constantly looking for fresh ideas for keeping your family, home, and routines as organized as possible, here are some tips to keep everyone in your family on task and happy.
Jump to:
- What’s The Best Family Calendar For You?
- Sync Your Calendars Up
- Keep Your Wall Calendar In A Central Location
- Practice Weekly Planning Sessions
- How To Make Memories As A Busy Family
What’s The Best Family Calendar For You?
There is no doubt that using a family calendar can really improve your life. If you are willing to maintain all your appointments and family commitments in one place, you will always know where to be prepared for the day, week, and month ahead. But to do this you have to find the right tool for the job and figure out which personalized calendar will help you stay organized for the new year.
Finding the best family calendar that works for your family can be tough! There are all kinds of family calendars available, like shared calendar apps that allow you to sync up multiple calendars or wall calendars that you can hang for everyone to see each morning. There’s really no ideal, one-size-fits-all calendar. Find one below that fits your family the best.
Wall Calendars
If you prefer to see everything posted in one place where the entire family can gaze at it over breakfast, then check out our personalized wall calendars! With plenty of space on every date to fill in appointments, important notes or ideas, our custom calendars provide room for all sorts of planning and color-coded stickers that you can use for special events and birthdays. Wall calendars are fun to decorate and perfect for visual learners.
Calendar Apps
Calendar apps are great for families who use computers and smartphones prolifically as they allow you to share events and tasks with all members of your clan. With calendar apps, all the users can see the main calendar and add things to it. This prevents double-booking and over-scheduling. They also allow you to sync across many different devices and ping you with reminders about upcoming events.
Dry Erase Calendar Whiteboard
Dry erase calendars allow for easy noting and adjusting of daily, weekly and monthly plans, which is ideal for a hectic family life. For big families or small families with big schedules, you’ll need plenty of space to keep track of everyone’s various goings-on, especially when writing with a dry erase marker.
Monthly Planners
You won’t have to worry about forgetting appointments, meetings or special days again when you use our personalized monthly planners! Schedule your days and weeks with a distinctive and personalized planner that looks great at the office or in your home. We offer a great selection of monthly planner designs that will stand out from the crowd, so you’ll have a planner that’s unique to you.
DIY Family Command Center
A family command center is just a designated space in your home that serves as the central place for organizing daily chaos (schedules, incoming papers, car keys, etc). Exactly what you include in your command center varies based on your family’s own needs, but they frequently include things like a family calendar, a place for papers, a place for notes/messages, and hooks for keys.
Sync Your Calendars Up
Whether you use a digital calendar, planner, or wall calendar, you’ve got to make sure everyone in your family adds in their events and appointments. Adding in events and appointments, coordinating childcare and transportation, and making sure everyone involved is on the same page can keep aspects of your life —work, chores, homework— seamlessly coordinated together.
Color-Coding
One easy way to stay organized while syncing up calendars is by color coding each person or category. Digital calendars are great for this because they will often automatically color code each event in terms of type and/or family member. But you can color-code your wall or dry erase calendar too. Using highlighters for your custom wall calendar or different colored markers for your dry erase board works well. Designate each family member with a color and highlight accordingly. You can also highlight according to the type of activity or which grown-up is responsible for transportation or attendance.
Setting Reminders
It’s one thing to keep track of everyone on your calendar, but it’s another thing to remember when each event or appointment is coming up. Here’s where reminders can come in and save the day. Digital calendars or apps almost always include reminders. You can have each event on the calendar come as a pop-up reminder on a phone or table, or you can have an auto email sent. You can choose particular events to be sent to certain family members. Oh, the wonders of the digital age! If you are using a wall or dry erase board calendar, you can still set up reminders on your phone for upcoming events. Just make sure they are sent to everyone who needs to see them.
Keep Your Wall Calendar In A Central Location
Whatever wall calendar you use, you must keep it in a central location, somewhere all family members frequent daily. This can be your fridge, your kitchen, your dining room, your family room, or the living room. Make sure the calendar is at eye level and that the words written on it are clear and legible. Remember, this calendar is for all family members to access.
Practice Weekly Planning Sessions
Calendars are a necessity when you have a busy family, and especially if your family is large. But calendars and even auto-reminders are no substitute for in-person communication. It can be helpful to have weekly family meetings, where you discuss the week’s upcoming events, and add in any forgotten events or appointments to your calendar.
This is also a time to check in with your family members to see how they are feeling about their schedules. Are they enjoying their extracurricular activities? How is the tutoring going? When do you need to make your next doctor check-up? Taking time to check in with your family is so important for morale and to ensure that everyone’s schedule is working for them.
Taking even half an hour to plan each week will pay incredible dividends of your time. Sundays are the perfect day to concentrate on planning the five C’s:
- Calendar: Seeing what events are happening this week
- Carpool: Figuring out who needs to be where and when
- Cooking: Choosing what’s for dinner and what groceries to buy
- Chores: Assigning household tasks to a specific person
- Children: Assessing sitter needs and deciding who is helping with bath time, bedtime, and homework
How To Make Memories As A Busy Family
Making memories and bonding is one of the most important things you can do for your family. It is one of the most simple to pull off yet easy to neglect as well. Life just has a way of being busy and it’s can be easy to forget to take time for the people you love. So, make a point to schedule in downtime. Yes, actually write it into your calendar! Same goes for family time and date night. Sometimes you need to make a calendar commitment to make these things happen. But they should be a priority just as much as your child’s Little League games or orthodontist appointments.
Making your family feel important and cherished is such a priceless gift that will pay off in so many ways. One piece of the foundation of a peaceful, loving, comfortable home is taking time for each other. Here are some ways to create memories as a family.
- Play a board game together! Laughing for an hour while playing a game or finishing a custom puzzle can create some fantastic memories.
- Go to a park and play something as a family, such as hide and seek. Hiking or just going for a walk are both wonderful activities to do as a family.
- Plan ahead for big events. Take a jar or a shoe box, label it “family fun” or whatever is meaningful to you, then save a dollar a week in the container until you can afford to do whatever big thing you desire.
Wrapping Up
Every family will be different in how they keep track of and organize their schedule. For smaller families with fewer regular appointments or events, a simple wall calendar will suffice. For larger or busier families, using an easily accessible, neatly organized, shareable calendar can be abundantly helpful. It’s important to figure out what works for you, and then fine-tune your system along the way. Ultimately, having all your family’s events and appointments organized, in one place, and shared among family members can give you peace of mind as you move through your busy life—and that is worth its weight in gold.
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