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Life In the To-do-list Lane Family scheduling means more than making sure no one gets forgotten at baseball practice. Good organization can take time-crunch stress out of everyone's routines. 
If every day is a mad scramble down a to-do list that never gets any shorter, it's time to start some serious family scheduling. "People today take on way more than they can possibly handle," says Jamie Martin, a professional organizer who founded Destination Organization, Glen Ellyn, Ill. "The only way to possibly make it on time to everything is if everything goes absolutely perfectly. And that never happens." Figuring out how to fit it all in one day might mean more than hanging up a calendar and writing a chore list. Here are six simple steps to skip the stress and make your family's schedule fit into its box on the calendar. 1) Write it down So how do you stick to a schedule? The first step is to write it down. It's easy to lose track of a daily routine that's written in your head, according to Alison Caputo, a professional organizer who created Clarity Consulting, Atlanta, Ga. "Things will always interrupt you, but by having a basic starting point makes it easy to get back on track," Caputo says. Establish daily routines for basic things your family does every day, then write them down and figure out about how much time each step takes. The same rule applies to chores. "A lot of the stuff parents talk about is never written down," Caputo says. "Then parents unknowingly change their expectations and the child doesn't know." Keep some kind of written list of each child's responsibilities. And chores don't have to be torture; use your creativity to keep kids motivated. When you start to have schedules and timetables figured out, don't bear the burden by yourself. Martin says it is empowering for kids to have access to things like phone lists, schedules and calendars. Keep everything in a binder and make sure everyone in the family uses it. "Kids think, 'I can do this myself,'" Martin says. "Rather than Mom telling them, 'you have to be here, do this and do that,' it's their own self telling them 'I need to be there now.'" Then expect that the dog is going to break into the bag of kibble, the permission slip will spontaneously combust and the grape juice is going to soak your shirt. When you know how long things typically take, start building a buffer zone of extra time for unexpected events into your schedule. 
2) Be a timekeeper Do you know how exactly long it takes you whip up a crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Probably not. That's why Nancy McGivney, a professional organizer who established Getting Things Done, Scottsdale, Ariz., suggests using simple kitchen timers to figure out how long things really take, or limit the time they take. Tell your child to clean his or her room for 15 minutes, then set a timer. "People of all ages think they can't do something because they don't have time," McGivney says. "Just set a timer and see how long it actually takes you to do it." 3) Use technology - or lose it In the iPhone age, baseball practice might not be a scrawl on a giant wall calendar. It could be a block in Google Calendar instead. Caputo suggests using a free online scheduling program called Cozi (www.cozi.com). It allows you to set recurring alerts, color-code events and organize by family member. Google and Yahoo have calendar functions, and Windows and Macintosh operating systems come with built-in calendars too. "People have to find the system that works for them. A wall calendar doesn't make sense when each family member walks around with a piece of technology that can access [an online calendar]," Caputo says. "And you can even send e-mail or text message reminders." Of course the text message that reminds a child it's teeth-brushing time could come on the heels of 12 texts from friends. That's why Denise Caron-Quinn, founder of In Order To Succeed, New York City, says she'll sometimes take away her daughter's cell phone when she comes home from school. "The Internet is a huge time-waster," Caron-Quinn says. She suggests using Safe Eyes, a software program that lets parents block objectionable content and limit the amount of time kids can spend on the computer. A net-surfing cap might not be a bad idea for adults either. 4) Prioritize Most women don't have time for themselves because they give their time away, according to McGivney: "And if you give your time away, anyone will buy it. Everyone wants a piece of you." One way she says to quit giving it away is to make priorities. Write down your top five priorities, and let your friends and family know what they are. Once you've got priorities set, it's easier to know what extra responsibilities and tasks to tackle during the week. If you say your kids are your number one priority and your friend asks you to meet her at the mall, tell her a department store isn't where you need to be that week. 
5) Have family meetings When it's so hard to fit all your to-dos into a day, it's easy to forget everything that happened over a week. Then when things go bad it's impossible to say when they started to go sour. So McGivney says weekly family meetings are a must. Get everyone together for a 30-minute "mini party," she says, and start out by having each family member talk about the high and low points of his or her week. "Instead of saying 'how'd your day go?' say 'what was your high and your low?'" McGivney says. That makes for a more structured, qualitative discussion of family matters. Take the good with the bad; hurt feelings, problems and other issues come out in a constructive way and everyone gets to contribute to the solution. 6) A place for everything on the calendar - and in your home How many mornings have you spent tearing through wads of watercolors, old A+ tests and math practice problems while you search for that one permission slip? Taking things in and out of the car and trying to remember everything each kid needs for the day is time-consuming and frustrating. McGivney's solution is to create a kind of "launching pad." Set up shelves alongside your car in the garage. Put everything your baby needs on one shelf, everything sports-related on another, then set up a kind of filing system for papers that don't need to go in the house and figure out how to make the daily haul make sense. Plus, having everything in the same spot means it just takes a quick glance to know the baby needs more diapers or her sister needs more snacks. In a small home or condo, using a laundry room or storage chest by the door works just as well. |
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