Article I copied & posted that might help some of us busy moms with our daily busy lives. I do the calendar thing & split taking girls to activities with my hubby:) FYI-Cozi is a great free online calendar & free app that you can link to cell phones etc for your family to keep everyone on track:) If you’ve got multiple kids with multiple activities on multiple days per week, it can be a real challenge to manage everyone’s schedule, let alone your own. Even the most organized mom needs a few tricks up her sleeve to make juggling the family calendar a little bit easier. Divide and Conquer You may be used to being the family organizer, but one of the biggest pitfalls you can make when managing the schedule is insisting on tracking everyone all by yourself. Divvy up the duties by assigning your spouse, grandparent or another parent a portion of the week’s schedule by day or activity. For example, it’ll help you to know that you always drop off your child for Thursday’s judo lesson and they always pick up him up. Merge It Keeping a personal calendar is fine, but it’s wise to also have one document where every family member’s life collides. Search for an online calendar that allows you to upload your schedule and allows multiple people to access and/or modify it. That way, if your tech-savvy middle-schooler makes a mall date, she can put it on the virtual calendar. Another smart strategy: Color-code the schedule by family member so eyes don’t glaze over (and forgotten appointments are kept to a minimum). Review Daily Every morning, review the day’s agenda before you head out the door. Remind your gang of the plan for pick-ups and drop-offs and note anything that isn’t a regular weekly occurrence, like a dentist appointment, book club meeting or your husband’s day to bring snacks to soccer practice. You can even print out a copy of the family calendar to stash in your purse or store it on your smartphone for quick reference, or post a monthly wipe-clean calendar on the fridge. If you have a babysitter, make sure she’s in on the plan, too. Share with a Neighbor Have a neighbor with kids in the same grade or on the same team? Create a carpool system in which each parent is responsible one to two days per week. If the kids take the bus, switch up days when you, your spouse or neighbor walk the kids to and from the bus stop. Another option is to alternate transport duties every other week so you’re free to get in a stretch of afternoon workouts or do errands rather than being on call every day. Set Limits If the family schedule is so overcrowded there isn’t a day off for your child (or yourself) it’s time to reexamine the program. Everyone — and especially kids — needs down time to just relax and hang out. Consider signing your children up for just one extracurricular activity per season so there’s at least one day free for unstructured play or a spontaneous outing. Of course, having everyone on the same page is a good thing when it comes to a household of busy people, but remember, you may need a collective day off so you can all unwind and catch up with one another.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 11:40:56 +0000
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