Having a family calendar in your home can go a long way to reducing the chaos and the stress of daily life. After many failed attempts to keep a family calendar going, I finally became a convert and made a commitment this year to do just that. It has really given us more breathing room and allowed us to be more organized.
Another benefit of the family calendar is that we can limit the running around. We aren’t a running around family and much prefer to stay home and take care of things close to home. With clear commitments on the calendar, we know not to take on additional activities or responsibilities that just won’t fit. We can also take a look at the overall calendar and see when it is time to say no or remove activities. There is nothing like seeing a calendar full of listings that overlap each other to give you a little perspective about how busy you and your family are.
With two kids in school now, the activities that they want to do are adding up, as are little things such as which of the days they have gym or need to bring in their musical instrument or a permission slip of some kind.
What works for us is to have an electronic calendar. I can color code the activities for the different areas or types, such as family fun, school, church and home or household. I can also choose to see just one type at a time. I imagine that when the kids get older, I may either color code by member of the family or create separate calendars for each one.
The calendar program that I use will sync with my phone, although I haven’t tried doing that just yet. This would allow me to take the calendar with me wherever I go.
I can also print the calendar and post it on the refrigerator. This didn’t work all that well with my family, though, since they all look to me to keep everyone on schedule anyway. With frequent updates to activities, the printed calendar became outdated quickly.