Are you the organizer in your household? I am. For a home to work well, at least one of the people in it needs to be an organizer. That person makes sure that medical appointments get booked, the groceries come into the house, meals are made, and the kids get to child care, school, and lessons. Magically, the children are clothed and fed and have what they need to get through their day. Home and car maintenance gets done, home disasters are taken care of, and random items that the household needs get picked up. There are doctors’ appointments that occur every month or every 6 months, and I need to remind myself to book them as well. There are camps to book in the summer, birthday gifts to mail to people far away so that they will get there cheaply and on time.
Yeah, it’s all good times on the organizing front. I actually rather enjoy it, this well-oiled and sometimes squeaky machine that we have. However, I struggle with how to keep track of it all.
We only have one child, so the kid schedule is somewhat manageable. However, we also have very active work and volunteer lives, so things do get hairy. Like any family, we have a few additions to our lives that cause organizational complexity: chronic illnesses that need constant management and doctors’ appointments, and six pets.
How do we manage the calendar? Well, I’m a paper gal. I like a good old paper calendar with groovy little squares to write in. However, those squares easily get filled up these days, and I yearn for the vast open reaches of the portable paper calendar. The problem? I don’t really like writing appointments on two or more pieces of paper. I have many recurring appointments in my weeks and months and writing them all into the calendar every week can cause a serious case of boredom and writer’s cramp.
Yet I resist the call of technology like the IPhone, because I know that I will be seduced. I love the internet and can get lost in it. I really don’t need to have it with me at all times. I even went so far as to get a digital organizer – a Palm Pilot with no internet connection – in 2010.
In the next few weeks, I’ll be exploring different organizing tools that you can use to make your life flow. While they won’t do the grocery shopping for you, they’ll help you keep your list on track. Will I stick with a sheet of paper? Who knows?
Image courtesy of rdragan79 at stock exchange.