Family Scheduling Success

The beginning of the school year is a great time for a family’s schedule. With new time commitments after a relatively unstructured summer, it focuses the family’s attention back on daily patterns and schedules. If you do it right, updating your family scheduling in the fall can become a recurring habit of organizing your life.  Here are some tips to make it stick:

1. The Family Calendar:

The more people you have in your family, the more the events multiply and fill up your weeks and months. Putting up a color-coded family calendar can make all the difference, especially when you organize the calendar listings by name.

2. Plan Ahead:

Getting ahead on the calendar can save you from a night of last minute scrambles. Putting your kids’ assignment schedules, project due dates, and extracurricular events down on the calendar will let you anticipate and avoid any 1:00 am surprises – like the diorama due the day after the band concert.

3.  Delegate

When the appointments and activities reach a critical mass, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Grandparents can watch the kids for appointments, older children can babysit or drive kids to activities, neighborhood friends can take the younger ones for a playdate with their kids. You don’t have to do it all by yourself.

4. Prioritize

Before you cram activities into all 24 hours of the day, sit down and prioritize. While it might seem fun to turn a birthday party into a crafty wonder to show off on Pinterest, it will be less fun in practice if you use all your free time pulling it off.

5. Schedule Downtime

Make sure that your family has more time to be together than the five minutes it takes to head out the door. Schedule movie nights, quiet afternoons, and family dinners, and spend the time getting to know each other. It will pay off in the end.