Organizing Your Family

A mom or dad or both, have a busy schedule with meetings, appointments, work, school, play groups, and to-do lists galore. Life will be more peaceful and more stress free if you can organize all these appointments.

To organize your families life you need some basic tools. First a calendar. This can be kept on a computer, a wall, or in a planner. I keep mine on the computer, which I can use on my iphone and share with my husband and my mother. I also write the current weeks major items on a wall calendar on my kitchen cabinet. Write down what everyone is doing and at what time. Jot down items needed for the appointment or other details. Color coding can be helpful if you have lots of kids or lots of appointments or both. Include things like time for exercise and dates with your spouse as well. Those things should be considered not optional and should not be canceled, barring a major mishap.

The second thing you need is a place to write down needed groceries or household items. I keep mine in an app on my iphone so I can read my list more easily at the store, which I have copied from my running list I keep all month, stuck to the fridge. The list keeps me from worrying that I've forgotten something and keeps me from having to spend a great deal of time riffling through my fridge and cupboards to see what we're low on.

It may seem at first as though all this organizing takes too much work, but the piece of mind it brings is worth it. You no longer have try to keep all those dates and items in your head. You forget appointments and responsibilities less often and you know right away if you are available for further duties. It's wonderful to say to someone with confidence, "I can't, I've got an appointment at that time, but perhaps we can do it . . . "

Treat your schedule like it's as important as the CEO's and people will respect you more for it.