The Weekly Schedule
Well…thanks to you, my lovely readers, I am launching a new series today! One request that kept coming through was that you want more tips and tricks on how to organize your family life. Since I have my own party of five (which sometimes feels more like a party of 10), I know a little something about how to attempt to keep the chaos under control.
So welcome to a new simple series that will emphasis organizing for families. Whether you have one or 10 kids you will find easy to implement solutions that will help to keep your family humming along!
I need to share the back story of this picture. I planned to do our Christmas photo shoot (a few years ago) while on a trip to the Beach over Easter weekend. (That’s what I call nerdy pre-planning being organized.) We used a tripod for our glorious shoot. It was freezing. Notice my poor girls are in sleeveless Easter dresses. Due to the weather and my whining we only took about three shots on the beach. This one is my favorite. It was our “be crazy” shot. My crazy is apparently closing my eyes. Yes, it’s true, I live on the edge.
Now onto how to create a simple Weekly Schedule. I have to give all the credit to my oldest daughter Ainsley, for initiating this idea. She was telling me for months that she wanted to know our schedule/calendar/what we are doing. She felt like she was not in the “know.” I was resistant because I prefer to keep one calendar, a digital calendar. (I have been using my google calendar for years and didn’t want to change things.) I especially didn’t want to have to keep TWO calendars updated. One is hard enough. But, we had a miscommunication problem that needed to be fixed. She wasn’t happy with me telling her to check my google calendar on the Ipad. Ainsley wanted something out in the open.
After mulling it over I came up with an awesome solution. I decided that I would just add a weekly general calendar in a location where we could all see it regularly. A calendar that would be used for daily key events, such as basketball games, DR appointments, date nights, youth group meetings etc. I could keep my master calendar on my google calendar and then just list the important items each week.
This chalkboard was something we used to use in our homeschooling days. So, I just flipped it horizontally, slapped it on the wall with some velcro stripes and ta da it was ready for business. I update it every Monday and it keeps us are all in the “know!”
On a side note, I am the keeper of the family calendar/schedule. Always have, probably always will. My hubby a bolt has never kept a calendar. One time we were going to sit down and have a quick meeting about future scheduling etc. He told me he would bring his calendar. I was stumped as to what calendar he would be bringing. He walked in that night from work carrying the largest sized desk calendar I had ever seen. I’m not even sure that it was on the correct month.
He is the ying to my yang.
To finish off the new Weekly Schedule I added three hooks for my three darlings. They each have a clipboard for school stuff. They keep their school calendars and any info they want to save such as reading logs, daily schedules etc.
If you look closely you’ll see that this child (not to be named) put their Birthday list on their clipboard. I love that they wrote, “I’m not asking for everything!” Well that’s good since the list has about 20 items.
If you have moved to an electronic calendar or you have a desk calendar or you carry your planner with you and your family doesn’t have regular access to the schedule. Then this is a great solution to keep everyone on the same page! Just take a simple wipe board, chalkboard or calendar and list the important daily events each week.
*KISS – Adding a weekly calendar for major events will keep everyone on the same page.
Linked with ABFOL.
