How to Organize Your Seasonal Schedules
How to Organize Your Seasonal Schedules
Your family’s schedule changes from season to season, so it’s important to keep things organized so you can stay on track. Whether you’re running to sporting events throughout the fall and winter or camps and workshops during the summer, getting your seasonal schedule organized will help you save time and a few headaches. Here are a few ideas to help you pull it all together.
Use Calendars
Every activity your family participates in should have a calendar of some type. Ask for printed calendars for practice schedules, meetings, games, camps, etc. Create a central location where all printed calendars will be kept. Have them laminated or placed into sheet protectors and put them into a ring back binder or place them into a folder.
If you have a dry erase calendar that can be hung on the wall or the fridge, make use of it for monthly schedules. Use different colors of dry erase markers — one for each family member — to update the calendar and help everyone see at a glance who needs to go where and when.
You will also want to use a pocket calendar to keep in your purse with all dates marked so you can see quickly what your family has planned when you are away from home.
Use White Boards for Updates
Place a small white board on the fridge or near the calendar so family members can leave notes and make updates to upcoming events. Instruct everyone to date any note they write.
Make Use of Regular Family Meetings
To keep everyone in the family on the same page, plan regular family meetings. Pick an evening for just half an hour so everyone can sit down together and go over the week’s coming events and schedules. Take a few minutes to talk about the previous week too and brainstorm together ways to improve schedules and activities.
Not only will the family meetings be a way to keep your schedules on track, it’s a great way to intentionally connect with your family. In today’s very busy society, it’s too easy to pass each other coming and going and spend little time together. Making a point to schedule time to sit down together in order to talk and plan out your family’s activities will enable you to squeeze in a little family time among the busyness.
Try to Set Up Blocks of Activities Together
You can’t always control your family’s schedule, but if you can consolidate your schedule to eliminate some of the running back and forth then do it. If you can set up one or two days during the week to have lessons and practices or other activities and free up another day, do it.
Organizing seasonal schedules that will be changing means being flexible and willing to make changes when necessary. Being organized will help your family reduce stress as you deal with the changes that each season will bring.
If you are in need of better organization skills in general, then we have some things here that will be sure yo help you out! Check out our guide to Getting Organized! If you find that you are still having organization problems, then you might want to try this book on organizing inside and out!
