I promised a post last week on how we do schedules around here. I have to make things simple and not just for myself but for my family.
As much as I look at these people online who do the fancy journals with to-do lists and wish I had the time, talent or ability to do all of that, I have to keep it within my reach. And my husband's! So what we have set up is Google calendar. I have a calendar. Travis has a calendar. We "share" our calendars with each other and we have our individual colors so we know who has added that event to the calendar.
This helps SO much because if we wanted to plan something like a girls' night out or guys' night out, we can just look at the calendar before we talk about it. As the kids get older, they'll get their own calendars too. We just aren't on opposite schedules yet - they have basketball together, piano lessons for Maddy just mean that Lucy's with me... I tried sharing with my parents because I do work for them occasionally and they need me to witness a client's signing of documents so that they could see my schedule or add in a time they need me...they just aren't that into technology yet. I'm working on them! If you're afraid of it, this YouTube video below does a nice job of breaking it down. I'm not going to post screenshots of my actual calendar on a public forum anyways :)
With recurring events like piano lessons each week, you can easily edit the entry to repeat every week and even set a date when it stops. I can delete an entry without messing up what I have planned for the following week, or when an event ends I can delete it from coming back again.
THE most helpful feature for me is the REMINDER. It defaults to 15 minutes but I can change the reminder for a day ahead or an hour ahead. Usually I set this for the time I need to think about leaving the house. This works better for me than using my phone with an alarm clock with different times to set throughout each day. The reminder is set up as a little pop up on my phone and it makes a noise which alerts me and gets my attention.
You can also set up tasks that you may want to accomplish for the day or week ahead. This is a great way for me to have my to-do list and get my items checked off, without having a piece of paper to lose or take the time to write it out. Typing is so much faster for me!
The possibilities are endless. In business situations you may want to "invite guests" to your event, which alerts people about your calendar event and they can even RSVP through email to your "event" to let you know if they'll be there.
For our family, this system works. It's with us, on the go, and can be changed easily. When a friend first mentioned using a Google calendar instead of a paper calendar, I thought that was crazy. Times have changed since 2010! I loved my paper planner, but this helped our family to communicate better on the go, and make each other aware of events going on much easier. Hope this helps someone else!
As much as I look at these people online who do the fancy journals with to-do lists and wish I had the time, talent or ability to do all of that, I have to keep it within my reach. And my husband's! So what we have set up is Google calendar. I have a calendar. Travis has a calendar. We "share" our calendars with each other and we have our individual colors so we know who has added that event to the calendar.
This helps SO much because if we wanted to plan something like a girls' night out or guys' night out, we can just look at the calendar before we talk about it. As the kids get older, they'll get their own calendars too. We just aren't on opposite schedules yet - they have basketball together, piano lessons for Maddy just mean that Lucy's with me... I tried sharing with my parents because I do work for them occasionally and they need me to witness a client's signing of documents so that they could see my schedule or add in a time they need me...they just aren't that into technology yet. I'm working on them! If you're afraid of it, this YouTube video below does a nice job of breaking it down. I'm not going to post screenshots of my actual calendar on a public forum anyways :)
With recurring events like piano lessons each week, you can easily edit the entry to repeat every week and even set a date when it stops. I can delete an entry without messing up what I have planned for the following week, or when an event ends I can delete it from coming back again.
THE most helpful feature for me is the REMINDER. It defaults to 15 minutes but I can change the reminder for a day ahead or an hour ahead. Usually I set this for the time I need to think about leaving the house. This works better for me than using my phone with an alarm clock with different times to set throughout each day. The reminder is set up as a little pop up on my phone and it makes a noise which alerts me and gets my attention.
You can also set up tasks that you may want to accomplish for the day or week ahead. This is a great way for me to have my to-do list and get my items checked off, without having a piece of paper to lose or take the time to write it out. Typing is so much faster for me!
The possibilities are endless. In business situations you may want to "invite guests" to your event, which alerts people about your calendar event and they can even RSVP through email to your "event" to let you know if they'll be there.
For our family, this system works. It's with us, on the go, and can be changed easily. When a friend first mentioned using a Google calendar instead of a paper calendar, I thought that was crazy. Times have changed since 2010! I loved my paper planner, but this helped our family to communicate better on the go, and make each other aware of events going on much easier. Hope this helps someone else!
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