I spend a considerable amount of time with my family. This makes sense, right? I am a mom. I manage a household of people. I organize the people in the household. I engineer it so that the people in my household get to where they need to be, participate in what they need to do, and have the necessary equipment available.
I am a CEO of our household to use a cliche. Cliche or not I have an important role in making my family work. In order for us to work, I need a household plan. A game plan that shows what we need to do to get it done.
Here are my 10 Tips for Managing and Organizing My Family.
1. Use an online calendar to track family events, sports practices and games, school projects and assignments, church services and Sunday school, and birthdays.
2. Send a copy of each week’s calendar to all members of your family who regularly check e-mail. I find that my teen likes getting a copy of the calendar to see when she has volleyball practice.
3. Use a backup paper or wall calendar as a backup. It also helps children who are not web savvy or good readers to keep track of events. I buy a large wall calendar with columns for each of us. I write events in laundry marker pen for my early reading son.
4. Create online shopping lists, work to-do lists, birthday wish lists, and household chores lists using an online scheduling program.
5. Assign chores to kids. You know that kids don’t want to do chores anymore than parents want to do them, but getting chores done helps the household run smoothly.
6. Have consequences for when children do not do chores.
7. For large household tasks, involve all family members. I convene a laundry folding group each week. I spread out all the clean laundry on the floor and in baskets and have each kid sort, fold, and distribute clothes to bedrooms.
8. Make older children responsible for their morning and evening routines. My tween and teen know they must shower, wash their hair, make their beds, brush their teeth twice a day, and go to bed by themselves. I supervise, but don’t nag them to do it.
9. Reduce your stress level by using an online map/directions/GPS program. Calculate how long it will take you to get a kid from home to karate to the birthday party and home again. By calculating the time needed for a trip you will know how much time to budget.
10. When food and drink items run low, keep a list on your phone. You can refer to this list in the grocery store. By keeping an up-to-date list, you can find relevant coupons for the products you need. In other words, plan shopping trips in advance to save money.
This post is part of a blogging contest from the TwitterMoms community. There is a chance this post could be randomly selected to win a $50 Target GiftCard, so wish me luck! For more details, you can view the contest page here (http://icomp.ly/IconApps).
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