Feeling overwhelmed keeping up with your day to day activities? Do you or your significant other work weird inconsistent hours? Do your children have so many extracurricular events that you cannot possibly manage to remember every detail? I feel you. We all have a lot going on day to day. We work part-time, full time, have pets, multiple kids, a partner in crime, homes to clean, and mouths to feed … so how can we manage it all without becoming overwhelmed adult terrors? Adult beverages. The answer is always adult beverages. Just kidding (not really) – a calendar. Getchu a family calendar and kiss one piece of your overwhelming puzzle goodbye.
I have a family dry erase calendar on our fridge plus my husband and I have a google calendar on our phones linked to our emails.
When people see the calendar, they tend to have a minor heart attack, but it is a beautiful organized mess. All of the little guys’ activities and days off of school are in yellow, my meetings and due dates for work are in blue, my Wedding Singing bookings are in purple, the hub’s work schedule and vet appointments in red, and our family responsibilities are in orange. It is a chaotic rainbow frenzie, but it helps relieve so much pressure and fear of overcommitting or forgetting to communicate something to my spouse or family member. It is on the calendar, the date is there, the details of the event are in the notes, the times are locked in, the location is set.
The family calendar has been such a success that we decided to create a “spending calendar.” I print a blank calendar each month and write down every single thing we spend so we can see what we are spending, where we are spending, and on which days. It has been so so so good to have everything written out – when bills hit, groceries, gas, tuition, credit card payments, etc. Having it color-coded has helped, of course!
With all of life’s responsibilities, my mind goes 100 miles a minute. Having a family calendar that is on my phone, email, computer, and refrigerator is a game changer to ease this crazy brain. I’d highly recommend it.
