How to Organise a Family
Keeping Track of Family Appointments and Commitments
Maintaining an organised household involves keeping track of commitments and household routines. Use these tips to help bring some order into everyday family activities.
Whether your household is made up of family members or roommates, as the number of members of a household increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to monitor and manage the variety of individual commitments and everyday routines.
To prevent the embarrassment and inconvenience of missed appointments or chaos and cost of a poorly managed home, it is important to establish some way of monitoring and noting the responsibilities of individuals.
Using a Household Calendar
Many people have a calendar displayed in their home to keep track of important dates such as birthdays and anniversaries. Older children and adult will generally keep a personal diary to manage appointments and other commitments. It is often useful for the whole family or household to have a basic idea of what activities are coming up, especially if this involves organising child-minding or sharing the use of a vehicle.
The easiest way to track commitments is to display a calendar. Ideally the calendar should be easily visible, however it can be attached inside a pantry or cabinet door or on a wall behind a door to reduce clutter.
Print out calendar pages or buy a cheap calendar with one month per page. Avoid calendars with small or cluttered squares. If possible, find a place where three months can be displaced at a time. Pages can be taped to the front of a pantry door or on the door or side of a kitchen cabinet.
Another alternative is to place three calendar pages into individual plastic sleeves. Adhesive clips can be purchased from most department or hardware stores and attached in a suitable place. Future calendar pages can be stored inside the plastic sleeves behind the current months.
Each person in the household should be allocated a different colour for noting their commitments on the calendar. This makes it easy to see at a glance who is busy on which days.
Use a Whiteboard or Corkboard for Messages and Notes
Whiteboards and corkboards are ideal for displaying notes and messages that are only relevant for a short period of time. Placing a board just outside or just inside each bedroom door for children is a great way to help them to keep track of any household chores or school commitments they have. Due dates for assignments and school projects can be noted and easily wiped off when the work has been completed.
Allocate an area on children’s whiteboards that is specifically for messages from parents to make sure that these aren’t lost in the muddle of everyday notes made by the children. Allow kids to have some space to decorate and personalise the boards as well.
Establish a Menu Plan
Busy households and those trying to stick to a grocery budget benefit greatly from preparing a menu plan. This works particularly well for shared households where different members might be responsible for shopping for groceries each week.
A menu plan enables household members who arrive home early or who have the time available to start the evening meal knowing that all of the necessary ingredients are available.
Cleaning Checklist
Maintaining a cleaning checklist for both regular and sporadic jobs helps to keep track of which jobs need to be done. It also makes it possible to allocate tasks to specific members of the household. Even very young children can have a simple daily job to complete, to help them feel part of the running of the home.
As today’s families are busier than ever with work and after-school activities, setting up these simple organisational tools will help keep the home running smoothly, and give both parents and children more free time to spend together.
