Family Management; Keep Time Controlable with good Diary Management

This is not what I'm searching for. Written on 11-10-2010 by Segers

Do appointments within the family often take you by surprise? Do you find no-one at school because you forgot it was an educational day for teachers? Do you have to buy last-minute presents for a children's party? Perhaps managing your family diary is something that could still use some improvement.

Step 1

First you have to buy a diary or calender with enough room to write down appointments. A school diary could suffice and is convenient when you have children who still go to school... Very useful are so-called family diaries with room for every member of the family. Do you prefer something bigger? There are also family calenders with the same system, just bigger. Do you like to have a small agenda in your bag, then you have to keep up some extra discipline. Perhaps a PDA will come in handy for you... but that also requires discipline.

Step 2

Collect absolutely everything which could have something of an appointment on it; school letters, newsletters of the daycare centre, playgroup, sports club, doctors, music lessons. Sort out your handbag as well as your children's schoolbags.

Step 3

Arrange some time to get to work with all the information you have assembled. The appointments that return daily or weekly can be written down in your diary. You could shade them with a shading pen or write them down in a different colour; either way it should fit your system, should not be too difficult (that makes you drop out sooner) and easy to stick to. You could also write recurrent appointments on a seperate planning board. The Hema (a Dutch store) has a cheap example with pigeonholes for each familymember and day, with whiteboard markers and magnets with picto's on it you can create your own system. Whatever system you pick, choose something that works well for you.

Step 4

Everything will change starting today, but that will only work when you mobilize everything and everyone in your family. get used to asking everyone daily whether there are still items to put on the agenda. Put a memo somewhere that will remind you constantly. It demands some persistence, but you will also get the results from it.