Each family has its own way of doing things when it comes to organising the family schedule.
Daily routines and schedules are great for families as it keeps everyone together and ensures things get done around the house (i.e. like laundry, taking bins out or feeding the dogs).
An organized family schedule can help you remember important things, guide you seamlessly through the day, and make you feel more in control of your life.
When your family has a schedule, everyone knows the 5 W’s, WHO, WHAT, WHY, WHEN, and WHERE, which always leads to a smooth operation.
Although I see many well-oiled families, I find there are 5 crucial mistakes most families are still making when it comes to organizing their schedule.
// MISTAKE 1: You’re not communicating effectively with everyone in the family
One CRUCIAL mistake I see time and time again is that there is always ‘one’ person in the family who takes in the responsibility of organising absolutely everything, and sometimes they forget to notify everybody else of what’s happening.
Family life is darn busy and trying to coordinate multiple schedules can be mentally exhausting, letting others know of small things like event changes or last-minute to-dos around the house can easily slip one’s mind.
As much as you are an organized bad*ss, you need to accept you cannot manage it all yourself and you need to make others accountable.
This can be done via regular family meetings or using a digitised calendar system like Life Sorted to keep everyone in the loop, plus you can even add custom reminders if you need to give the kids a nudge or two without saying a word.
As grocery items needed tend to get miscommunicated food shopping can be the bane of every mother’s existence, so if this is a pain point for you check out the full extent of Life Sorted smart shopping list features like favourite items or the virtual tick as you go list making shopping easier than ever (check out our Shopping List guided tour here).
// MISTAKE 2: You’re doing too much
If you feel like everyone in the family is agitated and never gets time to simply rest and vege out, well gorgeous one it could because everyone in the family is simply overcommitted.
The fam including yourself (hello self-care!) deserves a bit of R&R to catch up on some rest.
The next time an event or someone tries to take a slot out of your calendar, stop, scan your paper diary or digital calendar and reply to them with something firm like “I’d love to but I’m fully booked” or “Dang! My schedule is booked, maybe next time when I have more time”.
Setting up schedule boundaries and saying “no” will ensure you have enough runway to do all the things in your schedule while also allowing time for essential rest.
// MISTAKE 3: Not scheduling EVERYTHING
You may think you add everything to your family schedule yet do you feel like you’re still running around like a blue-arsed fly?
Yeah, maybe you are scheduling things like your doctor’s appointment or your coffee catch-ups with the girls, but what about those tedious menial tasks that seem to take up big chunks of time like cleaning the oven or buying new school uniforms for your kids?
Schedule absolutely everything you can think of, and I mean EVERYTHING! Allocate time in your calendar for all. the. things.
Anything from helping your kids with homework, walking the dog, to even doing your grocery shop. If it gets scheduled it gets done.
Paper diaries are fabulous, but the fam can’t access this when they’re on the go wherever, download Life Sorted and braindump all the events or todos for the day to make sure absolutely everything is scheduled.
// MISTAKE 4: Not allowing enough time for drop offs and pick ups
How many times have you picked up or dropped your kids off somewhere aaand you’re still running late even though it was scheduled in the calendar?
Guilty!? Don’t worry sweet pea I used to be the same!
When you’re entering events into your family calendar you need to extend the time blocks to allocate enough time to drop off and pick up while also considering traffic.
Once you factor in travel time, you’ll have a safety bubble saving you the stress that comes with running late.
// MISTAKE 5: Not having everything in one place
When you’re managing a job and family, there’s always going to be a duality in your life… and that my friend is conflicting family and work schedules.
Managing two calendars can cause you to overcommit and cause awkward double ups, leading to even more stress.
To add to the complexity of your double life, if you have a Google Calendar for your family and your work on Outlook or even worse… one paper and one digital calendar, there’s no synchronisation in sight.
That’s why you need a centralised family calendar so you can organize absolutely everything in one place. The glory in Life Sorted? It syncs with all calendars (Outlook, Apple, and Google) simply hook it up and watch as your work and family life harmoniously combined in the one place. Ah!
Final thoughts…
If you’re doing any one of these things, then you have the opportunity to change the way you organise your schedule and reach an organised state of bliss. And if you’re doing nothing on this list, kudos to you!
Good luck!
x Jo
