Everyday Systems
The Family Calendar That Helps Keep Us on Track
We tried the paper calendar on the wall, and we tried keeping everything on our phones. Neither solved the real problem: five people with different schedules trying to keep track of what everybody else had going on. What finally worked was one large digital calendar in our kitchen with everyone's schedules feeding into the same place. It isn't fancy. It just gives us one place to look.
Why the Kitchen
The kitchen is where our family naturally crosses paths — before school, after school, around dinner, and plenty of times in between. Putting the calendar there means nobody has to remember to go looking for it.
The large screen helps too. We can glance at the week while we're already standing there instead of opening another app on our phones.
What Goes On It
We keep the calendar focused on the things that affect the family: work, school, practices, appointments, events, and anything that requires somebody to be somewhere.
Each person has a different color, so it's easy to see whose schedule is filling up.
- our running grocery list
- a few household chores
- reminders we don't want to forget
We could use it for a lot more, but we don't. Keeping it simple is part of what makes it useful.
Everyone Adds Their Own
This was the part that made the biggest difference. Everyone can add or change their own schedule from their phone.
If practice changes, an appointment gets made, or something comes up at school, whoever knows about it can put it on the calendar. One person doesn't have to be the keeper of everybody else's schedule.
For us, that's really all the system needed to be: one calendar, one shared view, and a lot less asking, 'Wait — what do we have this week?'
