Finding a good family calendar system helps to keep everyone organized and on track. Figuring out schedules for school, after school activities, and work is a job in itself but figuring how to keep all family members aware of all the events might be even more difficult! If you’ve tried different types of calendars and can’t find one that seems to work, it might be because you need more than one!
Why You Need More Than One Calendar
You might need more than one because different family members will be looking at different calendars. You and your spouse may use a shared online calendar. Your kids might prefer a chalkboard or whiteboard that just lists their events and activities. You might have a paper planner that’s just for your work. If all of these calendars are working separately, keep using them.
Also, if your family has a busy schedule, putting all events on one calendar might be overwhelming! Tons of events and activities in one place can be difficult to read because it’s so crowded.
Calendar Categories
If you’re on board with using more than one family calendar, it’s time to figure out how many you will need. To figure this out, break up your family events and activities into categories. Categories to consider are: Work, Spouse’s Work, School, After School Activities, Kids’ Social, Family Social, Parent Social, and Religious & Volunteer. Truthfully, the categories you choose will be based on your family’s lifestyle. You can also choose to combine any of these categories depending on what works best for you.
Types of Family Calendars
There are so many calendars to chose from! Whether you choose paper, online, or whiteboard or chalkboard you’ll need to make many choices within those categories: daily, weekly, monthly, which online calendar, what type of notifications and reminders, etc… Try not to get overwhelmed! Just start trying some calendars and see which ones work best. You can always change it up if it’s not a good fit.
Here’s what works for my family:
Kid Calendars
We have two calendars for our kids, one upstairs and one downstairs. These are both whiteboard calendars. The one upstairs lists all their school “specials” so they can pick out an appropriate outfit depending on whether they have gym, art, library, etc… We also have another whiteboard downstairs which lists all their after school activities so they know what we’ll be doing after school. I also put all social events on this calendar.
Parent Calendars
My husband and I each have our own Google Calendar that we use for our work events. I also add all family social activities here. I send my husband an “invitation” to any events that he needs to know about so he can add them to his calendar. As my children get older and begin to have their own phones, we will probably also include them in this type of calendar.
Color Coding
Color coding is a great tool and works on any type of calendar. You’ll just need to decide how to use the colors! Maybe you’ll want to give each family member their own color, or you might want to give each category it’s own color. This helps when looking at a crowded calendar; you’ll be able to see the event you are looking for quickly by just scanning for that color.
Start experimenting with different types of calendars, categories, and color coding to find out what systems will work best for your family!
