Collaborative Post¦ You are busy. That is the nature of being a mom. Luckily, there is an easy way to relieve some of the burden of organisation off of you and make it easier for everyone in your family to stay informed while contributing to the organisational efforts. Read on for more information.
Use Technology to Keep Your Schedule Organised
Keeping a schedule is one of the cornerstones of organised parenting. You have a multitude of responsibilities every day, so you need to know where your crew should be at any given time. The solution to this issue is to maintain a schedule.
Look for tablets online and select one that suits your unique parameters. Once you have it at home, set it up in the kitchen or other central hub within your home. Place it somewhere that receives a lot of foot traffic and everyone in the family will see whenever they are home.
Use an easy-to-access online calendar, such as one from Google, that is free and will sync seamlessly to everyone’s smartphones and laptops. That way, you will not only have a calendar hub at home, but each member of your family can see the calendar in real-time wherever they are. Make it even easier on yourselves by assigning each person a unique calendar colour, so you always know who has a match on Saturday, for example, just by glancing at the calendar.
Your family schedule can include the following calendar entries along with anything else you set as a priority:
- School hours, including drop off and pick up times
- Medical appointments
- Athletic events, including practices and matches
- Social activities for the adults, kids, and family
- Errands, such as grocery shopping
- Haircut or other personal appointments
- Travel
Plan Your Meals in Advance
Knowing what you are going to make for dinner is half the battle, so to speak. Just having a clear idea of what to make can save you time and energy every day. Change how you approach food in your home by embracing meal planning. This generally involves the following steps:
- Decide what you are going to make for the week’s meals. You can base this on how much time you have available on a given day, the current grocery sales adverts, or what you have in the cupboards.
- Once you have perused the week’s recipes, determine what ingredients you have on hand and what you will need to purchase.
- Create a shopping list and go shopping. Ideally, you can do this on a Sunday.
- When you return home from shopping, set out all of the groceries instead of putting them away. Organise the ingredients based on your recipes. Gather anything else you already have from your pantry and place the items together.
- Begin meal prepping. Wash, peel, or chop what you can. Saute or bake proteins. Package and label everything before placing it into the fridge. Of course, some things will taste and present better if they are prepared and cooked on the day they will be consumed. The point of meal prep is to take some of the burden off yourself during the week so that you can still eat high-quality meals without rushing about.
- If your kids are old enough, enlist their help (your spouse’s, too) to select recipes, grocery shop, and meal prep. You will carve out more family time, create new memories, and teach them valuable skills in the process.
The great thing about having a tablet in the kitchen is that you can use it to look up and read recipes while meal prepping and preparing food. Bookmark your selected recipes so that you can quickly access them throughout the week. In addition, you have an almost built-in entertainment device within reach. Use the tablet to stream a show or catch up on the news while you cook. Another option is to listen to streaming music and podcasts. You can also connect with loved ones via video calls and make your prep time multi-purpose.
Pro tip: Create another calendar titled “Meals” or anything else that works for you. Use this to add the recipe or meal names to your tablet’s calendar. Opt for a unique colour that differentiates the Meal calendar from the rest of the family’s respective calendars. This will help quash the age-old question of, “What’s for dinner?”
Use this video to learn how to create and use shared calendars.
Creating and keeping a family calendar is an important step toward becoming more organised, wherever you are. Use an online calendar to keep everyone informed and involved in the family’s activities. You can even add a chore calendar!
Cover photo by Viridiana Rivera: https://www.pexels.com/photo/elegant-open-planner-with-golden-pen-on-yellow-background-29996993/