Staying Organized

Last semester, my active-duty husband obtained his master’s degree. I went to school full-time and worked part-time. Our five children were spread across three schools. With so many different calendars in our household, it remains a priority for us to stay organized so we can accomplish the things we want to do. Here are my tips and tricks on how we do it.

Shared Calendar

With a large family (and to not be the only person managing the family calendar), it is important both parents have equal access to the calendar. We have a high-level monthly calendar pinned in our kitchen with our broad family activities, such as “beach trip” and birthdays, but this is not the calendar that we use to plan events or make appointments. We do this through Google Calendar. Here is a screenshot from February 2019:

My spouse and I have the Google calendar app downloaded to our phones and saved as a bookmark on our computers. We have organized our calendar by our family member’s initials.

Each family member’s appointment is added with the first letter of their name followed by the name of the appointment. For instance, for my work hours, I have: (K) Work. If you open the appointment, all of the calendar details visible:

Walking through the appointment, the first details are the dates and times of this appointment. This appointment repeated on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 0830 to 1500 and ended on May 9, 2019, when my work hours changed.

We also always include the location of the events. This helps plan logistics for our family and prevents us from losing addresses to one-off events, such as a classmate’s birthday party for one of children.

Next, we include each other on the events, even if my spouse will not be attending the event. Why? This allows him to make plans without me. If he has high-level access to my calendar, such as, my work hours, then he is able to make decisions for our family calendar, such as, which parent would be available for a class party or school pick-up on a given day.

Finally, I have the reminder settings saved on my calendar. I choose to be notified of events 10 minutes before they start.

There are other ways to organize calendars. For instance, setting up a shared calendar instead of keeping individual calendars and added each other to appointments. This is simply the system that has worked for me and my spouse.

It is important to note that we do not include each other on low-level calendar events. During my work day, I do not include him on my meetings, lunches, or deadlines, nor does he include me on his. It would clutter our calendars and prevent us from being able to make decisions on our shared calendar.

Planner

To keep track of my open tasks, responsibilities, and obligations, I use a personal planner. My planner is not where I plan my day-to-day schedule. I do this in my Google calendar – either with my shared appointments with my spouse or with my personal appointments shared only with me. My planner is where I block my week and take note of anything that will consume my time. I make notes in my calendar of all open tasks – promises I made to the children, obligations at work, and, of course, my school assignments.

Here is a recent example of my planner:

The week in my calendar always starts on Monday and ends on Sunday. During the week shared above, I was only enrolled in one summer class. I make note of the week for the class – in this case, week 8. The first column lists the tasks due that week for my class. The second column is for notes on work. The third column is for notes on my personal life.

The column for school and my personal life are more in-depth than the column for work. I have a separate work notebook where I keep in-depth notes. The notes in my planner for work provide a framework of my week, such as if a co-worker is out of the office, if there is an event that week, or if I have exams.

My preferred system for keeping organized is utilizing check boxes. I feel it is easy to see outstanding tasks, by looking to see if a box is checked or not. That way, I do not need to read a bulleted check list and mentally think if I have or have not yet completed the tasks listed.

Once I fully complete a task, I check it off. If I break it into two parts, I create a check box for each of those parts. If I know a task is particularly challenging or time consuming, I make note of the estimated time it will take to complete the task.

The most important part of the calendar is planning ahead. Filling out as much information as possible allows me to already have my time blocked out in advance. I do not need to waste time trying to figure out what still needs to be completed for upcoming tasks or where I left off and I am able to compartmentalize my responsibilities.

For planners, I highly recommend the Moleskin Professional Notebook or Microsoft OneNote. I use Microsoft OneNote and above is a screenshot from my planner.

Move Notebook

As a military spouse for the past decade, I have learned the importance of staying organized. This allows the information to be easily accessed during our frequent moves, makes sure it doesn’t get lost at our new duty station, and makes the information equally available to myself and my spouse. To keep my family organized, I put together a move notebook. I keep certain sections of the notebook up-to-date:

Lists to document local services such as lawn maintenance, hair salons, contractors, etc.
A page for each family member to document providers – dentists, specialists, primary care physicians, therapists, etc.
School records for each of our children, including teachers and grades attended at that school.
Sheet protectors for shot records. These are kept in sleeves in order to be accessible for copies.
Sheet protectors for pet vet records with most current bill of health and shot record

Other sections are only relevant during a move with the military, such as:

Sheet protectors for vehicle registration to be able to access when required.
Power of attorneys for the move – keep a list of power of attorneys you need for each move and put thought into unique power of attorneys needed for upcoming moves.
Orders.
Important documents – keep a list of important documents that should travel with your person during a military move, such as certificates, passports, certifications, contracts, etc.
Housing contracts – lease, etc.

What are your tips and tricks for staying organized?