Thursday, May 05, 2011

Better coordination

Janine and I have pretty hectic lives.  It seems we are often trying to juggle a dozen activities.  There is the family, homeschooling, work, church, foster care, take care of the house and the list goes on.  This last week has been extra crazy with the two additional boys we have for foster care.

For over a year we've tried to have regular weekly coordination meetings.  Sunday seemed to be the best day for it, but it rarely worked out.  Typically we took it easy during the morning.  Then church was in the afternoon.  Between getting dinner ready, eating dinner and cleaning up, by the evening we were often tired.

Recently we have found two things which have helped:

1) We started using Google Calendar.  I have may calendar.  Janine has her calendar.  And we share to each other.  So it is easier to be aware of what the other is doing during the day.

2) We blocked out a specific time on Sunday.  It used to be that we wanted to have a meeting, but it was always later in the day.  Now our Google Calendars have "Henry & Janine do planning" at 8:30 AM every Sunday.  So far, three Sundays, we have meet ever day.

These two things have helped reduced the craziness a bit.

Does anyone have additional tips?

3 comments:

Jay said...

Love Google Calendar. Have Family, Kids Activities, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts calendars shared with various people.

If you don't have a smartphone, set it up so that you can text GVENT with new appointments.

I tell my wife, if it's not in GCal it doesn't exist!

Unknown said...

Hi there! I'm new to your blog and really enjoying it! :)

I'm another big fan of GCal. Between Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, two soccer schedules, homeschool group and everything else going on, we would never remember a thing without it! We have it color coded so we know at a glance who has what on what day. It's such a great thing for us! :)

Thanks for sharing and looking forward to reading more...

Katie
Mom to a 6 year old boy who would rather eat brussel sprouts (Ack!) and take a bath (Gasp!), than do homeschool spelling.

Henry Cate said...

Jay - For months Janine and I only shared our calendars with each other. Just recently we've started opening them up a little, to our children. :-)

Kat - I'm glad you are enjoying our blog!