WFMW - Oranizing Family Schedules

With the fall schedule kicking into high gear and 3 children ages 11 - 16, our schedules are a huge mish-mash of papers and notes coming from school, church, youth group, and activity leaders. The amount of paperwork is daunting to say the least and ultra messy. This is what I do to try to keep out from under the overwhelming feeling of it all.

I buy those huge calendars with the very large squares. Sure there is no pretty pictures at the top but a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do! As soon as a note comes home I take it, read it thoroughly (that's a key, do not skim, you'll probably miss something). Then I use either fine line scripto felts in various colors or hi-liters in various colors. Each child has their own color, as does school, church, birthdays and myself. As soon as I read it, it is transfered to the calendar in the corresponding color. Then the paper either gets thrown away or if there is too much information on the note to transfer to the calendar, I make a star on the calendar notation and then place the paper in a file folder in my drawer. Then when the activity comes up and I see the star I know to go get more info from the note in the file. I can see days ahead from the star that something extra is going to be required.

This has worked great especially as all three kids have different activities going on. If it's a very detailed schedule of practice times and games where the team travels, such as my daughter's basketball, I keep that taped to the back of my kitchen door or in a cupboard because I need to see that almost on a daily basis. I no longer have a ton of papers on the kitchen counter, and I'm not running around at the last minute trying to find things that they are supposed to bring to the activity.