Not really. The idea behind this concept isn’t that you don’t check your email. It’s this: don’t check your email first thing. Go ahead and plan your day first. Figure out what items you need to work on. Is today a meal planning day? Laundry? Light cleaning? Deep cleaning? If you do outside work (but from home), what projects do you need to make progress on today in addition to household chores?

There’s so much to do, isn’t there?

If you plan your day before you open your email, you have an idea of what you need to do. And if some emergencies come up in those must-read emails, you can adjust. But if you already have your day planned out, you might not get sucked into a bunch of time-wasting emails. Instead, you can glance through, decide what you need to deal with today, mark the ones that can wait until tomorrow, and then get busy.

You’re immediately more in control of your day. (As much as any of us can be with kids around, right?) When I look at what I have scheduled that day, I know how much time I have to peruse blogs or emails. I don’t get behind by reading a bunch of emails and then realizing I had an appointment, or that I let time get away and I’m suddenly rushing to get everything done.

Give it a try. First thing in the morning, look at your calendar. Plan what you need to do that day. Then open your email and see if your priorities need to change. Then close the email and get to work.

Does checking email in the morning help you plan your day? Or do you immediately feel like you’re behind?

[image: image*after]

While my other calendar works okay, I’m hoping the separate spaces for kid & other items will help me plan my writing and other things a bit better.

By the way, I got it in purple. It’s pretty. Will post pics and more details soon.

A whiteboard, located in a central area, can be a great place to keep track of everyone’s activities. And you can arrange it a variety of ways.

You can list items by family member. Put the coming week’s schedule by person, so you know where everyone is going to be at any point of the week. You can see that this week your son has soccer, followed by a playdate, followed by a big school project. You’ll easily notice that your daughter’s ballet is one night, with a sleepover two nights later.

Listing things by person can be great for seeing each person’s week at a glance. But you can still overschedule yourself by putting things too close together.

In contrast, if you write things down by the day of the week, you can immediately see how your day is shaping up. How many errands do you have that day? How much chauffeuring will you have to do? At least if you write things down by time you’ll know when your schedule is clear. But you’ll have to stop and look closely to see whose activity is when.

Your system can be as simple or as complex as you’d like. You can just write down the day of the week and then list all of the activities, noting whose they are and what time they occur. Or you can color code by family member.

Just make sure that if you color code or do something else a little more complicated, it’s easy to follow. If you make it difficult, you’ll stop using it after a few days or weeks.

Make it easy to use, and write everything down. If you consistently keep track of activities you’ll be less likely to double-book. You can check it in the morning to make sure everyone has what they need for the day.

Of course, it still probably won’t eliminate reminding your family what they need to do. We’re not sure if any calendar or schedule can help with that.

[image: sxc.hu]

But I still use a small weekly planner that I can get at Barnes & Noble.

There are some fabulous mom organizers out there that I hope to review at some point. With only one child at home, though, I don’t find a need for a more elaborate calendar. Yet.

If my projects increase, and the child’s activities increase, then I may need something more robust. But right now it contains everything I need. It can get a little messy when I have a bunch of things going on in a week, with changes and cancelations. Overall, though, it’s simple.

So why paper?

I’m tactile. I like to write down my appointments. It (sorta/ mostly/ sometimes) helps me remember things a little better. It’s much easier to carry everywhere than a laptop is. It’s less complicated than a Palm Pilot or Treo or Blackberry. And I don’t have to remember to charge its batteries.

It’s not fancy, but I can see my week at a glance. I can take it to the doctor’s office and make my future appointments. Same thing at the dentist. Hairdresser. School.

If a friend wants to get together, or I need to meet a client, I can just open it to the right page and look. No scrolling through things, opening a program, or booting up something. If I drop it, it doesn’t break. It only goes out of style every 18 months, and I can replace it at a reasonable cost.

Lots of columns for people and activities, meal planners, and other sections would be nice. But I probably wouldn’t use them anyway. I have good intentions, but it’s more complicated than I need or want right now.

So I use my cute little weekly calendar. It fits in my purse or diaper bag. It works for me. For now. And it’s inexpensive enough that if I want to change it, I can anytime without feeling like I have to stick to something because of its original/ startup costs.

Do you use a paper calendar? Planner? Do you prefer electronic? What mom organizers do you like? What’s currently working for you?

[image: sxc.hu]

One technology item that has helped me countless times is Google calendar. But not just the calendar. It’s the daily event reminders.

Every day at 5 am, Google calendar emails me my daily schedule. And since I check email as soon as I get up – yes even before coffee – I know if I have any important meetings or deadlines that day. And for whatever reason, that works better for me than trying to remember to open a calendar program. If I have something scheduled early (which I try to avoid as much as possible), then I use an alternative. But usually the email is enough.

There are other helpful features from Google calendar (and others as well) that we can highlight as well. We’ll be sure to feature them soon.

So tell us, do you rely on reminders for events? Have you trained yourself to just check a calendar? Or maybe you use phone notifications instead? Let us know what works for you and your family.

Image: stock.xchng

If you don’t schedule in the time to do your most important tasks of the day, you might not get them done. Without that specific time slot when I need to be doing “X” it is easy to get distracted with little things. Like e-mail. Or laundry. (Not to mention Twitter and Plurk!)

Why you should calendar
The whole point of calendaring your day is to make sure you actually make time for the things you say are important (and to remember things).

Write down that phone call you need to make at 10am, that play date at 1pm, that doctor’s appointment next week. But don’t forget that project that’s coming due very soon, that you haven’t even started yet. Break it down into manageable pieces and it won’t seem so overwhelming. Make steady progress and before you know it, it’s done!

A two week experiment
Try this for the next two weeks: each day, figure out the five most important things that you need to accomplish that day. Then schedule time for them on your calendar. Schedule it around childcare and e-mail and errands. Actually block out time where you concentrate on that task.

And when that time comes, work on the task. If you only have a 1/2 hour, then see how much you can get done in a 1/2 hour. Don’t answer e-mail. Don’t pick up the phone. Just stick to your calendar.

Didn’t get your task done in the allotted time? That’s okay. Did you make progress? That’s the important part.

A new way of thinking
You don’t have to calendar yourself to death, scheduling every minute of your day. Just think of your day in chunks of time and do what you can in those chunks. If you’re not used to it, it may take some time. Allow yourself some leeway in learning a new way of doing things. And keep some flexibility. We all know how things can change on the fly when there are kids involved!

Are you the type that hates to have your day scheduled? Try just jotting down your most important tasks and refer back to it throughout the day to make sure you’re making progress.

We want you to find things that work for you – and not everything will. But you won’t know until you try it! So how do you use your calendar? Do you only list kid activities and appointments? Do you block time for projects? Is your calendar working for you? Why or why not?