Organize your family

To start the New Year off right, get 1 calendar that will hold all the birthdays, appointments, events, holidays, etc on it. [This would come under the heading of daily Survival. ]

If you use more than 1 calendar, you take the chance on getting two appointments at the same time, so it is best if you only use the 1 calendar for all family events.

First thing to do is to write all holidays and birthdays that you need to remember, school days off, and anything else that is already scheduled. Write your times in that you will do your journaling and when you will post your spending for the day or week and any reading that you do daily and anything else that you do every day or week like exercise time and the time that you do it. If it is on the calendar just like an appointment then you are more likely to do those things that are recorded with a time.  Once everything that is already scheduled is placed on the calendar then when you start making Doctor, Dentist, etc appointments or any meetings that you need to schedule will be placed on the calendar as soon as you get home or after the phone call there will not be any conflicting times.

Once this calendar is done, if family members want their own calendar then they can copy what is on the family calendar as long as they remember that every event goes onto the family calendar as soon as it is known.

You can decide on different color markers for each family member so that you can tell at a glance who has what appointment. But whatever you decide on the colors of the markers make sure that the markers stay with the calendar for the entire year.  Do not allow anyone to take the markers and use them on something else.  You can purchase calendars that have stickers that go onto birthdays, anniversary, school vacations, etc. You can also go onto the computer and pull up calendars for the year and print them out.

For the calendar to work, it has to be hung up in its own place where everyone can get to it and whatever you use (pencil, pens, markers, stickers) are all in the same place at all times.

Once a week, usually on Sunday it is best that everyone sit down and calendar. In this case ‘calendar’ is a verb, for everyone to get and stay on the same sheet of music.  This is the time to write down any special needs like birthday cake, invitations, etc basically the logistics of the activities. Go over the calendar for the next month so that everyone is aware of what is coming up. I have heard of some people that say if there is an event that is not placed onto the calendar then it will not be acknowledged (such as an event from school that the child does not let the parent know about until the night before).  This will prevent emergency matters that you have to go out late one night so that someone has something for the next day for that activity. Get the kids started young that they need to let everyone know about events from school ahead of time.

With our families being as busy as they are now days, this is one of the best ways to keep everyone organized so appointments and events are not missed.

Prepare by planning ahead to Survive and Thrive.

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