What are the best ways to keep your family organized? Our guide outlines strategies to get everything in line and leave you time for family fun.
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There are these families who give the impression that they always get everything under one roof: they somehow find household, work, school and time for themselves as a couple. But how do you do it? So much can be revealed: It is possible and you don’t need superpowers for it. We have 4 tips for you with which you can finally enjoy everyday life in the future and no longer have to rush through life.
Do you know that feeling of not being able to see the forest for the trees? If you just think about all of your to-dos, have you forgotten the first by the time you’ve got to the last – and no matter what you do, the list just doesn’t get any shorter?
Don’t worry, there are ways to break out of this everyday hamster wheel and keep your family organized! You don’t have to rush through the week just trying to get from one day to the next. That is no good! Time goes by so quickly and all the beautiful, little moments of everyday life are lost in the stress. With a few tricks and tips, however, you will be able to enjoy and appreciate your days with the family!
Best ways to keep your family organized
Arrange meetings
Organizing family life and household chores is an absolutely full-time job and even if both partners share it, everyone still has an unpaid part-time job. This is a lot of work that unfortunately often receives little recognition. But it is time that this changed and an important step in this direction is that we ourselves start to see our home as something more like a business. If we managed our work at home with the same discipline, communication and organization as at work, many processes would work much easier and faster.
For example, set up a weekly meeting with your partner in which you can discuss all the things that are going to happen that week. Is there a children’s birthday party for which a present has to be obtained? Then you have your task (buy the gift) and your deadline (the day of the birthday party). You can now discuss how the task will be tackled. Does one of you choose the gift on your own, get it and wrap it up or do you assign subtasks? One person chooses the gift and orders it, the other one wraps it. This is how you divide all the tasks of the week and at the end everyone has a to-do list for the week.
At the next meeting, you can then discuss how well your division worked and whether you were able to meet all deadlines. In the beginning, the to-do lists will certainly be very long and the distribution of tasks will not be optimal. However, you will get better with every meeting.
Turn a wall into a command center
A command center is a wall in your home that is completely dedicated to the organization and can be seen by every family member. There you will find the family calendar, a pin board, a magnetic board, maybe also a board for messages and a cleaning plan to help keep your family organized.
Parents and children can see directly who is clearing the dishwasher today, who is taking out the garbage, but also which events are coming up and who is taking over the driving service. Birthdays, soccer games, music lessons – all of this can be found in the command center.
The best part is that you decide for yourself what your command center needs. You can even put up small chalkboards for each day of the week, which you then fill out with the daily tasks at your meeting. The command center is completely based on the needs of your family.
Be realistic
Even the best organization is sometimes overturned. Children get sick, unexpected tasks come in, or the washing machine breaks. So never schedule all of your time, expect things to go wrong. If you expect from the outset that problems will arise and to-dos will take longer, then you won’t be thrown off course if something doesn’t work out.
So always plan a buffer for delays or other problems instead of overloading your days with to-dos. You will almost always need this buffer and if you should not need it: rejoice, you have just made extra time for yourself!
PS: If that means that certain to-dos cannot be done during the week, then so be it. The world will not end if you have not vacuumed or brought a cake you bought instead of a homemade one. Perfectionism is not your friend.
Give tasks to the children
Yes, you read it right: hand off assignments to your children. You can just as easily do many to-dos yourself. By the way, you kill two birds with one stone: Your children become more independent because they are allowed to take responsibility for tasks and you no longer have to do everything yourself, so that you can relax and have less potential for conflict with your partner.
It is also very important for your children to learn at an early age that they too can contribute to the household. They develop a healthy self-confidence and become independent if they are taught that they are needed at home and that they can do things themselves. Mom and Dad trust them that they can do it on their own.
Even small children can put away their shoes, jackets or toys, make their beds, set the table or put dirty laundry in the laundry basket. Older children can take on more responsibility and fold or put away laundry, feed pets, help with cooking, take out the trash and even make their own sandwiches for school.
