Google Calendar.....how I keep it all together
Pretty much on a daily basis, friends and people ask me....."How do you keep it all straight! You seem so organized. How to manage your calendar?"
So if you know me, you know that with three kids: school, homework, endless appointments, 3 kids and 4 hockey teams, all my own stuff and my husbands comings and goings......the potential to not know where and when I have to be somewhere can be very high.
How do I do it you ask?? First of all I don't really know anything other than my busy life, but secondly I am very organized when it comes to calendar planning. There are tons of calendar options out there on the market. Some people like to write things down. Some people are super high tech and do everything online. I do BOTH. I am old school hand written and super tech and use Google Calendar. I have tried other online calendars, but Google Calendar works for our family.
It does take a bit of time to get it all organized, but if you decide on your process, set it up, then start using it from a designated point forward - you too can be very organized. During this down time where there is NOTHING on the calendar, this would be a great time to get your calendar all set up!
I am old school in the sense that I like to have a paper calendar. I use it for big picture planning and being able to see months at a time laid out. I don't use the paper calendar for my daily calendar. The paper calendar also keeps track of a list of big "to-do" items that need to be spaced out across a few months. I also brain dump once a month....write down all my to-do's for the month and capture it in one place, on my paper calendar. I also once a week review the big picture paper calendar and make sure I haven't forgotten to enter anything, update or cancel anything (because things change). I also make my weekly to-do list of smaller tasks which is easier to hammer out. I usually don't have lots of extra time to get big projects done in one time....so broken down into smaller tasks, I get the rush of being able to cross things off my to-do list, and I am also staying on schedule.
For example, we are moving this summer. I used my paper calendar to divide up all my big house project to-do lists. Another example, back in August when I got all the hockey schedules for my three kids that included travel weekends and home/away games, I entered them all into my paper calendar to know who would be where and what weekends I would need help getting kids to games. Putting it all down helps give me an idea of how our to-do's and schedules impact the month(s) as a whole and it helps me plan downtime, family time, vacations around scheduled items.
Now the high tech part of me takes all that information and goes "colorful"! Every aspect of our life is assigned a color. It will be different for everyone how they organize this part but I try and assign a color to each aspect: Val, Phil, Mom, Niko, Theo, Ana, Health Appointments, Housekeeper, Nanny, Hockey, Family Outings, Travel, etc etc. Your list can be endless or you can keep it short. It just depends how much detail you want to keep track of on a daily basis. The other thing I like about Google Calendar is the ability to invite people to calendar items. When I enter a family calendar item, I can invite all my family members and it can show up on their own Google Calendars. Also helpful, when my husband travels he gets on his Google calendar and enters his travel dates and invites me so I know where he is going. I like it because it keeps everyone on the same system, on the same page. Very helpful.
So basically, if you want to do something like this here is the broad step by step plan to get organized.
1. Clean out your online calendar - at this point, we really all don't have anything going on so just clean it all out! The less that is there the better.
2. Decide on how you want to organize the calendar: colors, categories, etc. Create them in the calendar settings and assign colors.
3. Start entering calendar items and as you enter calendar items designate them with their assigned category/color.
4. Other things you can do: enter in all family & friend birthdays you want to keep track of on a daily basis, and you can enter those as a recurring entry so it just updates every year.
Well, that is how I keep track of all our family stuff. It works for me! Just find something that works for you and stay consistent! Happy Calendar Organizing!!
Cheers - Val
My calendar in November 2019 - BUSY!
How do I do it you ask?? First of all I don't really know anything other than my busy life, but secondly I am very organized when it comes to calendar planning. There are tons of calendar options out there on the market. Some people like to write things down. Some people are super high tech and do everything online. I do BOTH. I am old school hand written and super tech and use Google Calendar. I have tried other online calendars, but Google Calendar works for our family.
It does take a bit of time to get it all organized, but if you decide on your process, set it up, then start using it from a designated point forward - you too can be very organized. During this down time where there is NOTHING on the calendar, this would be a great time to get your calendar all set up!
My calendar has NEVER been so empty!
I am old school in the sense that I like to have a paper calendar. I use it for big picture planning and being able to see months at a time laid out. I don't use the paper calendar for my daily calendar. The paper calendar also keeps track of a list of big "to-do" items that need to be spaced out across a few months. I also brain dump once a month....write down all my to-do's for the month and capture it in one place, on my paper calendar. I also once a week review the big picture paper calendar and make sure I haven't forgotten to enter anything, update or cancel anything (because things change). I also make my weekly to-do list of smaller tasks which is easier to hammer out. I usually don't have lots of extra time to get big projects done in one time....so broken down into smaller tasks, I get the rush of being able to cross things off my to-do list, and I am also staying on schedule.
For example, we are moving this summer. I used my paper calendar to divide up all my big house project to-do lists. Another example, back in August when I got all the hockey schedules for my three kids that included travel weekends and home/away games, I entered them all into my paper calendar to know who would be where and what weekends I would need help getting kids to games. Putting it all down helps give me an idea of how our to-do's and schedules impact the month(s) as a whole and it helps me plan downtime, family time, vacations around scheduled items.
Now the high tech part of me takes all that information and goes "colorful"! Every aspect of our life is assigned a color. It will be different for everyone how they organize this part but I try and assign a color to each aspect: Val, Phil, Mom, Niko, Theo, Ana, Health Appointments, Housekeeper, Nanny, Hockey, Family Outings, Travel, etc etc. Your list can be endless or you can keep it short. It just depends how much detail you want to keep track of on a daily basis. The other thing I like about Google Calendar is the ability to invite people to calendar items. When I enter a family calendar item, I can invite all my family members and it can show up on their own Google Calendars. Also helpful, when my husband travels he gets on his Google calendar and enters his travel dates and invites me so I know where he is going. I like it because it keeps everyone on the same system, on the same page. Very helpful.So basically, if you want to do something like this here is the broad step by step plan to get organized.
1. Clean out your online calendar - at this point, we really all don't have anything going on so just clean it all out! The less that is there the better.
2. Decide on how you want to organize the calendar: colors, categories, etc. Create them in the calendar settings and assign colors.
3. Start entering calendar items and as you enter calendar items designate them with their assigned category/color.
4. Other things you can do: enter in all family & friend birthdays you want to keep track of on a daily basis, and you can enter those as a recurring entry so it just updates every year.
Well, that is how I keep track of all our family stuff. It works for me! Just find something that works for you and stay consistent! Happy Calendar Organizing!!
Cheers - Val
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