Time Management For Families.

Juggling everything in our busy lives now requires so much time management that often I have felt that I am running a military camp. The fact is, if you want to achieve even the basics when the kids are little; you almost have to run a military camp, to ensure you fit in the have to do things like feeding, hygiene, bill paying etc and the want to do things like a walk to the park, allowing time to look at the flowers etc do the shopping and all this before little people are over tired.

With our big kids the “must dos” and “want to dos” change, however time management remains critical and often effects more people if you don’t keep to a time schedule and be close to punctual!  Between all the trainings for sport, part time jobs, parties, music lessons, etc each child needs to realize that even though there is one of them and they want to have a busy life there are other kids in the family too, along with each parents needs and just in general what has to happen daily to run a family.

Time management and team work run interlinked together and as soon as the kids understand the more they help you with the running of the home the more you can ensure they arrive where they want to be on time. Allow consequences of tasks not completed run their course naturally – which is hard but worth it in the long run. Going to school in a damp uniform that was not brought in off the clothes line the night before is generally enough to remember to bring in the washing the next night!

There are many systems you can use – a personal diary, a calendar in the kitchen or near the phone. We have a set family roster of jobs that are flexible in its time line expectations. For example the kids have a weekend list that is expected to be completed by Sunday night and for the rest of the week if a task you are on presents itself and needs to be attended to then you do it that day i.e.  The washing needs hanging out or the bin needs emptying. Many people do and you could too have set days for set jobs. This type of system just didn’t work for our family but I know it does work well for others.

The calendar is where the family can see all that is going on and coming up.  The kids keep their own school diaries and only update the family calendar with times changes for sports, job, or social items. They update on a Saturday and then I go through and arrange my week on a Sunday. My husband works a rotating roster system so often I have to arrange for other parents to help out with the different sports runs.

At the start of each month I look at what is on the calendar and write up a monthly to do list and it will have on it anything and everything i.e. birthdays to shop for, family events to cook for, clothes to buy or repair, a ‘to phone list’ all of which I then weave into my weekly list on a Sunday and break it down into daily tasks. This way although it may sound a bit messy I can group tasks together and do them in one day i.e. gift buying, sewing repairs, cooking, work tasks etc, I have a daily list of tasks that I prioritize from 1-3 as the most pressing to do for business, home or family, I then have my home chores and extra little bits that need doing anytime soon, which is often completed in the evenings.

If your time management is out of balance, maybe for the sanity of everyone you may need to back off on some commitments and learn to say no to some things. Have a look at what is overloading you and how you can better manage it. This may mean saying no to some things the kids do, just until you get a good family culture happening. Kids although they do object to jobs and accountability in the beginning; when they see how committed you are to the “family project” they settle down and actually like knowing exactly what is expected of them. Organization is a kind of security for us at work, at school, in voluntary roles so there is no reason why we shouldn’t have the same feeling from our family life being managed with purpose. Also we need to be aware that home is where the heart is, it is where everyone has the right to relax.