Parents will often find they have what feels like a never-ending list of things to do, especially as their children get older and everyone has different projects and hobbies to fit into the family schedule. Between school, work, extracurricular activities, and housework – not to mention trying to find time to practice self-care – it’s easy to get overwhelmed and not know what you’re meant to be doing or who should be where.

There are some great tips you can use to help you, however. Even if you are extremely busy and everyone is doing different things, you’ll be able to schedule it all perfectly if you take on board at least some of our ideas. Read on to find out more. 

Use A Family Calendar 

One thing you can do that will certainly help you is use a family calendar. When you do this and everyone inputs their schedule in (or one person is responsible for inputting all the details to ensure it gets done), you’ll find that it is much easier to keep up with what is happening throughout the week. 

This calendar can be a digital one that everyone has access to, and perhaps that even sends out alerts to remind people of their appointments, or it could be a physical one that is placed in a prominent area of the house, ensuring everyone can see it. As long as it is always updated (and perhaps colour coded for each person), you’ll quickly be able to make sure everything is running smoothly and plan ahead when need be to ensure everyone’s needs are accommodated. 

Streamline Chores And Errands 

When you look at your schedule, you might notice that you’ve had to give a lot of time over to chores and errands. So that you can free up some time and make things easier for everyone, look at how you might be able to streamline those chores. Perhaps rather than heading to the supermarket every day on your way home to pick up dinner, you could do one larger grocery shop per week. Or rather than trying to do all the work yourself, you could enlist the entire family to help, speeding up the process. 

Once you make the essential but time-consuming tasks on your schedule less of a problem, you’ll find everything else is much easier to manage. 

Leave Free Time 

It can be highly tempting to fill in any moment of free time with a chore or a task or something fun. When you have a calendar to look at, this temptation can be even greater. Instead of doing this and everyone becoming exhausted, you should try to leave some blank spaces and free time. 

It’s good to have nothing to do at times. The body and mind can recharge, and you (and anyone else who has free time) will be more energised and productive after a rest. Plus, it’s always good to have free time in your week just in case plans change. If you suddenly needed the emergency dentist, for example, you would have the time to make an appointment, even if you had to move some things around to make it happen.