Tag: scheduling

Our Brains Get Tired. Help Yours With Better Schedule Management!

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My brain has been very busy lately (At a recent presentation, the speaker said we average 60,000 thoughts in a day!).

At brainhome, we’re adding two sport team schedules to an already busy schedule, plus potential summer activities.  Professionally, I have more clients now than I ever have before.  These are wonderful challenges to face, but they’re a lot to juggle!  So we’re reviewing and re-vamping our schedule management to accommodate.  I recommend periodically reviewing your scheduling practices, at work or at home, to make sure your own process is working as well as possible.

Why? Because

  • We’re all are busy people.
  • Our brains gets tired sometimes, thinking all those thoughts.
  • New tools come out all the time to help with scheduling, and to do tasks better with less hassle.
  • We need to make sure that the important (family, school and work) commitments are accounted for before we add anything else to the schedule.

If you could benefit from a scheduling review, too, here’s what to do:

  • Get buy in from all concerned parties (we’ll call them stakeholders). Why?  We (children and parents, co-workers, teammates, etc.,) all need to be part of the process.  Giving all the stakeholders a say in the schedule encourages ownership and responsibility, collaboration, creativity – getting lots of brains working on a challenge can be a great way to generate new and better ideas!
  • Consider how stakeholders prefer to communicate. In our family and in my business, some people prefer phone calls and others prefer to text.  Facebook is a chosen method for some people, and still others prefer email.  If a client or family member reaches out to me via phone, I try to respond in kind, at least until I can convince them to text me instead (my own personal preference!).
  • Have stakeholders commit to the new system and keeping their info up-to-date.
  • If you have more than one schedule to manage, use technology.  Why?
    • Technology is portable and pervasive.
    • We all can have access to the most current updates.
    • Technology allows accessibility from many devices.  For example, I can invite my teenagers to events via GoogleCalendar, and they can manage the invitations and their calendars from their IPods or tablets.
    • J.T., try Doodle.com for scheduling those meetings with fellow professionals
  • As with any new strategies, allow time to move along the learning curve.  For example, I am learning Google Calendar so my family can use it, but I fumble around sometimes.  Accept that you may have to run two systems – like paper and MS outlook, or MS Outlook and GoogleCalendar – at the same time for a while.
  • Sometimes the best way to establish a schedule is still face-to-face.  We just had a family meeting yesterday morning, to check in with upcoming travel, events and school projects.  We used GoogleCalendar and brought our devices to the table, but we still need to actually speak.

So look at your own scheduling strategies, and try one of these if it’s time for a change!

Command Center Part 2: Your Paper & Scheduling Challenges (& Solutions)!

A few weeks ago, I asked my FB friends to tell me their most and least favorite things about their Command Centers.  And because I know absolutely awesome people, I received great input and ideas!

The biggest challenges for my contributors were Paper Management and Scheduling.  There was a third area, Technology, but I will address that in a separate blog article!

So, Command Center Paper Management and Scheduling ideas – here we go!!!!

Paper:

  • Did you know?  There are three main types of paper: Active, Passive and Archival.  And each requires slightly different handling.
  • Active (requires an action):
    • If a paper needs returned to school, sign it immediately, note any necessary info on your calendar of choice, attach a check or cash if necessary, then send it back to school.  Right away!
    • Tuck Bills-to-Pay in their own folder, so everything’s together when the weekly bill-paying time comes.
    • If the action required is to jot down a date or details in your planner, make time to do this everyday.  Maintaining our active papers daily keeps them from building up.
  • Passive (keep for a predetermined amount of time, then purge):
    • If you keep schedules or notices for upcoming events on hand, keep them all on one single clip, with the soonest event on top.  Keeping too many notices or reminders causes visual clutter, and we stop really seeing what’s in front of us.
    • Kid papers – admire-then-purge daily papers, if possible.  If papers need to be kept for a few weeks, tuck them in hanging folders per person, and purge monthly.
    • Display kid art on the fridge, and purge old items as new ones come along.
    • Purge passive papers ruthlessly!  Once a week is preferred, once a month is a Must.
  • Archival (papers we expect to make a permanent record)
    • Keep a binder per person for long term papers, or papers you want to keep.  Each of my sons has a binder for their academic records, award certificates, team photos, etc., organized by academic year.
  • With each piece of paper in hand, ask yourself a few questions:
    • What is the next action to take on this paper?  (Act, File, toss)
    • If I choose to keep this paper, why am I choosing to keep this paper?  For example:
      • Academic records?  someone may ask for it some day.
      • Today’s completed and graded spelling test?  No one needs it anymore.  And no, your child will not want to look at it again in 20 years.

Scheduling:

Many of you have scheduling challenges, and I absolutely understand.  My sons, while awesome!!, are often a little light on calendar and event details.

Good scheduling requires regular effort, strategic planning, cooperation from all participants, and communication!  Communication is key.

We have planning sessions with both parents and two teenagers, typically on Sunday night after dinner. The 9 year old gets the highlights and then is dismissed.  I keep everyone’s calendar in MS Outlook, so our planning sessions consist of making sure everyone has the same information in front of them.  We had one a few weeks ago, we probably need to have another one this week since we just added another sports team and schedule.  My husband and the teenagers use Google Calendars, so they can synchronize their own pertinent info, and invite me via email to important events.  I have not yet made the switch.

A few of you asked about scheduling “consequences / rewards”, but I don’t give parenting advice!  However, we have a few guidelines:

  • If you want to add an event to the calendar, tell me in writing / text/ email so I won’t forget it
  • You are one person in a 5 person household.  Keep that in mind when making time and event requests.
  • If you didn’t inform me of an event with adequate warning, it’s possible you may not be able to attend.  You know I will always try, but the answer may be “no”.
  • At any time, the answer may be “No”. And school, family time and church can trump anything else.

If your challenges are also paper and scheduling, try one of these solutions today!

Some days, It’s All Too Much (and what to do about it)!

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We can stuff a bag only so full before it bursts.  The same goes for our schedules.

A friend emailed me last week “I ran 8 miles this morning and was thinking about blog ideas.  Could you write something about people cramming too much into their day? One of the best things I ever did was cut back on the volunteering and get back to the things that I really wanted to do. I cut out [xxxx] after way too many years, and now I finally have time to train for the marathon.”

My response:  “I can write that article, and what’s really interesting is that yesterday, a client had the same epiphany. The client was supposed to fly cross-country for a family event.  Her husband was unable to attend due to a work deadline, the kids were stressed about missing back-to-school activities, she was just stressed.  And she stopped and said ‘No, we’re not going.  It’s just too much’ and cancelled the trip.  On our coaching call, instead of strategizing about how to get everything done in a short time, we strategized how to Un-make travel plans and determined what her family could say ‘Yes!’ to, since they would be staying home.”

I may not dare something as extreme as these friends (Thanks K&K!), but I respect their awareness that “It’s All TOO MUCH!” sometimes, and how they made the tough decision to let one thing go, in order to make room for something else.  Here are some suggestions, if you, too, feel “It’s all TOO MUCH!”:

1.  A wise friend says “Don’t ‘Should’ on yourself”. Don’t let others “Should” on you, either, telling you what you should or shouldn’t do.  Don’t “should” on others. We need to be kind to ourselves and to others.

2.  Find ways to say Yes, on your own terms.  I received an email today regarding an upcoming fundraising car wash:  washing the towels afterward and returning them clean counts as volunteering!  I can’t help at the event because I’ll have houseguests, but Laundry?  Oh, yes, I can do laundry!

3.  Don’t moan over being too busy to do anything, it becomes a self fulfilling      prophecy.

4.  Say less.  Practice “No, Thank You.”  You don’t always need to give an explanation.

5.  Make a list of your responsibilities, in broad terms:  Work and professional involvements; Family responsibilities (e.g. parent, daughter of aging parents, caregiver for my niece on a school half-day); Household / Life Management Responsibilities;      and Organizations with whom you volunteer, with roles or positions held.

6.  Looking at that list, ask yourself these Questions:

  • “What can Only I Do?”  There are some things that only you can do.  Be a parent to your children, and a spouse to your partner.  I can sing and organize better than  many, so I stick with those.
  • Be honest here, “What Can Someone Else Do?”  In the past, I have let go of roles that others could do as well as me. It’s not easy, to admit that someone else could do an adequate or better job on something, but if you’re looking to pare down, this is where we begin.
  • “What will I look back on fondly?” Playing pick-up sticks with my youngest.  Driving the teenagers to activities, since we have good conversations in the car.  Travel.        Making music.  Spending time with my hubby, and having all 5 of us together.  Guess what – Those are the things I need to make time for.
  • “What will I never think of again?”  I spend a lot of time menu planning and grocery shopping because we need to eat, but I can happily forget every moment spent on those, and be fine.  So I try to do both efficiently and effectively, so I can do them less often!  (I do love to cook, though, as well as sitting down for a family meal, or with friends.)

No one else will protect you from “TOO MUCH!”  That would be lovely, but it’s not going to happen.  So you have to step up for you and your family.  I can’t tell you what to      pare down, but I can help you determine that for yourself.  I don’t have all the answers, but YOU DO!

So, if this week you feel compelled to yell “Stop!  It’s all TOO MUCH!” be assured that you are not alone, and that there are specific steps you can take to make life better – and try one out!