Home Helpers

I'm predominantly right-brained, which means that I'm generally not in my right mind.  Creativity often comes at the cost of being organized and having my time properly managed.  After missing several "Crazy Sock Days" and Thanksgiving "Friendship Snacks" in a row at my kids' preschool, I realized this was becoming a problem.  I was just so forgetful!
When I become desperate, I force myself into organization mode, and this is what I've done to attack our family's scheduling woes.
First, our super-sized Scrabble Magnet Board (because papers get out of control so quickly):

To make it, we used nail glue to affix three 3x4' magnetic metal panels (from Home Depot) to a large piece of plywood, then mod-podged pages from a large-print dictionary on top, and framed it with trim.  To keep papers in place, we used a glue gun to attach Scrabble pieces to round black magnets.  Finally, I don't lose all those schedules from soccer to Suzuki to school!

I try to get super organized when school begins, and do crazy stuff like this:

 Yep, those are all freezer meals that I throw into the crockpot or oven on busy days.

 This is my "ideal" schedule.  It never happens this way.  But having a framework to guide me, posted on the fridge, at least makes me feel more productive and less frazzled:

My favorite and most utilized project is our Weekly White Board:

This thing has saved forgetful-me more times than I can recall.  On Sundays, I go over our iCalendar (where we sync all our family's activities) and write it here, on our white board.  It's not usually this sparse (the photo was taken right after I first made it) and holds everything from things I don't want to forget, to our daily meal plan, to our schedule.  It's not fool-proof (meaning, Wendy-proof, because sometimes I still forget to look at it!) but it sure gives me peace of mind to write things out by hand at the start of our week.

What sorts of things do you do to keep your family's schedule on schedule?  Post a comment, or contact Katrina so that we can all be blessed and inspired by your Home Helpers ideas!

-Wendy