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Now that January has marched on past, resolutions are starting to wane, and spring is about to be sprung full of activities, let’s get organized with a budget-friendly, super-simple, no-fuss calendar you probably already have.
Google.
That’s right. If you’re still struggling to keep up with everything and everyone and your new planner was abandoned by the second week of this new year, take a few minutes on your computer, phone, or other electronic device and put your family’s tasks and lives into the ease of the Google Calendar. The best part—Google works on Adroid and IOS devices, unlike iCloud.
Google is a great resource because you can organize family, work, projects, important dates, budget, and extracurricular activities all in one place. Plus you can share the parts you want with all family members so everyone is in the know.
GET SET

  • First, set up a google account if you don’t have one. It’s simple at google.com.
  • Once you have an account and an email, let the fun begin. Open the calendar feature and under settings, select Create New Calendar.
  • Decide how you want to categorize. Some suggestions: Personal (might title with your name) for the adults, Family (for the kids’ activities), Work (if you want everything in one place), Milestones (important dates), and Budget (if you want to keep track of bills).
  • Enable notifications. If you want to get email or pop-up reminders for your events and tasks, be sure to make your choices under Notifications.

GET COLORFUL

  • A great feature is color-coding for each calendar. When you add a calendar, the pop-up box will give you an option to select a color.
  • Customize colors to your family. Yours is green because that’s your favorite, kids are blue because that’s their team color, and bills are red because they’re important.
  • This will help you see at a glance who and what is happening, so choose colors you already associate with these activities.

GET ORGANIZED

  • Next, add events to your calendar. Simply click on the day you need to add an event. Then fill out the pop-up box. If you need to give more detail, click Edit Event.
  • You can adjust start and end times, set the event for all day, and add notes.
  • If you need to move an event around after it’s been set, you can easily drag and drop it to another time or day.
  • Have a weekly meeting? Enter it once and then select “repeat event”. You can choose weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, or set it to end after so many occurrences. Really, the possibilities are endless and cater to you.
  • Want to include a daily “to-do” list? Click on the day to add an event, but change it from event to task. The calendar will assign it to the top of the day and give you a box to check it off when done! Don’t get to the dry cleaning on Monday? Just drag it over to Tuesday.
  • Share your calendars (like Family) so everyone knows what’s going on and can add their own events and tasks. This saves you the time of wondering if you can schedule a dentist appointment on the same day as band practice because you can’t remember what time it’s over!

GET GOING

  • Because now you know exactly where to go and when!

For a great tutorial, check out Cult of Pedagogy.