Calendar Crazy

When it comes to keeping track of family schedules, there’s really only one rule: Whatever works.

One big master-control calendar on the fridge? Weekly family meetings to plan medical appointments, kids’ activities and social engagements? One person acting as air-traffic controller or sharing responsibility for keeping track of who’s supposed to be where and when?

Systems vary.

Lori Buratto of Spokane summarized her family’s approach.

“We rely mostly on mental telepathy and when that fails, we resort to blame shifting,” she said.

There’s also a big kitchen calendar. Appointments, school functions and other events get written down there.

She’s a high school science teacher. Her husband is a mortgage account executive. There’s a “Brady Bunch” blending of kids.

“We also each have our own day planner,” she said.

Everyone in the household is invited to peek into other family members’ planners.

There’s more. “Calendars notwithstanding, cell phones are probably the most utilized organizational tool in our family. Every kid has a cell phone. I know some people find this frivolous and indulgent, but they have served us well.”

Valentina Sgro, the Ohio-based author of “Organize Your Family’s Schedule in No Time,” said selecting the right scheduling tools can be the key.

And the right tools would be? “The ones people will actually use,” she said.

Still, technology can’t do it all. To avoid a scenario where mom or dad are expected to be in three places at one time, you still have to have some decision making and priority setting.

West Plains tool salesman Craig Olsen summarized his wife Linda’s attitude about family scheduling: “If it’s not on the calendar, it doesn’t happen.”

That firmness resulted in her occasionally being characterized as “anal.” She could live with that.

“I learned quickly that if things were going to get accomplished, a plan had to be made,” said Linda Olsen.

Spokane Valley’s Mark Eaton said the linchpin of sanity in scheduling is to get everyone into the habit of writing things down. Not doing so invites madness.

Of course, there’s writing things down and then there’s writing things down.

Carol Loomer of Coeur d’Alene recalled that her late mother used to festoon her home with a blizzard of sticky notes. “Every day was like an Easter egg hunt to find the Post-It that corresponded with the appointment for that day.”

Spokane business consultant Laurie Burkhard has children ages 4 and 6. “We have ballet, soccer, basketball, et cetera,” she said. “Then there are play dates and birthday parties.”

To track all that, she employs a computer program and a monthly fridge calendar.

Then there’s what she termed the “mommy gene.”

“If I am out of town on business, no matter what else I have done to remind my husband, I always have to tell him again.”

It helps if the family has a “we’re in this together” attitude.

Ana Maria Rodriguez-Vivaldi is an advisor to graduate students at Washington State University in Pullman. Informed that one of her colleagues had recommended her as a source of expertise on family organization, she said, “Are you kidding me?”

But she did have this to say.

“I’m just a very lucky person who is blessed with a very patient husband and truly marvelous kids who don’t mind living on a roller coaster, and who actually eat what I cook, which never ceases to amaze me. I think that, by sheer necessity, we have learned to work as a team and prop each other up when one of us is faltering.”

No juggling system will work, though, if there are simply too many balls in the air.

Asked for the one piece of advice she would give to families trying to get a handle on their activities planning, author Sgro did not hestitate.

“Don’t overschedule,” she said.