Creating a family schedule helps tremendously when it comes to how our family functions.
How do we create a family schedule? Make the schedule for the situation your family is in right now. Schedule the important stuff first. Don’t over schedule. Anticipate surprises. Understand you will need to revise your schedule periodically.
I’ve learned these strategies after years of research (some people call that “life”) and lots of trial and error. Here’s what works for us!
Determine Where Your family Is Right Now
Lol, I don’t mean track their location.
I mean, what’s your work/school schedule currently? I’m writing this during the COVID-19 pandemic quarantine in the USA. Because of this, we are all at home, which is rare. (And dare I say that I love having them here? I just wish it was not under this circumstance!)
We’re a family of five, including mom, dad, and 3 “kids” (ages 16, 18, and 20).
My husband works with transporting food and logistics, so his is an essential job that he continues to go to the office daily to do.
It’s also between semesters for two of my kids. School’s out for me (forever, but that’s another story), and I’m learning how to work from home. Permanently, I hope!
Things are beginning to open back up, so my son will be going back to his lifeguard job in the next week or two, and his summer semester will start meeting in that same time frame.
But I didn’t set up our family schedule based on what is likely to happen in a week or two!
If you do that, you’ll either:
- Never make a schedule, because you’re waiting for the “new thing” that’s about to happen. Or…
- You’ll be trying {and failing} to function with a schedule that doesn’t fit your current needs.
I’ve done both of those, so I speak from experience. 😀
So, make your schedule based on where you are right now!
Here’s a checklist of aspects to consider:
| Your work schedule |
| Your spouse’s work schedule |
| Kids’ school schedules (and work?) |
| Church services and events |
| Volunteer activities any of you have committed to doing |
| Significant medical/health issue that impacts your schedule |
| Anything else that immediately comes to mind specific to your circumstance! |
Once you have a good mindset for your current situation, you’re ready to move forward.
Determine Your Most Important Tasks
“Important” varies from person to person and family to family.
When our kids were younger, mornings before school were probably my most important times to be organized and scheduled.
At the time, I was a teacher in the school district where my kids attended school, and I often had to leave before they did.
Now I’ll be the first to admit my children have had to fend for themselves from a pretty early age.
What I mean by that is that they’ve made their own lunches, packed their own backpacks, and gotten themselves ready for school…for like, ever.
Looking at them now, I wouldn’t change that. They’re independent and capable.
My point is that structuring their morning for success was my and my husband’s job. We provided them the tools and time and they were responsible for getting ready and out the door.
Today, my most important tasks look very different!
It’s important to me that we wash bathroom towels regularly. Isn’t that random?!
I hate it when the kids’ bathroom is overrun with dirty towels, and I realize that they’ve been using the same one for a week.
That rarely happens now, but when they were younger….ewww.
So our current schedule is that one kid washes, dries, folds, and puts away the bathroom towels on Monday. Another does this on Wednesday, and another on Friday.
I have three kids; otherwise, we might have a different schedule.
Here are some other things that are important enough that we have them on our schedule:
- my husband’s lunch time
He has the wonderful benefit of being able to come home for lunch each day. As a former teacher, leaving the building wasn’t even an option for me. I was quite jealous!
So, we try to stop what we’re doing and just hang out together while he’s home for an hour during the middle of the day.
- walking the dogs
Our dogs have a spacious, fenced in yard, so they don’t have to be walked for exercise necessarily. But we don’t always interact with them as often as I’d like. By putting this on the schedule, it prioritizes it and makes it happen far more often than if it was just wishful thinking.
Again, this is important, to us. You have your own priorities that I hope this reminds you of.
- blowing off the driveway
We live in a really wooded area, so the quickest way to improve our house’s appearance is to just blow off the leaves–year round.
It takes five minutes, but again, having it scheduled makes it happen.
- each person’s laundry
I assign each kid a different day, currently. They have to be done with their laundry by noon (with a little flexibility, I’m not a complete drill sergeant!) so that I can have the washer/dryer for mine and Derek’s laundry. I wrote {a lot} more about laundry, here.
Our kids are capable of cooking lots of things. Having them each be responsible for dinner a night or two a week strengthens the art of planning, buying, and prepping an entire meal.
There’s really a lot involved, especially when you take into consideration any dietary restrictions that family members may have as well as ensuring we have all of the necessary ingredients.
This one is huge for our family’s overall functioning! Our newest schedule is the best one we’ve found.
Of course, it helps that we’re all pretty much “grown folks” and everybody’s capable of doing all the things!
- wash and vacuum our vehicles
- take recycling
This piles up quickly when we’re all home, so it needs to be on the schedule to be taken once a week. Hopefully one day, our town or county will have this as part of garbage pickup, but for now, we do it ourselves.
- special projects
This might be a hobby or a chore. For instance, you may have wanted to start a garden (we did!)–which is a little bit of both hobby and chore for us.
Or it might be an ongoing chore, like cleaning out the garage, that you’re going to put on the weekly schedule for now and hopefully when you make out your next schedule, you’ll be done with that task.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!
-author unknown
For most of my children’s lives, I’ve created summertime schedules that included swim days, VBS, summer camps, library summer reading programs, and day trips.
They’ve outgrown some of that (who doesn’t love a good swim day, though?!) and this summer is weird anyway…but we are still working on a bucket list of F-U-N things to do!
So our weekly schedule frees us to have time for those fun moments.
Ironically, it’s the routine and the structure that makes it so that we can be free to do the memory-making things of life.
We can feel free to light up the firepit and have s’mores after supper…or a hundred other possibilities.
Check out our summer bucket list ideas and planner, here!
Don’t Over Schedule
Once you have your must-do list, fill those in first into your available time.
Look for gaps that you can make the most of. You might…
- {purposely} plan something unexpected
- schedule alone time–kids and parents need times of quiet, reflection, peace, and naps 😀
- plan for your kids (and you?) to entertain yourselves–without screens–this will spark creativity and imagination
My point is that it’s OKAY to have blocks of unplanned time.
The teacher in me says that it’s important for kids to be able to entertain themselves with little input from outside sources such as electronics or even other people.
Over scheduling can lead to some frustration because of the next subject: unplanned events.
Expect The Unexpected
I love a good plan. And organization. And systems.
Yeah, systems are the best.
But I also know that some of the best things in life are the ones you didn’t plan for.
Your schedule can be as great as possible, but it won’t include everything that will happen. So accept that.
When the air conditioner dies or a gallon of sweet tea spills on the floor…these are going to change your schedule for a few hours.
But consider this…
When your sister shows up unannounced to take you out to lunch or your spouse takes the afternoon off…these are also going to change your schedule for a few hours.
And what a great change-of-schedule those would be!
Anticipate That Your Schedule Will Change
The unexpected will happen…and life changes, too.
Sometimes the literal season will bring a change to your family’s schedule, especially when your kids play sports at certain times of the year.
{Or if you love football season as much as I do.}
But often it’s the proverbial seasons of life that will necessitate a new schedule for your family.
The infant/toddler stage is different from the elementary stage is different from the middle/high school stage.
Now we’re in the high school/college stage, and I’m just trying to figure it all out!
So don’t set yourself up for frustration in thinking that you’ll achieve the perfect weekly schedule that will last for years to come.
We started our latest one last week, and I’m already tweaking it as we speak.
But if you’ve read this far, then you’re working on it! And your family will benefit from the effort you’re putting into it.
You’ve got this!
