Today I’m going to tell you about something that changed my life.
I get email sometimes from new-to-asthma parents, asking how I manage the actual logistics of life with an often breathless child, the nuts and bolts of juggling appointments and prescriptions along with all the other responsibilities of having two kids. If you knew me in person, you’d laugh. While I have an organized mind when it comes to, say, writing and blogging and other work, when it comes to the actual physical space I inhabit?
Not so much.
What I do have are the ability to recognize good tools that help systemize my life into some kind of order, and an older asthma kid who needs far fewer doctor and specialist visits than she used to.
But before I share the tool that changed my life, I’m going to tell you a little story about my sister and me.
Are we not adorable? I’m the little one in the blue dress, and those are our brothers. The boy with black hair is my twin, if you can believe that. We don’t look anymore alike today than we did as kids on that Virginia Easter morning.
My sister is three years older than me but had her children later, so she’d call me all the time with questions about teething and baby milestones and toddler eating habits. But even if I earned my motherhood experience first, she’s always trumped me on efficiency.
When I still lived in Florida, I’d open a drawer in her house to discover some sort of crazy shelving system or pull the perfect container out of her pantry and marvel at her totally logical order versus my system of junk drawers (that’s drawers, plural) and random piles of paper. Though it’s not clutter – I move too often and hate clutter too much for it to accumulate – it is messy.
Now consider the calendar.
I use various Internet/smartphone/email planning solutions and I’m sure you do too, but I’m talking about the tradition of the humble kitchen calendar.
- Something you hang on a wall or the refrigerator.
- Something you see everyday.
- Something that reminds you of impending due dates and appointments when – and this is key – you’re not already thinking about them.
That’s how people remember stuff, you know? When we’re not checking our email or phones. When we’re just wandering around the kitchen, looking for snacks and maybe some cool drinks, the calendar catches our eye and then, “Hot damn! I can’t believe I scheduled a play date for the Sidekick this Sunday when we’re supposed to go to that family thing instead.”
Or maybe that’s just me.
Traditional paper calendars don’t work. I just can’t stand the mess of crossing items out and writing new ones in. All that scratched-up mess, it’s the opposite of organized.
Now behold the DRY ERASE CALENDAR:
Brilliant, no?
Possibly, you’ve been using dry erase calendars for years and you’re wondering why I’m talking about such a common office product like it’s the invention of the wheel, but I never, ever considered using these outside a workspace until several years ago. That’s when I noticed one on my sister’s refrigerator with every square neat, precisely labeled, easy to read, and EASY TO WIPE OFF AND REWRITE when schedules change or we have to cancel plans.
I love this thing. It helps me remember appointments, important dates for school fees and prescription renewals, parties, and other plans. Normally on this sucker, I fill just about every square, top to bottom, but that photo reflects the summer schedule of a family with a tween and an 8 year-old who chose sleeping late in lieu of partial day camps and a mom who works from home. We’ve been playing our summer day-by-day.
If you’re needing a little more organization in your life, try a dry erase calendar, post-haste. You can thank my sister.
I recently purchased calendars for my Franklin Planner. Never thought I would need that outside of Corporate America, yet here I am.
There’s a lot of little details in running a family and household, never mind chronic illness!
Since my short term memory died the day I became a mom, I figured I better compensate somehow. I can’t remember everything!
M
I hear ya. I’m actually thinking I need to find a BIGGER calendar with school starting in just a few weeks. The older these kids get, the more writing fills up those little squares.
looks like that one has been well used and abused…it doesn’t erase fully anymore.
We do the paper calendar thing, and even still..I do things like show up for appointments a week early (did that with the dentist twice, once for me, and once for the girls) or, drive down the road and panic because I think it’s Thursday, not Wednesday, and that I missed the Wed. appointment.
A lot of that is my ADHD, though…I’m working on being more organized.
During school I use a day planner that sits on my desk, which happens to be where I’m sitting most of the time. Then again, the only person I have to keep organized is myself. My mom’s a big fan of the wall calendar.
PS I like your firework drawing!
That’s the Sidekick’s handiwork!