How To Build Your Family Calendar System

hey guys welcome back to happier home actually this is my first happier home video I used to be brington where we did all of our family stuff and house stuff and travels and now I'm kind of transferring over to a happier home little Rebrand if you will anyway I'm going to start doing these weekly videos where I help you figure out your systems okay I love home systems they are my jam I could talk about it all day long and so I want to share with you everything that I've discovered with home systems being a stay-at-home mom for 12 years now so I know a few things that I want to share and my day is a little crazy so crazy that I was like I can't even do a video today like I had this big goal to start my Vlog up again and I was like this is not happening today but then I said no I had a plan and I'm going to stick to the plan okay so let me show you a little bit of my day there's Scotty out there do want to come in Scotty want to come inside despite how great it is it's actually a really nice day so the kitchen not too bad but um um I did try and make sour dough yesterday and it did not turn out super well I don't know what it was I'm experimenting this is only like my second loaf it didn't turn out good it was too dense my my sourdough didn't rise very well but anyway pretty normal kitchen I don't like always have a super clean kitchen that's just how I Jam we also have an extra kid today which is fun and not only do we have an extra kid but the school gets out at 3 hours early this week every day for teacher conferences so we just have kids here all day like it's like we're on break or something which is fun but also I got to get stuff done around here okay B I know you've got a project going so I'm going to sell these cow cow cards which are really cute he's making these little trading cards and he's calling them cow cow this is cow cow karate what other ones do you have um cow cow God yeah andow America oh cow cow America very fun so he's working so hard on these and we need to laminate them huh yes that would be cool and Piper and Liberty oh oh I like it very cool Liberty you got anything good going on over there no I'm kind of just sketching oh yeah that's good too sketching is the first step to Greatness I always say that no you don't no no it's really it's really true though it's so true and then on top of having extra kids home my two-year-old decided that he's going to not stay in his crib anymore and climb out so he thinks he's done with naps which is the worst thing you could do to me is take away nap time this is his napping and sleeping situation it's a pack and play with a zip up cover he has learned to climb underneath the cover we cannot contain him anymore so don't worry I have another option it's going to going to be coming tomorrow so hopefully he'll I'll get my nap time back tomorrow here he is what are you doing you're supposed to be sleeping a whale what a whale a whale cool uhoh I thought I could sneak away but I don't think I can so with all this chaos in here I'm trying to figure out a good place to share with you all of my grand systems for calendaring maybe just in here let's just set up in here and we can chat okay what are you going to do you going to sit in here with me okay yeah I'm super not excited about the whole baby crawling out of his crib thing that is such a hard phase I forgot how tricky it is to sleep train a toddler who can't communicate with you yet so we're going to solve that though and I I'll share with you guys my solution on Instagram it's this cool little like crib tent we got it from my other kid but I need one for like the the pack and play so you can get them on Amazon hopefully it'll work I need my nap times back okay so today we're talking about calendars and I know I'm a few weeks late because it's like February now but if you haven't solidified or if you're reworking your calendar system I'm here for you calendar systems are so important for families and here's a couple reasons why calendars are like any other system I talk about they are not a one- siiz fits-all situation you need to figure out what your family needs what's happening in your phase of life right now and how your C calendar can support you in that situation we don't need a calendar that's going to take more of our time we want the calendar to help us have more time that being said sometimes switching over to a new system is going to take a little extra time but believe me in the long run once you get a good system going it's going to help you so much okay okay sorry I'm like really hot all of a sudden okay so obviously you're probably watching this video because you saw it was about calendars and you want a calendar but let me just remind you why you need a calendar one because as the mom or the dad or the family leader you have so many things coming into your brain this is your your calendar and your schedule is something that you can get out of your brain and put somewhere else and then when you need it you can refer to it but it doesn't need to be living in there okay get it out and let the important things stay in your brain that need to stay in your brain and then also with so many kids and schedules and your husband or your wife or whoever um getting your calendar on the same page is super helpful helps you to have one less thing to argue about because some so and so didn't know this is happening um y y yada you're running late you don't know when or where uh there are so many amazing calendar tools to solve that problem okay we don't we can work smarter we can do better let's get going on the calendar systems um obviously your calendar system is going to go along with your command center we're going to talk about command centers uh later this month I'm kind of building up to the command center video so um your calendar is a big part of that so let's talk about the different ways you can plan you can organize your family schedule there's obviously the paper planner that a lot of people like like this one this is my paper planner for the year I got it at Target it has the months laid out yeah so we've got the normal months and we've got space for the weekly to-dos and things nice things like that honestly for me I don't use this is not my master calendar so I use this mostly for note taking I like to be able to see the calendar when I'm thinking and planning for myself this is my personal I like to brain dump on these pages but yeah I I think it's nice it's just a lot of paper and I like that it has some stability if I do want to plan out my week if I do want to see what it's going to look like so I can fit in things into my block schedule this is not my like calendar Bible if you will but I think they're super useful and some people really do like having a planner if you want a paper planner to be your go-to master list of what you're doing then you need to have it with you at all times because when you're at the doctor and you got to plan your next appointment for so and so then you need to know what's happening um if you're out and about and you get a phone call and see that this is happening and you want to write it down right away you need to have your planner so that's kind of one of my basic needs of a calendar is that you have to have it with you you you need to have your master list or have a system to get whatever information is coming at you throughout your day onto your master calendar okay I'm going to link some YouTube videos down below for this girl who um reviews a couple paper paper planners um and she does a pretty good job so take a look at that there's I mean they're so beautiful they're fun to have um it's nice to have a place to write notes and numbers and things like that um and there's so many options out there what I always encourage anyone to do for any system is figure out what you need how you function and then find the planner that fits that situation for you at the same time in the same breath that I'm saying that I I will also say say that it is like a trial and error you're going to get a planner you're going to be like wow this is not what I thought it was this doesn't really work for me and uh you might have to get a new one I just don't want us to be scared to try something we have to try something because it will make your life better and even if it doesn't fit you exactly you learn something from making that decision and moving forward with it okay let's see moving on to our wall calendars wall calendars are awesome they're so fun to have they're perfect for big families and small families so that everyone can see what's going on on okay so the same thing figure out what you need and what your space can fit for a wall calendar measure your wall don't buy something that's not going to fit right thinking ahead I I mean I this is me like I can't tell you how many things I've bought that don't fit where I thought they would so and I always encourage people to do more than one month on your wall okay it's just really helpful for families with so much going on and just to see the upcoming month um it just makes sense okay two or three months would be awesome I actually have all 12 months on one wall that's like my business calendar it's really fun like it's really fun to see all 12 months and I think it really helps you like get into perspective you know how quickly a year goes how fast it's going to be the new school year summer is right around the corner and you can see what's going to happen having a whole year plan is really really awesome Next Level planning if you follow Jordan paage she has an amazing a couple amazing videos on her planning systems and her calendar systems her her husband sit down and plan whole year which is awesome like it's just so helpful to know what your year is going to look like not everyone's at that phase but if you are check out her Channel she's got a lot of good stuff again a con for a wall calendar is that you don't have it with you all the time it's stuck on your wall so you need to make sure you have a system where you're writing down things you need to add onto your wall calendar if that's your master list of schedule right uh okay so moving on to digital calendars which is the future people well it's the now it's the now but it is taking taking over all calendars and I think you really need to hop on board the best thing about digital calendars like I was just saying is not the best thing about the wall calendar or the paper planner is that sometimes you don't have it with you but on your digital calendar you have it with you in your pocket all day long so whenever I need to add something even just like a reminder or whatever I can add it right away and that being said this takes this has a little bit of a learning curve you're going to need to watch some videos on YouTube you're going to need to figure out how to set it up set up your different people with different colors and all that jazz but honestly guys it's worth it it's worth taking a couple of days or weeks to work through the Kinks figure out your preferences and how you like your digital calendar because it is totally like customizable for the most part I found a couple YouTube videos of people working through different calendar systems there's more than just Google there's some really great websites that offer more capabilities like tasks where you can like list your tasks and then you see your calendar and then you put the tasks in in the calendar where you're going to get them done I think that's super cool I don't have that yet I just have Google also digital calendars can link up with so many other communities calendars so like you can hook up to your school's Google Calendar and have all the school stuff in there you can hook up to your church you can hook up to the community you can hook up to so many different things your emails will have your calendar items in there and they'll say like upload to your calendar and it's already there it's just really really handy it's a very smart tool and if you want to be smart then do it no but but it is like one of those tools where people resist it I resisted it for a long time but once I jumped in I was like this is making my life so much easier so I'll list a couple of YouTube channels before that explain how to use it in a really easy to understand way so if you want to transition over to Google Calendars you can do that but also um look at these other ones I have another video of a girl reviewing different digital calendar options and uh they're very cool they're very cool and her video does a really good job of it so look it up on YouTube read some articles go on Pinterest and look it up but figure out what works for you because this doesn't need to be such a pain point for us we have tools and you can set aside some time to figure it out and it's so fun so remember when we're implementing a new system there is going to be a little bit of trial and error phase where we're going to try new things we're going to realize they don't work and we're going to move on to the next idea the next system that could solve our problem right so don't be afraid to make the first move to make the choice we do not want to have analysis paralysis where we're seeing all of these options and this is why I wanted to make this channel because there are so many options and so many good things and everyone's pushing their favorite thing but that might not be your favorite thing but it might have some good options maybe you could try it and see if you like it but don't be afraid to try it and fail moms feel like we can never fail because our lot our kids and our family's lives are at stake this is not a high stake situation okay try something out if it doesn't work try something else don't just sit still and be like annoyed and frustrated every single day because your calendar isn't working for you okay move forward make a decision make a change and also remember our families are always changing and so even if you have an amazing system once you get a teenager or once you get a driver or like a high school kid those are probably going to change too so don't be afraid when your family changes and you have to change up your systems to move forward with them okay our systems can be our best friend our best support in our motherhood we want to treat the boring and the task parts of our motherhood like a business where we can put in systems to handle it and we don't have to think about it all the time so we can focus on our family we can f focus on our relationships focus on our hobbies and our loves um so so that the just the the hardship of motherhood the the worky part of it doesn't get us down because it can get you down so easily oh guys I get really excited about this and I could talk about it all day and just preach at you but won't let me tell you real quick what my system is okay so like I said I have my paper planner which is just my personal notebook really I like to have the calendar there um just to be aware of timing and things like that um to know what dates are happening but I mostly just use it for like random notes um but my main bad boy is my Google calendar on my phone I just have it right there first thing and there it is and I've got different colors for all my kids me and my husband church school um um I love to use emojis when I'm planning things I set it up so it recurs if you watch this video I have linked below she does a really awesome job at organizing her Google Calendar she actually gives all of her kids each their own email account because if they each have their own email account then you can kind of like manipulate their calendar situation a little bit easier it seemed like a lot at first meil I was like that's crazy but she makes it work and it's so fun we have our Google Calendar that I have shared with my husband and we both put things on it he kind of has his own system of looking at the calendar but then he'll add things onto mine um when we need to and then we have my family calendar which is downstairs on the fridge that we put things that kind of just everyone is a part of so like we'll put basketball practices and we'll put big school breaks and we'll put birthdays and kind of the fun things but I don't usually refer to that one um to know exactly what's happening obviously anyway that's my calendar system and it works it's been working really well for me that being said I'm always making changes to it because like I said I just saw this girl's video and I'm like that's amazing I'm going to try that I'm going to add that in but you know what's so great is that I have the brain space to level up the systems I already have because of the work I've put in this last couple of years especially to make these systems so solid that now I'm like you know what I could I could even refine this system even better and that feels so great when you get to that point which I know you can we just need to start with your biggest pain Point what is bothering you the most start there if you need help understanding a little bit more about home systems and how they can work for you and your home go to my Instagram @app home find me there go into my store my Instagram shop and I have a digital product that is free and that's perfect for starting out on your systems if you want even more than that I have a $27 home system builder that I know you would love with video trainings for each they will help you so much figure out how to level up your moming how to get over the stupid boring tasks so that you can get to the fun parts and be able to feel better about your job as a mom and just life just like let's just adult a little bit better sometimes it's so hard to be an adult let alone a mom to kids who are depending on you so head over to my Instagram check it out there I'll also link it down below in the description okay guys this was such a fun video I can't believe that I'm finally back on YouTube I'm so excited make sure you give me a like and a follow share me with of your friends who need to up their calendar system as well and make sure you come back next week hopefully we're going to be doing my plan is to be doing Friday posts so come back follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok and I'll see you there bye