Chances are that if you are raising a large family you might be feeling like there is no way you can “get it all done”, especially if your children are still very young. In the days when we had four kids five and under the age of five we had not yet learned the importance of time management. Life was somewhat chaotic and felt very hectic and rushed. I somehow managed to keep my home somewhat in order, thanks mostly to my need for some kind of control. I didn’t feel like I had much control over many things in my life, but I could have control over how clean and tidy my home was. But I was always causing us to be late, for doctors and dentist appointments that I would later have to pay a fee for missing, parties that if we actually made it on time for that we would be without a gift, and thanks to my poor organization we were always late for church, missing homeschool field trips and activities, sports and music lessons….its exhausting just to think about.  There were so many times that I would accept invitations to events that I would later forget about and miss entirely or just be too worn out to attend because I was so tired and frustrated from trying to keep it all together. I realized that I was just chronically disorganized. I finally decided that I was going to have to pull myself together or I was going to lose my sanity. I was tired of losing money for missing appointments and having to apologize for being late or without a gift, or worst of all disappointing my kids and my husband and making excuses for myself. I was tired of being that mom. It was time to sink or swim.

I tried a lot of different organizational tools for trying to keep my family in smooth running order. Some of them worked and some of them didn’t. Here are a few of the things that help me to keep our family on track. Hang on to your seats, this just may change your life.

Tip # 1.  Use the calendar program on your phone to set appointments. Set it for weekly events like sports practices and music lessons. Set alarms to remind yourself about the event. I usually set two or three of them, actually. The first alarm is set if there is something that needs to be done to prepare in advance like getting a gift or wrapping or preparing a dish to take. I usually try to get that done at least one day in advance. I set a second alarm that will give me enough advance warning time before the event to get the entire family ready to get out the door. The third alarm tells me that we need to be heading out of the door. It is always a good idea to use a mapping program ahead of time if you are not sure of where or how long it will take to get to your destination.  The program I use also has a section for notes where I put an address of the destination and a phone number, that way I can program my car’s GPS without having to search for the address and have a number to call if I get lost.  *Just a note- I am a Mac user and use the ICal program that syncs perfectly with my IPhone. Apple even has this thing called mobile me. I can make changes to my calendar on my phone or my computer and they update each other instantly and automatically without having to hook up any cables to sync or anything. Its like magic. It IS magic.

Also, always refer to your calendar before you make any commitments, even if you don’t think you have anything going on that day. You may find you have forgotten something or just see that you have a lot of things on the schedule that week and need to have family time.

Tip # 2. It is a good idea to choose the times of day you will homeschool that works for your family. Some families work better in the morning and some like to have their days free and to work in the evening. We work better and tend to stay on track when we start in the mornings. I got to a point to where even though we were getting all of our school work done, I felt like we weren’t getting all the other things we needed to get done around the house. We needed to create a more detailed schedule but I didn’t really know where to start. The one tool that has helped me to create a realistic schedule is a book called Managers of their homes: A practical guide to daily scheduling for Christian home-school families. Right away after implementing my new MOTH schedule we felt like we were getting more done. We each have goals for the day. The kids love that they can look and see what they should be doing and what time they can expect to not have something expected of them. Even if we don’t stay perfectly on time with our schedule, we still follow the schedule.

Time management is such an important lesson for us as parents to learn and for us to teach our children. Managing our time wisely makes it easy to set and reach goals giving us a sense of accomplishment and pride in our ability to keep our word. We are able to make it on time to where we need to be when we need to be there with what we need to be prepared. And we have more time to play and relax.