Family Daze
Magnets, stickies weren't up to schedule's challenge
Seeking a system
By Debbie Farmer
This may come as a surprise to some of you, but I used to be an organized, efficient adult. I wrote all of my appointments and commitments in a daily planner that I kept in my purse. However, after the birth of my children, I gave up using it since I no longer carried a purse, or held a pencil long enough to write anything down.
Luckily, my daily schedule was easy to memorize since it went something like this: Get up, make breakfast, do laundry, break up a fight, put in Barney video, do more laundry, break up a fight, meet friends at the park, lunch, break up a fight, naptime, make dinner, break up a fight, break up a fight, break up a fight, bed.
But suddenly, one moment I was pushing a swing in the park, blissfully planning my day around the wrinkle-free cycle on the dryer and the next, I was inundated with playgroup dates, preschool events, extracurricular activities, and a rotating carpool schedule for the soccer team.
I knew I needed a new system the day my friend Jenny ended a phone conversation with "I'll see you tomorrow," and I had no idea why.
I hung up the phone and desperately turned to my children.
"Do you know where Mommy has to be tomorrow?" I asked them hopefully.
My daughter shrugged and my son took his thumb out of his mouth and shook his head.
After that, I decided to buy several fancy magnets and stick all memos and flyers on the refrigerator, as if it were a short, ice-dispensing kiosk. I figured we'd never miss any more events since my family would see our entire schedule every time they opened the door to eat.
This worked well until the soccer team schedule got stuck in the freezer door and caused the entire contents to thaw overnight.
After I finished mopping up $15 worth of Cherry Garcia ice cream from the kitchen floor, I went to the store and bought a pack of little yellow sticky notes. After all, if they worked for executive assistants in corporate offices, they were good enough to keep the Farmers on schedule. Besides, they were too small to get stuck in the refrigerator door.
I started out by posting them neatly around the phone, the place we were most likely to look. But they slowly began to spread around the kitchen. Soon my children's play dates were posted along the wall and were working their way toward the back burners of the stove. My daughter's Girl Scout schedule covered the door of the microwave and soccer practice took up the entire pantry door.
"Where are we going today, Mommy?" my daughter would ask.
"I'm not sure. Either check the microwave, look under the stove hood, or open the dishwasher."
I knew I needed a new system when the sticky notes started to lose their stickiness, and would fall into whatever meal I happened to be cooking.
My husband suggested that I try to consolidate my schedule in one place, so I bought a wipe-off board that came with a special dry/erase pen that I could use to write in our schedule each day.
I mounted it on the side of the refrigerator and congratulated myself on making a brilliant purchase. But when I wrote on it, I quickly discovered if I had to use more than two words, my entire day would blur together into a black, indecipherable blob. So I had to abbreviate. At first I created acronyms to help me remember whom I was supposed to be taking where--and what I was supposed to be doing once I got there. Then I developed a code. A tiny star meant I was the morning carpool to preschool, a circle with two lines meant soccer practice, and a square inside of a circle meant I had to take the team out for pizza afterwards.
"What's with the calendar?" my husband asked. "There's an octagon and a half a star under Wednesday."
"That's not an octagon," I said. "It's a hexagon, which means we have to pick the kids up after the soccer game and be at the PTA meeting by 8."
That idea didn't last long since no one was willing to learn my code, so I started writing reminders on my hand. This worked well, except for busy days when my list would continue up my forearms and make me look like a lead singer in a heavy metal band.
It was obvious there was only one foolproof method to keep track of my schedule. I went to the store and bought a new day planner. And I knew once again my life would be organized and under control--at least until I lost it.
Contact Debbie Farmer at ParadigmTSA@familydaze.com. Copies of her new ebook, The Best of Family Daze, can be purchased at her website, www.familydaze.com.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
