My boys share the responsibility of emptying the dishwasher each morning. The oldest puts away the dishes, and the youngest puts away the silverware. Sometimes they had a hard time telling if the dishes were clean or dirty, so I bought one of those magnets for your dishwasher that you flip over to indicate if you ran the dishwasher or not!
This is a great system - - if you use it. I would often either forget to turn the magnet around, so when the boys got up in the morning and saw "dirty," they'd be thrilled with one less chore for the day. Or, even worse, I would forget to run the dishwasher and leave the magnet saying "clean" causing dirty dishes to get put into our cabinets. The magnet became so unreliable, my 8 year old son looked at my earnestly one morning, pointed at the dishwasher magnet and asked me, "Mom, does the magnet speak the truth?" I cracked up, but it made me realize that if I didn't use the system faithfully, it became less efficient than not having a system at all. Any productivity system has to be followed regularly and fully in order to be effective. This can range from something as simple as a dishwasher magnet, to your shared calendar with your spouse, to your task management strategy. "...it made me realize that if I didn't use the system faithfully, it became less efficient than not having a system at all." The key to staying regular with your systems is to develop them one at a time. Read my previous post about how to track a new habit and get a free printable to help! If you try to wake up one day and suddenly reinvent yourself with several new routines, habits and systems, you're not going to be successful. Master one before adding in another. For a system to work, you must set up in a way that is easy to maintain because if you don't consistently use the system, you won't trust it. One system that you have absolute trust in is your calendar! Develop a Trusting Relationship with Your Calendar Regardless of your preference between paper or digital, if you don't use your calendar for everything, you will lose confidence in it, and it becomes nearly useless! I recommend a hybrid approach to a calendar with the primary tool being digital with a secondary physical calendar of some sort posted in your home. Digital calendars allow you to capture appointments as soon as you are aware of them - enter in your kids' next dental cleaning before you leave the dentist's office and add the sports practice schedule to your calendar as soon as you receive the text from the coach. Digital calendars make it easy to set recurring entries or record future appointments. There are many tools available, but Google Calendar is one of the most popular (and my favorite!)
Here are 5 ways to make your digital calendar your trusted helper:
My motto is "If it's not on my calendar, it doesn't happen!" This frees my mind and memory for more important tasks than just remembering where I'm supposed to be when!
I like the addition of a physical calendar at home to visually display to my family what's going on for the month. Use a different color for each family member so they can quickly scan to see what appointments impact them. Just as with your digital calendar, you have to be diligent with keeping it updated. I look forward to filling in my cute chalkboard calendar that I got on Etsy at the end of each month for the following month. I use my digital calendar as my master and fill in the next 30 days for all to see. Each evening, around dinner time, I take care of any changes on the calendar. The first time that your calendar "doesn't speak the truth" will be the last time your family trusts it!
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