Getting Organized For the Summer: Time to Panic?

Definitely Time to Panic

With the school year winding down to zero, my annual impending panic is setting in. The lack of funds for camps and day trips has only increased this year’s sense of impending doom.

Four active and inquisitive kids, two of them teenagers, stuck together for eight weeks.

Bloodshed seems possible.

So I went looking for some other solution. Getting organized seemed a good first step. Normally, I don’t like making lists. I even have to confess my true geek sin, which is that I don’t have an electronic organizer.

But the free downloads being offered by the Mommy Track’d website seemed promising.

As someone who works from home, I was immediately drawn to the The Balance Sheet, which separates work from home tasks.

However, the Eat Sheet proved the most immediately useful, organizing not only my meals for the week but my grocery shopping too.

In fact, I think this may prove even more valuable to the teenagers in the house. I give them the sheet, let them work out a menu for the week, list the items they need from the store, drag them to the store to pick up what they need, and then let them do the cooking.

This would not only keep them busy but reduce my workload. Win/win. (Always assuming, of course, that the dinners prove edible.)

For those thinking alone the same lines but don’t trust the kids with food planning, there’s also a To Do: To Delegate Sheet.

Wired: Very useful programs, and free to boot.

Tired: The name—I have a pet peeve about parenting tools that are strictly labeled for moms, especially with something like these charts, which should prove just as valuable to dads.