Summer is supposed to be the relaxed season.
But if you have kids, you know that summer can quickly become the most complicated part of the year.
In our house we have three kids, and the summer months are a constant mix of swim meets, sports camps, family trips, and time bouncing between grandparents' houses. One week someone is at soccer camp, another week someone else has swim practice every morning, and somewhere in between we are trying to coordinate travel and family visits.
At some point we realized something important.
Trying to manage summer through our phones was making everything harder.
Phones hide the schedule. You have to open an app, scroll, switch views, and hope everyone is looking at the same thing. It also means one more reason for everyone in the house to be staring at a screen.
What we needed instead was something physical and visible.
That is why we started putting a large summer wall planner in our home where everyone could see it. When the entire summer is laid out from May through August, the chaos suddenly becomes manageable.
Everyone knows what the week looks like.
Parents can quickly see when camps start and end. Kids can see when swim meets are coming up. Grandparents can glance at it and understand what the schedule looks like when they are visiting.
One of our favorite things we started doing was putting these planners in our kids’ rooms as well. It helps them feel ownership over their schedule and gives them a visual sense of what their week looks like.
Instead of asking every day what is happening tomorrow, they can simply look at the calendar.
Physical planners create something phones cannot.
Shared awareness.
When the schedule lives on the wall, the whole family participates in keeping things organized.
Summer is still busy, but it feels a lot less chaotic when everyone can see the plan.
