Julie Bestry | |
Felicia-kidsrefpaper
Last week, in another thread, our own Felicia Slattery pointed out
something that got me thinking. In almost all of my TBC
posts, I'm addressing you as solopreneurs and professionals.
Of course, while you are those things, you're also
individuals and many of you are spouses and parents, with complex
issues that fall on the "personal" side of the personal/business fence,
and those issues impact
your space, your time, your finances and your energy.
So, thanks to Felicia's savvy sample questions, for the next few weeks,
we're going to examine ways to get your personal life (kids' paper,
family paper, bill-paying, etc.) in good, organized, working order.
Word of warning: while you may have seen some of
this material in my blog or articles, each post will be packed with
brand-spanking-new material!
Felicia's first request was:
- Top 5 tips
for organizing notes from the school. That I may never have to refer to
again, but should keep because there is no where else to access that
info and goodness only knows when I'll need something that appeared in
the 1st day of school note from the principal.
It's a great question, of course, and there are two "wrong" answers:
A) Throw
it all away because you don't believe you'll commit to any
kind of organizing system, panic when you need something, and call to
beg other parents for the right info, probably waking them after
they've all gone to bed at a reasonable time because they knew where
their school info was kept.
or
B) Keep
it all in a huge pile on top of the microwave or the edge
of a counter until there's a kitchen emergency or one of the kids turns
the sink spritzer into a water cannon, forcing you to throw out the
unsorted, mushy paper mess and then resort to option A.
Hopefully, neither A nor B is appealing enough for you to opt for them.
If you have kids, they come home with a huge variety of goodies for
your attention. Do you remember my RAFT
system for dealing with paper? Some items require
you to refer
the item to your spouse--can you, indeed, both attend Parent-Teacher
night? What actions
must you take to accomplish this? (Schedule your client
sessions to end earlier than usual? Hire a baby sitter?
Arrange for a quick dinner to get there on time?)
Other items are purely reference, things that you may need
(the homework hotline number) or things you may not need (waivers
to allow your kids to participate in certain activities if you don't
intend to sign). In the first case, you'll file them away; in
the second, you'll toss
them out.
School paper tends to come in three major categories, stuff you need
for long-term reference (i.e., what you'll probably never look at
again, as Felicia mentioned, as well as stuff you'll peek at only
occasionally), ongoing reference, and papers requiring some action on
your part. You need to actually think about what kinds of paper you're
touching in order to know what to do with them.
A-1) Papers for
Long-term Reference--Rarely used
Review
these papers at least once, discuss as necessary with your kids and
then file away. (Don't worry--we'll get to "away" in a
moment.) You're most likely to use these only when trouble
pops up and you want to convince the school administration that it's
treating your child unfairly or that you (and your kid) really were
following the spirit and/or letter of the law:
- School/Class Rules
- Dress Code
- Ethics Code
A-2) Papers for
Long-term Reference--Used infrequently
These are items you don't need every day, but you'll want to be able to
find them when specific issues arise, as indicated:
- Teacher/Administrative
Phone Directories--Use when your child will be out of
class for an extended time, when you need clarification on a policy or
if there's a problem that needs attention.
- Extra-curricular
Phone Directories--Keep track of which other children are
participating in the same sports or clubs as your kids. Use to find
emergency car-pool buddies and help your child catch up on missed
information.
- Class
schedules--When you make doctor, dentist or orthodontist
appointments, check your child's class schedule first. While the entire
school day is theoretically important, you'd probably rather your child
missed lunch, phys. ed., music or art than math, history or science.
Elementary kids may not have a carefully-delineated schedule, but
middle- and high-schoolers often have complex "third period on even
days in B-wing" schedules that require guidelines for parsing. Confer
with your kids to be sure you're clear.
B) Papers for
Ongoing Reference
Some of these papers contain the kind of information you may
want to transfer to the family
calendar, but you'll still want to keep them handy to
double-check accuracy.
- Extra-curricular
Activity Schedules: rehearsals for school plays, practice
schedules for sports and class/activity schedules leading up to band
concerts. Set aside time to start marking them on the calendar to get a
sense of the weekly schedule right away and make sure there are no
carpool conflicts or scheduling snafus. Be sure to consider non-school
extra-curriculars like scouting, music lessons, martial arts, and dance
classes, as well as religious instruction like Hebrew School or
confirmation studies.
- School
Lunch Menus (monthly or weekly)--If your kids usually take
lunch from home but have a few preferred buy-lunch days, let them pick
those out and then mark those days on the family calendar. If they
usually buy lunch except on "chipped beef on toast" day, mark the
calendar to note those are "bring lunch" days. If your kids have no set
schedule, post the lunch calendar on the bulletin board (below), and
make reviewing the weekly lunch schedule a Sunday task.
- School
year calendar (holidays, teacher conference days,
half-days)--Again, mark the whole year NOW. Arrange childcare for days
when school's out or early pickups conflict with your (and your
spouse's) work schedule. Copy this information not only to the family
calendar, but also your PDA or work calendar so you can mitigate
work/vacation conflicts.
- Field
trip/class trip information--You won't know this
information at the start of the school year; in general, you'll only
have a few weeks' notice. As soon as you become aware, mark events on
the calendar to avoid conflicts.
c) Papers In
Transit--These are the papers you can't merely file away
or toss. Someone's expecting you to DO something!
- Permission
Slips--Don't just sign them; make sure you mark down on
the calendar where
your children will be in case you need to reach them in a family
emergency. Also use notifications of field trips to make sure you're
comfortable with the school's safety protocols and precautions.
- Forms
and applications--the minute you get one, highlight the
deadlines and note them on your calendar!
- Class
fees--Avoid tears and don't send small children to school
with bills larger than you're comfortable losing. Pay fees by check,
online if possible, or mail/deliver them to school yourself.
- Test/papers
requiring parental signatures
No, Felicia, I haven't forgotten that you wanted five tips.
But first, we had to get our categories straight, because
different categories of paper have to live in different places.
1. Create an
IN-Tray...to make sure you actually see the INcoming paper
your kids bring home.
I'm a big fan of using one horizontal in-tray as you might use in your
office, but a rubber dishpan from the Dollar Store is fine,
too. There are also horizontal options, like bulletin boards,
but I recommend those for advanced
parental paper skills. If you're a beginner at getting the
paper in order, keep your in-tray flat and horizontal to capture the
incoming info.
Condition your children to empty
their bags daily, upon returning home. Make it a ritual to
walk in the door, open backpacks, "turn in" non-homework take-home
paper (notes from teachers, class schedules, permission slips, etc.) to
the IN-tray, then change into play clothes, and finally have
after-school snack-time.
Speaking of snack time, lest I be accused of contributing to the
childhood obesity epidemic, whether snack-time is a healthy piece of
fruit or a yummy cookie doesn't matter from an organizing perspective,
but setting aside time to decompress from the workday does--and note:
school is the career of the 5-18 set. Starting this ritual in early
childhood gives your kids a chance to wind down from the stresses of
the day, have a little nosh and share their day with you; it's an
excellent way to not only keep in touch with the big calendar items,
but to create and maintain a bond so your kids perceive sharing their
day with you as a normal part of life. (You'll thank me when they're
teens!)
If your younger
kids tend to forget to bring important papers home to you,
keep a gallon-sized zip-lock bag in their knapsacks and tell them that
ALL papers go in the bag until you sit together to sort them. (For
older kids, just threaten to show up in the middle of the school day.
Even if you're a "cool" parent, this should ensure regular
take-home-paper service.)
2) Create a Family
Calendar...And Use Vertical Space Wisely
Don't have
one big calendar for all your family obligations? Get one,
pronto!
Be sure your family calendar is large enough to allow ample room for
writing on any given day (including weekends) so you can accommodate
information regarding field trips, recitals, carpool, parental travel,
babysitting arrangements, etc. Standard "oversized" or "busy mom"
calendars are fine.
You may wonder about digital calendars. If your kids are all
at least middle school age and you're all
technically inclined, something like Cozi
to track the family's tasks is OK. However, little kids need
to comprehend the passage of time on a weekly or monthly basis, which
only a standard calendar really helps to do, and one digitized schedule
for multiple family members generally doesn't provide the visual
reinforcement that families need. In other words, if you're
reading this post to get actual tips rather than to bide time until the
microwave dings, trust me--go for a big-box, post-on-the-wall, family
calendar. You'll thank me later.
To get things onto the calendar, you have to know what's happening when.
Make reviewing the incoming paper in the family "in tray"
part of the daily ritual, perhaps right after dinner, before everyone
departs to their own private corners of the house. Also make it part of
the weekly
ritual--on Saturday or Sunday afternoons, review all the week's
upcoming events so that school/team/performance uniforms are washed,
permission slips are signed and ready to be returned and that the
lunch-making schedule is covered.
The family calendar requires vertical space--make sure it's given a
position of importance in the house, like on an oversized bulletin
board on the kitchen wall or door. School lunch menus also belong
vertical and visible. (Note: bulletin boards are
fine for displaying vital information, just not for collecting unread
info.)
Emergency numbers
(for the school nurse, the family doctor, mom and dad at work,
grandparents and contact data a babysitter might need) also fit well in
the vertical space of a family bulletin board.
However, avoid clutter and remember that vertical To-Dos tend not to get
"to done", especially if they're just stuck on the
fridge. For parents and older kids, consider a tickler
file; for little ones, start them off with a To-Do tray for
their desks or a personal bulletin board on their bedroom doors,
specifically for their own waiting tasks. Another very fun
option is the EZPocket
-- I vastly prefer that grown-ups use tickler files, but the EZPocket
introduces kids (and grownups who act like kids) to the concept of associating tangible
objects and the tasks they represent with the dates they need to be
handled.
3) Create a long-term
reference section...yes, really!
Remember all those papers for long-term and ongoing reference we talked
about in the beginning? You can't just stick them in a drawer or on the
fridge, or it will quickly turn to paper clutter. Instead, consider one
of these two options:
School file--If
you have horizontal space either on a kitchen counter or family desk, a
small open-top
desk-top file box with hanging folders is fantastic.
It's actually my preferred choice for you to keep school
papers at hand rather than cordoning off a section of your business
workspace. (That's a no-no.)
One hanging folder in the front can hold all the calling lists and
phone directories for various schools and activities. Then, keep
similar categories of manila folders to group information for each
child. If you have kids in multiple schools (elementary, middle, high
school), you may want to divide the sections by school so as not to
confuse the different dress codes or lunch menus.
School binder--Use
subject dividers to keep schools or children categorized properly. As
the school year goes on, you won't have the time or the inclination to
use a three-hold punch; instead, opt for plastic sheet protectors and
just switch out content each year as material changes.
Both options work well for keeping track of reference material.
However, the open-top file box is less
labor-intensive--just walk your fingers across the file
tabs, and drop the paper in the front of the correct one. Conversely, a
binder (or even two, if you have multiple kids in multiple schools) is
more portable, allowing you to make calls while you are sitting in the
carpool lane.
4) End with an OUT-tray...(and
Be A Rocket Scientist)!
IN and OUT baskets, either stacked or side-by-side, ensure a home for
everything in transit. Here's where you put papers set to leave the
house to make sure they get into the right hands.
First, be a rocket scientist and build
a launch pad for the next day. After dinner but before
bedtime, set up a launch pad near the door you'll be exiting, and put
your briefcase or gym bag or diaper bag with all the essentials. Follow
the same procedure with your kids: gather the book bags, gym clothes,
musical instruments, art projects and get them placed by the outgoing
door early in the evening. Put a small table or stacked baskets near
the door just for that purpose.
Next, go through the OUT-tray and make sure that permission slips,
signed application forms and anything else going back to the teachers,
coaches or administrators leaves the OUT Tray and goes into the right
kid's backpack. (Again, gallon zip-lock plastic bags work wonders!)
Finally, do a countdown (5…4…3…2…1!) to liftoff—take five minutes to
chat with the little voice inside your head and the little (louder)
voices of your kids, and ask about unusual events for the next day.
Going hour by hour, you should trigger any "Oh, yeah, I need (lunch
money, a signed permission slip, a salt map of the French Revolution)."
5) Remember the Golden
Rule of Organizing:
Don't
Put Things Down, Put Them Away!
Lots of times, busy professional parents tell me they don't have time
to review things and put them away. Often, that's because
"away" and the concept of a "home" for every item and task is foreign
to them. Other times, they're so committed to
self-identifying as someone who CAN'T do it, they don't make the effort
to try. They insist they "don't have the time".
So, I always ask them:
- Do they have time to drive their kids to school because
they didn't take the time to build a launchpad the night before?
- Do they have time to cancel a family vacation because their
kid won't be allowed to take a makeup exam because they didn't follow
procedures?
- Do they have time to run to the store to buy a new "class
snack" because they didn't check the rules to see that foods with
peanut butter aren't allowed?
- Do they have time to drive to the school to deliver a lunch
because they didn't read (and take note) of the warning that the school
cafeteria's kitchen would be out of commission for three weeks to get
rid of asbestos...starting today?
- And of course, do they have time to Twitter or
text everyone about how busy they are?
No one post (not even a post from me) can get you to slow down, focus
on priorities, or commit to creating a system and following it.
But think of it this way... If you get organized,
your kids will learn to model their behaviors on yours. If
you don't
get organized, they'll still learn to model their behaviors on yours.
Which would you prefer?
--
Julie Bestry, Certified Professional Organizer®
Best Results Organizing
"Don't apologize. Organize!"
organize@juliebestry.com
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