23. Set the Pace…Plan Your Month, Week, and Day
There's a comedian who does a routine about being a clueless student. He's poking fun at himself, but what makes it so funny is that we all can identify with his situation. He talks about the science fair. He had nine months to work on his project and did nothing. On the day the project is due, he wakes up in a panic. “Oh, no! That's today,” he thinks. So he quickly runs outside and fills a cup with dirt. That's his science project! The problem is clear. As a young boy, he couldn't plan that far in advance and no one helped him plot out the project. The teacher gave the assignment and the deadline, and that was it. I think we've all lived that nightmare at some point.
In contrast to the comedian's story, I have been very impressed with my children's teachers. They have helped my children learn project–planning skills as early as fourth grade. One September, my son came home talking about his state project assignment. He talked about what state he chose and what he was going to do. His details were a little fuzzy, so I asked for the written instructions for the project. However, the first piece of paper he came home with on this project was a calendar. That's a new one, I thought. The teacher wrote in the due date and asked the parent and student to fill in all his weekday and weekend extracurricular activities. Then she asked us to plot out each step of the project with our children so they could see how to budget their time. This teacher clearly recognized the fact that we all have different family schedules and that each child would have to get the project done in his own time.
With my daughter's science fair project, the teachers gave her interim dates for when the idea was due, when the actual experiment had to be done, when the written report was due, and finally when the project display board was required. By chunking down the overwhelming assignment of a science fair, this teacher made the project much more manageable.
As I often tell my clients, you've got to organize from big to small. This applies to organizing both objects and time. Think big first. As adults, we may be asked at our place of employment to set goals for the year. They have to be measurable, realistic, and attainable. For children, a year may be too overwhelming to think about and plan out, so let's set the bar a little lower and help them plan for a month at a time. Ask yourself and your child, “What has to happen this month?” For school-aged children, that may mean a project in a particular subject, a big test on a unit in one subject, or midterm exams. If nothing big is going on in school, then think about extracurricular activities. Is there a ballet recital or karate test coming up? Think about what's going on in your family. Maybe there is a trip or a big birthday celebration that you all need to prepare for. Always start with the top priorities first and then you can work in the less important things on your calendar. Once you have your monthly goals, you can begin to break them down by weeks and days.
If your children's teachers are not helping them with project planning, then it's up to you as parents to do this with them. This is an essential skill to learn in elementary and middle school so that by high school and college, your children can do this for themselves. If you don't consider yourself a good project planner, it's probably not because it's difficult to do. Most likely it's because you don't take the time to plan ahead, and you're OK with winging it or throwing it together at the last minute. As adults, we can do this, some of us better than others. When it comes to helping your children do well in school, a little planning followed by a weekly check-in to see if they are keeping on target is important for their success as students. Show them how to plan out a project they have now, and next time let them do the planning. You can still help them by asking questions like: When is the project due? What has to happen first? How long will that take? Are you really going to do that after basketball practice? These questions will help them think it through.
Kathy Schlegel of Organized Enough, LLC, is a professional organizer with many clients who are students with ADD. She recommends the desktop or “blotter-style” calendar with big blocks for her students because she says the kids need to “see time.” They can see at a quick glance any place they have to be that month, but there's also enough space to write in activities, tests, and projects. That makes a lot of sense, especially for kids who are visual.
Another option for planning your month is a typical wall calendar. The blocks are smaller so you can't write in a lot of details, but like the desktop one, you can see at a glance what major activities or responsibilities you have each day. Before you settle on one type that will be most effective for your child, you might want to simply draw this month or next month on a white sheet of paper.
On the monthly calendar, have your child write in the due date of the big project or test. She might even want to write this in a bold color so it stands out every time she looks at the calendar. Then have her fill in extracurricular activities, trips, and anything that will fill up her time for a good portion of the day. If you're plotting a project, know how many pieces or steps there are to the project. Is there research, writing, or an oral presentation involved? Allow time to work on each piece. For a big test, know how many chapters are involved. Allow for studying one chapter per night, and then one night for you to quiz your child. Also note the number of chapters for a book report so you can give your child a goal for reading the book and writing the report. Take the due date and work backwards, avoiding all those days where it would be impractical for her to do this extra work. For example, don't plan to write a report the day after a sleepover party or the afternoon after taking the PSATs. Plan the interim tasks on days that are open, and write in the tasks.
Month Calendar. This style of calendar lets your child see all of her activities for the month.
Once you have the big project plotted out, your child will need to do one of two things:
Now that you have your child's month planned, you can break it down into each week. Take a clean weekly time sheet (page 202) and fill in her extracurricular activities first. Next, you can use the midday section to fill in any special classes she might have, such as gym, library, or music. Looking at the week, broken down into blocks of time for each portion of her day, will show you and your child how open (or not) her schedule is. Hopefully there are some empty spaces in that week so you can use those days to help your child work on some personal goals. For instance, if she is learning to play an instrument and can't find the time to practice, the goal may be to schedule twenty minutes of practice time each day. To accomplish this, you may have to cut out some TV time, or have her practice before school. Your child may feel like she is going all the time, but putting it on paper can show her how much free time she actually has. On the other hand, you may feel like your child has all the free time in the world, but when you look at her schedule you see that she is booked every day of the week. If you and your spouse have done the seasonal planning exercise, this should not be the case. But if too many activities have been added, seriously consider dropping some of these from your child's schedule.
Picto-chart. This style of chart works well for young children who are learning to read.
If one of your organizing goals was to help your children do more for themselves and help more around the house, then now is the time to talk about that. Presumably, you've got the schoolwork under control by scheduling out major projects and tests and finding time each day to do homework. If extracurricular activities are not overwhelming, then there should be some time in each week for the children in your home to take over some chores. In my house, my biggest complaint was that the kids were not taking responsibility for the dog that they all begged us for. Because they have school activities, sports, and acting classes, it always fell on me to walk the dog, feed the dog, and clean up the yard. Also, our dinner times had become more hectic, and I felt like I was trying to do everything between the hours of four and six P.M. My kids are ages seven to thirteen so why not get them involved? I had talked to a neighbor whose daughter and son each take a week and either walk the dog or do the dinner dishes. When I heard this, I felt like my kids were getting off easy! So, I created a chore chart for my children, placing their names down the left side and each weekday along the top. I filled in their extracurricular activities and spread out the chores of taking care of the dog and helping with dinner. So on a day when my kids have no activities after school, they are doing one of those two things. In addition to these weekly chores, they each have chores that basically involve taking care of them-selves: making their beds, clearing their plates after each meal, and putting their clean clothes away. I started to teach them those basics at about the age of five. Additionally, my thirteen-year-old cleans her room every two weeks and baby-sits for us on occasion, while my ten-year-old takes out the trash once a week. The seven-year-old helps clean up the playroom because he uses this room the most. I believe this is a good balance of chores so that the kids don't feel they are slaving away all the time, but they are definitely learning to take care of themselves and to pitch in and do chores that affect the family as a whole.
As your children get older, they need to take on more chores around the house so that by the time they are eighteen, they are responsible adults. Keep in mind that they are probably still in school, so school is their priority. Also keep in mind that they may be living on their own very soon, especially if they plan to go away to college, so they need to know how to do laundry, how to cook, how to pay bills, and how to clean (at least a bathroom!). Adding a few chores every year is the best way to go when teaching your children to take care of themselves and to help pitch in around the house.
As your children get older, the picto-chart may be too simple for them. In middle school and high school, students have more work to do and may need a more detailed system. This is a great time to introduce them to a day planner. The best way to choose a calendar or day planner is to take your child with you to an office supply store or to a bookstore where calendars and planners are sold. With so many options out there, you have to see which one works for your child. First, decide where the child is going to use the day planner. If it goes to school with her, choose a thin planner, not a diary-style planner, which would add bulk to the backpack. Also, thinner means bigger pages for writing. Open up the planner and see if there are columns for each day, small blocks, or one page for each day. Some kids like lines to write on and will read from top to bottom for each day. Other kids prefer open blocks and will read left to right, like a book. There's no way for you as the parent to know, unless you show them and ask them which looks the most appealing.
Month-at-a-Glance Calendar. This style of calendar can replace wall or desk calendars.
Month-at-a-glance. Some day planners are filled with pages that show you a month at a glance. These are good for replacing a wall or desk calendar, but may not give enough space for details. If the planner has both monthly and daily pages, they can use the month-at-a-glance for where they need to be, and then the individual days for what they need to do.
Day planner. These are good for detail-oriented students who like to write down tasks and then cross them off the list. Some daily pages have lots of lines and some even have time charts. These are usually small enough to fit in a backpack or purse but are only good if your child is going to pull them out and open them up. Many middle schools and high schools provide these to students. The trick is getting your child to use it! It's certainly an effective tool if the teachers remind students to write down assignments, and you ask your child to see it each night before she does homework. If the size or style of pages doesn't work for your child, then find one that does and ask the teacher's permission to use it.
Absolute of Organizing Your Family: Don't be afraid to talk to your child's teacher or principal about organizational help.
At this point you have helped your children plan out their months and weeks. You have even supplied them with weekly and daily planning tools. You all should understand that the daily tasks you have plotted together will help your children achieve their monthly goals, whether that involves completing a school project, getting an A on a test, or finding time to practice guitar. Confident that you have planned well, you can now focus on one day at a time. Make sure you put the weekly calendar in a prominent place where your child will look at it every morning. Some options are: a bulletin board in her bedroom, on her desk, on the door of her bedroom, or on the refrigerator. Even if there is nothing special needed for school that day or nothing to do in the morning, it's good for your child to know what to expect when she comes home from school. You may have to remind her at first, but hopefully checking the schedule will become a habit. At the end of the first week, check in with your child and see how she's doing. Is the plan working, and does she feel like she has balance in her week? Continue doing this until the month is over and/or your child has achieved her goal. (Some projects may span more than one month.) Recognize her achievement with a little celebration so your child gets a feeling of accomplishment. This is her first step towards getting organized, so you want to encourage her to keep going! Make her favorite dessert, let her choose what's for dinner, or just make an announcement with the rest of the family present.