Recommend your family calendar system

[Anonymous]

Skylight had made life with 3 kids possible. Dh and I were drowning and constantly missing things or double booking ourselves. Dh and I both control it from our phones and can add things, and then it updates the calendar in our kitchen. Our kids (3-9) consult the calendar all the time. I put their chores on it too. I love how it’s all color coded to each person and multiple people attending the same event get striped. You can add emojis too which is helpful to see different sports on the calendar.

I don’t pay for the subscription.

[Anonymous]

This worked for me:

Buy the desk calendar from Staples. It is huge. Hang it on your wall and write in all appointments, etc. This will be your Monthly Calendar.

Buy yourself a whiteboard. This will be your Daily Calendar. Every evening write your list of events with times and people the events apply to on this board in chronological order timewise. You will erase this board every evening.

Example: 8 am Dentist Taylor
11 am volunteer at elementary school- Anna
4 pm piano Lucy

If you want to up your game, make a recurring event matrix that you will redo whenever there is a change. So if you have recurring lessons, practices, appointments you will record these on a graph by day of the week and time.

Hang all three of these right next to each other or vertically on top of each other so all are in view.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This worked for me:

Buy the desk calendar from Staples. It is huge. Hang it on your wall and write in all appointments, etc. This will be your Monthly Calendar.

Buy yourself a whiteboard. This will be your Daily Calendar. Every evening write your list of events with times and people the events apply to on this board in chronological order timewise. You will erase this board every evening.

Example: 8 am Dentist Taylor
11 am volunteer at elementary school- Anna
4 pm piano Lucy

If you want to up your game, make a recurring event matrix that you will redo whenever there is a change. So if you have recurring lessons, practices, appointments you will record these on a graph by day of the week and time.

Hang all three of these right next to each other or vertically on top of each other so all are in view.

This sounds like a massive amount of work and I (mom/wife) would be the only one to record it. Just get a skylight that does all of this automatically, especially recurring appts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This worked for me:

Buy the desk calendar from Staples. It is huge. Hang it on your wall and write in all appointments, etc. This will be your Monthly Calendar.

Buy yourself a whiteboard. This will be your Daily Calendar. Every evening write your list of events with times and people the events apply to on this board in chronological order timewise. You will erase this board every evening.

Example: 8 am Dentist Taylor
11 am volunteer at elementary school- Anna
4 pm piano Lucy

If you want to up your game, make a recurring event matrix that you will redo whenever there is a change. So if you have recurring lessons, practices, appointments you will record these on a graph by day of the week and time.

Hang all three of these right next to each other or vertically on top of each other so all are in view.

This sounds like a massive amount of work and I (mom/wife) would be the only one to record it. Just get a skylight that does all of this automatically, especially recurring appts.

It does sound like a massive amount of work but I promise you it is not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This worked for me:

Buy the desk calendar from Staples. It is huge. Hang it on your wall and write in all appointments, etc. This will be your Monthly Calendar.

Buy yourself a whiteboard. This will be your Daily Calendar. Every evening write your list of events with times and people the events apply to on this board in chronological order timewise. You will erase this board every evening.

Example: 8 am Dentist Taylor
11 am volunteer at elementary school- Anna
4 pm piano Lucy

If you want to up your game, make a recurring event matrix that you will redo whenever there is a change. So if you have recurring lessons, practices, appointments you will record these on a graph by day of the week and time.

Hang all three of these right next to each other or vertically on top of each other so all are in view.

This sounds like a massive amount of work and I (mom/wife) would be the only one to record it. Just get a skylight that does all of this automatically, especially recurring appts.

It does sound like a massive amount of work but I promise you it is not.

DP

It's substantially more work than using a Skylight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This worked for me:

Buy the desk calendar from Staples. It is huge. Hang it on your wall and write in all appointments, etc. This will be your Monthly Calendar.

Buy yourself a whiteboard. This will be your Daily Calendar. Every evening write your list of events with times and people the events apply to on this board in chronological order timewise. You will erase this board every evening.

Example: 8 am Dentist Taylor
11 am volunteer at elementary school- Anna
4 pm piano Lucy

If you want to up your game, make a recurring event matrix that you will redo whenever there is a change. So if you have recurring lessons, practices, appointments you will record these on a graph by day of the week and time.

Hang all three of these right next to each other or vertically on top of each other so all are in view.

This sounds like a massive amount of work and I (mom/wife) would be the only one to record it. Just get a skylight that does all of this automatically, especially recurring appts.

It does sound like a massive amount of work but I promise you it is not.

I’m the one who posted about going from a paper calendar to skylight. Skylight, once set up/linked, is easier by far

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP - I hate how convenient the skylight is. I wish we could be analog but tbh just syncing it from anywhere at all times makes sure everyone is always on the same page with the same information, and the kids can see it clearly

I don't understand the wish to be analog. Can you explain?

One more screen, and one more app … I don’t want to be fully analog but adding more digital is not my goal when I’m already so plugged in

You don't need to use the Skylight app for anything other than setup. We continue to use our color coded Google Calendar and it syncs automatically to the Skylight, colors and all.

[Anonymous]

One reason I like having everything online in one place is because I can just look at our shared Google calendar when booking future appointments instead of booking something, then going home and having to double check paper calendars, then call back to reschedule because I caught a conflict, etc.. The color coding also makes it easy.

I learned a lot from the Skylight Facebook group and their customer service is phenomenal. They can walk you through setup if you want.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I decided to go with the U Line chalk calendar. I really wasn't looking for a digital solution. Just something visible to keep track of some things across the month. We have one DC, she's not on a device yet, and she's not in sports, so we don't have a lot to coordinate. Thank you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP - I hate how convenient the skylight is. I wish we could be analog but tbh just syncing it from anywhere at all times makes sure everyone is always on the same page with the same information, and the kids can see it clearly

I don't understand the wish to be analog. Can you explain?

Agree. It sounds like the analog calendar hasn’t worked despite format the last few years. Try something new. Someone up thread said you could print it out each week. Then just put it on the fridge or a cabinet and markup changes if needed.

[Anonymous]

Another vote for Google Calendar. If it's not on the calendar ,it's not happening (in our crazed lives at least). Not sure what we did without it.

[Anonymous]

I buy very large paper calendar sheets for each day of the month off a vendor on Etsy. She sells a hanging device that can be mounted on your wall to hold the sheets if you want it to look nice. We just use heavy duty tape on its back. Do a search on Etsy and you'll see several options for styles, sizes, and prices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Skylight had made life with 3 kids possible. Dh and I were drowning and constantly missing things or double booking ourselves. Dh and I both control it from our phones and can add things, and then it updates the calendar in our kitchen. Our kids (3-9) consult the calendar all the time. I put their chores on it too. I love how it’s all color coded to each person and multiple people attending the same event get striped. You can add emojis too which is helpful to see different sports on the calendar.

I don’t pay for the subscription.

So you just bought the device and it works without the subscription?

What does the subscription get you?