Okay, see if the following vignette sounds at all familiar:
The day starts our around 6 to 6:15AM with everyone getting up to alarm clocks, dogs barking and doors slamming. The first real spoken phrase you hear is “Oh My God I have no clean PE clothes!”. To which you reply “well dear you have 5 sets, what happened to them all?”, “they’re all dirty and we have no time to wash them now!!”. “well dear, did you not know yesterday when we did have plenty of time to wash them you had PE today?” then the final reply from the child “well!! I guess I just won’t go to PE, I’ll get a check mark against my grade, it will lower my GPA and I won’t get into college and therefor never get a job and end up homeless on the streets. What do you think of that Mom?!”. Then about 45 minutes later as you’re half way to school you hear the “OMG” thing again. “I just remembered I am responsible for snack for my advisory group today”. To which you calmly reply “and how long have you known about this?” to which you hear a muffled (but tone clearly blaming you) reply “since the beginning of school when the snack schedule was set up”. “Okay, when is advisory (thinking it must be in the afternoon giving you plenty of time to get the snack and deliver it to school)”. “9:15 this morning (again in a quiet but blaming tone)”. Note: There goes an hour out of your day.
Then after burning the extra hour getting the snacks and delivering them back to the school you just came from, you arrive home only to see 2 lunches still sitting on the counter where you made them and left them. Back to school you go (yes, for the third time) to deliver the lunches. Now you’re at around 2PM and so far it’s calm. Then Dad gets the innocent text message from your daughter as follows”Hi Pops, I forgot to tell you I don’t have practice today after school so pick me up at 3 (instead of 5:30 if she had practice), thx.”. You’re thinking to yourself (being the mature adult you are you don’t just blurt this out in frustration) “do you think I’m just sitting around here with nothing else to do able to jump at a moments notice?”. Then after a couple phone calls to your wife, mother in law and maybe a few neighbors who might be able to pick her up, all to no avail you get in the car and drive the 45 minutes (because you have to drive from your office) to school and pick her up. Oh by the way you arrive about 10 minutes late and the first thing your daughter says when she gets in the car is “do you think you could get here on time next time”. “Hmm”. Note: there goes 3 hours out of your day.
Finally when everyone is home you start doling out the chores. “it’s your day to empty the dishwasher”, “no it’s not! my day was yesterday”, to which your other daughter standing by in earshot replies “No you didn’t, I did it yesterday!” and back and forth it goes until one bright daughter blurts out “prove it”. Now it’s your word against hers and you’re the adult so your word must be the word of truth. Hmm. How do you think this all turns out? You guessed it. Maybe the dishwasher gets emptied but certainly not with any smiley faces.
The final chapter in this vignette takes place around 8PM when you get an email message from the neighbor saying “everything OK there your daughter didn’t turn up for babysitting tonight and I just wanted to be sure everything was OK”. “Oh S__T! ” you say to yourself, “I completely forgot to tell her (your daughter) about this”. Just take a guess what sort of dialog followed your telling your daughter about the “mixup” the next morning. Lost wages, neighborhood embarrassment, etc.
The point here is that not only could somewhere between 2 and 5 hours of time been saved with more effective advance planning but the toll taken in terms of anxiety and frustration continually adds up over time. It leads to relationship issues and tension in the household that don’t need to be there. There’s enough to deal with as it is. You don’t need this fuel on the fire component!
We’ve adopted one very simple tool to tackle 90% of this. We bought an iPad and keyboard docking satiation and placed it in the middle of the kitchen (being the smart modern parents that we are we’ve figured out all kids do need to eat). On the iPad are not a bunch of games like doodle jump. It’s exclusively practical items centered around a family calendar. It also includes a family gmail account so that my wife and I can both easily place calendar entries on the family calendar simply by clicking on the “invite” button (inviting this email address) when we’re entering a calendar entry in our own personal calendars. This way anything we put on our personal calendar that relates to the family is easily added to the family calendar. Same goes for our older kids who keep some form of their own personal calendar. When we first set this up we had a fun set of sessions together filling in all the items we knew about. Since then whenever someone schedules something they must go add it to the family calendar. It’s really easy and takes virtually no time. We also set the chore schedule on the calendar so we get no more “prove it” to me responses. It’s right there in the calendar. You can even set the notifications up so everyone has enough time to get to the task. They can be set to just make a sound or can send a text or email if you want to get really anal about it. Since doing this the number of unplanned trips to school has been drastically cut back, the stress level in the morning has been cut way back and the number of tragic OMG moments has been greatly reduced. All this has simply lead to a level of calm not seen in many years.
We’ve also added a weather ap since getting dressed appropriately for the wether is a big deal in our family. It always displays the day’s weather forecast. We also have a shopping list that builds during the week and is erased anytime someone goes shopping. With kids at home driving they know the rule of getting everything on the shopping list if they go to the store to get one thing they particularly desire. We still seam to go to the store far too many times in a week but it’s getting better. We also have iTunes and Pandora on there as soothing music in the Kitchen in the Am helps keep things calm. We’ve also recently added a cooking ap for accessing recipes and building ingredient lists and shopping lists. We also include CNN headline news just for fun.
Try it. Life is stressful enough. We can do without this sort of stress layering.
This sounds like a great way to improve family life. However it could all go horribly wrong if your cat happens across the keyboard at the wrong time. But fear not! Help is at hand – http://www.bitboost.com/pawsense/ – yes there’s an app for everything…
I’m laughing at the PawSense app that Richard recommended, but I’m also reccing it on my Facebook page. Kent, your kitchen iPad sounds wonderful, definitely an improvement on the refrigerator whiteboard.
From another email message. Reprinted with the permission of the sender.
Thanks for sharing Kent. I look forward to reading your future editions. When I received your “update” communication, I was in the midst of income tax preparation and chose to set aside your note. Too much in depth thinking can cause much mental anguish and anxiety.
I was sorry to read that you have sacrificed “golf” during this period of self examination. How sad. I won’t bore you with any details about our annual 3 week trip to Bandon.
Seriously, we went through a similar exercise a few year’s ago and, must admit, it was very satisfying. Introducing change is often difficult but making some modifications to our daily lives has been very beneficial. I like to think these changes have had a positive impact, both financial and, equally important, with our family relationships. Plus some relief from the mental stress that often times accompanies life experiences.
A key proverb, keep (make) it simple!!
As appropriate, I will share some facets of our learning’s as we read your Blog’s. I will leave it to your good judgment on what might be incorporated into your writing’s, if anything.
On insurance, some thoughts:
1. Maintain an open communication with your insurance agent. I too, feel the value of bundling out weigh’s any minimal benefit gained from dispersing insurance needs to find the best price. A friendly relationship can be maintained via phone conversations. Doing this with one agent is easier then multiple agents.
We too have our policies with State Farm and find their archaic computer systems to be annoying at times. Managing deductible’s is important especially if you don’t intend to file claims for mundane claims. We have had only three claims in our 40 + years with SF. Two auto related and one blizzard resulting in home damage (ironically in Atlanta). As an aside, in Oregon anyway, our year’s of dealing with SF has the added benefit that they cannot drop us from their insurance roles.
A life experience – – several year’s ago, our son, upon graduation from college, decided he and a buddy would take a trip to the Arctic Circle. He drove our Mitsubishi Montero (not our current model). On the trip in a remote area of the Dempster Highway, they were in a single car accident. Rolled the vehicle twice but thankfully survived with no injuries except for bloody hands from the windshield shattering. We lived in Atlanta and with no cell phones, communication was a challenge. They were several hundred miles from any city. The closest town, Eagle Plains, 23 miles south of the AC, has a population of 20. Our agent handled the matter in remarkable fashion. The vehicle was destroyed and our claim was resolved in a couple of week’s for a mutually satisfactory value. I am convinced our relationship with the agent allowed the process to be handled in an expeditious manner.
2. Homeowner’s Insurance – – I have learned in recent year’s that a lousy economy can have a dramatic impact on home replacement value’s which is a key driver in the cost of insurance. Certainly a good news, bad news situation. Our insurance premium has declined 35% in a short period of time as the RV has dropped significantly. Perhaps benefiting from a combination of factors which influence this number. The cost per square foot to reconstruct (significant reduction in labor and materials), a clearer understanding of what will be replaced in a disaster (the home foundation is not likely to be replaced) and better rates over time as you do not experience claims. Getting new construction value’s is easier if you have maintained communication with a reputable builder. I found insurance or standard construction rates in a comparable area to be useless.
3. Consider Personal Article’s Policy to provide coverage for those items with substantial value that would not be covered in the HO policy. Such as original art, jewelry or certain family treasures or collectible’s. Requires an appraisal but provides “peace of mind” at a relatively modest price.
4. Documentation – it is best to inventory your possessions to provide proof of what is owned or destroyed in a disaster, house fire, etc. Photo’s or video camera can do the job. I prepared a documents file listing items (of importance) with cross reference to photo’s. Like a Will, this documentation will be invaluable when needed. [Also consider storing in a safe deposit box]
I have not addressed health, drug insurance. It is a complex subject that requires personal attention to all facets. Many of us have become self insured as it relates to dental and eye coverage. Have found the cost versus benefits of coverage to the older generation to be questionable, if you can even find coverage. I manage my Mom’s health and retirement benefits coverage and can attest to the importance of public assistance as she is a participant in medicare, medicaid and VA. The maze and complexity in managing a person’s participation in these programs can be mind boggling. It often requires direct communication with representatives of these organizations, calling, filling out forms, meetings, etc. I often think, how does someone with medical issues in their 80’s or 90’s even begin to manage through the systems without assistance? It is more often, quite frustrating and confusing even for us youngster’s and we’re in our mid-60’s.
One last point, the recent untimely death of three friends on the ranch, in a span of two months, has given us much pause. Life is too short and sometimes it is far shorter then we expect. As we age, one thing is certain, besides the inevitable, expect the unexpected.
Hope you find this of interest.
Tom