Ask the grumpies: How do you manage your to-do lists?

First Gen American asks:

Any new developments on how you manage your to do lists?

Probably not?

#1  I’m still using the Passion Planner.  I have post-it notes on the bottom with non-research items with deadlines and a list of the projects I have.  I will just move these over each week until they need to be replaced.  On the right of the projects post-it (in the planner itself) I will put stars or Xs indicating which projects to focus on that week.   I use trello for individual project to-dos.  I have some cute to-do lists that I will sometimes use on weekends and stick into my planner if something carries over to Monday.

#2  Still lots of post-it notes.

 

February Challenge: No social media, get writing done!

January was a bit of a loss for me with travel and illness and just goofing off.  I have a lot of things coming up in March, so I need to get things knocked off before then.  February is the perfect month for challenges because it is the shortest month.

I need more focus and one of the things that helps me focus is not getting little hits from Twitter or Reddit.

SO:

No playing with my phone in the morning before I get up.  I get up.  I start my day.

No messing with twitter etc. while I am waiting for things.  Instead I force myself to contend with my thoughts.

When I work at work, I start work.  I will write for at least an hour every day, first thing when I get on my computer (9am M/W/F, possibly earlier T/Th).

I will update you with the link loves.

Wish me luck!

Software for project management/RA management/etc. in the Social Sciences?

Some of this post may be out of date– I started it something like 4 years ago(!)  UPDATE:  6 years ago (!)  All of the cost numbers below are at least two years out of date.

Spoiler:  What I’m currently using is Trello for project-based assignments in conjunction with Gmail for weekly assignments.  I also have one project on Github, but Github is not great for social scientists and it’s slow and clunky compared to Trello.  It has additional features, but they’re just not optimized for what we need.

When I was on leave, I thought it would be nice to figure out a program management methodology that was better than my gmail assignment method, which worked well when I had 1-2 very good RAs who could follow instructions, but not so well if I got more RAs or they were incapable of replying directly to the assignment email despite multiple reminders and a pop quiz during training (to be fair, these folks generally weren’t great at actually doing the tasks assigned either).

So I asked famous economists what they used and I asked grad students and new assistant professors what they used and just generally listened to people discussing this topic.  The idea would be to use whatever everyone else was using which would make collaboration easier going forward.  Economists tend to use dropbox instead of drive or OneDrive any other program (though some of my interdisciplinary collaborators are completely on Drive and not dropbox…) and we tend to use Stata instead of R or SPSS (though some people use R and some people use SAS), and just using those choices makes life a lot easier.

PivotalTracker?  MavenLink?  MS BaseCamp?  Jira? Trello?  Slack?  Google Tasks?

One of my colleagues likes Basecamp.  He thought Jira was too involved. He preferred TortoiseSVN to Github, which are both good at file management, but not great for project management.

I have not looked into kanbanflow.  Recently I’ve been getting a lot of ads for Asana, but haven’t looked into that either.

Pivotal tracker is free for academic use.

Github is different, it is more for storing text files and is really focused on computer programs.  You can set it up like a kanban board but it is slow and clunky.

The following is from 2+ years ago, so prices etc. may have changed:

I went through the different project management software options. Below I listed the prices, pros, and cons of them. Overall, I don’t think it would be necessary to pay for anything. The ones that require a subscription usually include a lot of features that are not necessary, like help budgeting or performance data.

Trello seems pretty easy to use, is free, and lets you organize and assign tasks fairly simply. You can also attach documents through Trello.

Another option that might be worth looking into is Dropbox Paper. It lets you use your Dropbox account to make task lists easily and is more customizable than other options. That might be a good option because it would not require a new account and would allow you to move things around and keep things in a central location. You can also obviously share documents through Dropbox and Dropbox Paper lets you link in Dropbox documents easily.

I think switching to either of those systems would not require a huge amount of setup since they both seem fairly straightforward and customizable. The advantages would be that it would be easier to keep track of tasks over time and across multiple RAs. Tasks would be stored in the same place, clearly assigned to different people, and you can check them off when they are done.

PivotalTracker

Probably free as they offer a free, sponsored version for academic institutions if you request it. Otherwise, $12.50/month gets you 5 people and up to 5 projects
Pros: It is designed to be collaborative so you can see what people are working on.
Cons: It is designed for software development. It appears harder to learn and not very flexible. Mostly it looks like a way to boost productivity, or “velocity” as PivotalTracker calls it, by tracking software developers as they complete tasks. People earn “points” when they complete “stories”, but it doesn’t look like things can be prioritized or that you can make notes for partial completion or other things. This is very much geared toward software development.

MavenLink

$19/mo for up to five users
Pros: This is designed specifically to be collaborative and to allow for you to assign tasks and see everything you have assigned and what has been completed.
Cons: This does a lot that is not needed. It is designed to manage tasks but also manage budgets so it can be used to record billable hours and send invoices. It likely will require a bit of a learning curve to start.

MS BaseCamp

$99/month for as many users as you want
Pros: Allows for projects to have multiple to do lists under them, fairly simple to use. It is easy to assign tasks to specific people and allows for other ways to share things such as a message board and a place to share documents.
Cons: Mainly, this is very expensive because it does way more than manage two student workers.

https://kanbanflow.com/

Free
Pros: Straightforward for arranging tasks. Multiple people can use a board for tasks and you can assign tasks to certain people in the board. You can add due dates and change columns depending on what you want. The standard columns are To Do, In Progress, Done.
Cons: You cannot use this to send attachments, so it can only be used to arrange tasks.

Trello

Free (options to upgrade, but the free version seems sufficient)
Pros: Very customizable, you just create lists with tasks in them. You could create a list for each RA, or a list for each project, or just a to, in progress, and completed list. Tasks can be assigned to individual people. It can be used to send documents.
Cons: Likely has a small learning curve.

Slack

There is a free version that is probably enough. Otherwise, $8 per month + $6.67 per user per month
Pros: It works very similarly to email but in message format. You have the option of sending messages in a public forum or privately to team members. It is easily searchable. You can organize messages into channels based on the project or based on who you want in the conversation. You can include attachments the same way you would with email,
Cons: It seems like it is mostly just a chatroom for businesses. It seems like it has a lot of hype and users, but I am not convinced it is very different from email except it has a more “instantaneous” feel to it because it is messaging.

Google Tasks

Free
Pros: It is synced with your existing Google account so it will be easy to set up. You can send other people a task list and people can put emails into their task list.
Cons: It is not a terribly collaborative feature. You can send people a task list and put emails into your to do list, but you cannot really have two people editing a single to do list it seems. I am not even sure if you would be able to see other people’s tasks, so once it is sent is is essentially no different from emails, although possibly easier for the receiver to keep track of each task.

Dropbox Paper

Free
Pros: Relies on existing Dropbox accounts, so you can send links to documents that way. It is essentially a document that you can add task lists and other notes to as needed. You can assign tasks to people and rearrange them as necessary. There is a lot of flexibility in what is put in and you can do things like tasks and subtasks.
Cons: This is essentially self-organized so it is not that different from any Word Document that you wanted to make a To Do list on, except it it a little easier to set up and more collaborative.

The bottom line seems to be that any system will work if you put enough effort into it and no system will work if you don’t put effort into it.  Very few people felt that the start-up costs were worth it.

Do you use any project management software?  How do you organize your projects?

Ask the grumpies: Favorite apps for life/productivity

Leah asks:

Do you have any favorite apps for life/productivity?

This is a timely question!  This summer I have decided to try Trello with two of my summer RAs and Github for another project.  These are both project management apps and for myself I have a Trello board that I’m using like a to-do list (sort of kanbanish, but not quite).  I am liking Trello very much.  Github is more complicated but it can do more and has better integration with things our university owns, particularly in terms of file attachments.  After working with both for a few weeks, Github’s project management software is not very good, nor is it as well-integrated as it should be with the repo.

DH uses Pivotal Tracker for work and likes it.  My university doesn’t have it for free so I haven’t tried it, though it’s probably available in some limited fashion for free.  Jira is also popular, but the free version is limited to 10 people so I haven’t tried it.

Probably my biggest productivity app is the leechblock add-on for firefox.  This keeps me from reading twitter and other common sites except during scheduled breaks and outside of work.

I’m eager to hear what productivity tools people in Grumpy Nation have found helpful!  Three years ago it seemed like only a few people were using project management software (preferring low-tech things like google docs or to-do lists), but suddenly it seems a lot more common.

What do you all recommend or find not worth the effort?

Work problem Part 2: Creating Good Habits: Trying out Atomic Habits

In my previous post, I discussed my work problem and how I’m trying to break some bad habits.

As a reminder, my bad habits were:

1.  Surfing the internet instead of working in the morning and at work.
2. Not being able to work from home, even during working hours.
3. Not following my work schedule, instead binging on service/teaching tasks.
4. Not using unexpected free time chunks wisely.

The laws of creating good habits are similar to those of breaking bad habits, but they have a lot more detail.

Make it Obvious

A.  Fill out the habits scorecard:  I opted not to do this as I want to fixate on specific work habits, not a complete life audit.  Instead I thought about problem points with work.

B.  Use implementation intentions for each habit.

1. Surfing
   • On weekdays I will either snooze or get up/use restroom/brush teeth/get dressed/eat breakfast/leave when I am woken by DH’s showering.  I will not lie in bed with the internet.
   • I will work when sitting at a computer.  Playing/surfing will be relegated to the small iPad and my iPhone except during specific break-times when leechblock is off.
   • I will write for one hour when I get to work.
2. Home
   • If I wake up in the middle of the night and using the restroom/trying to get back to sleep doesn’t help, I will get up and do work.  I will not surf the internet.
   • I will work when sitting at a computer.
   • I will continue to use my iPad pro only for reading/commenting on pdfs.
3. Schedule
   • I will follow my schedule by prioritizing harder things in the morning and leave class prep/service/etc. for after 3pm (exceptions:  lunch break I can do whatever and getting reviewers for articles newly in my editorial box can happen whenever)
4. Free time use
   • I will not consider half hour or more chunks to be small chunks of time, but rather larger ones in which tasks can be started.
   • I will have a list of things I can do with unexpected free time (email, cleaning out office, updating classes for next semester) for smaller chunks of time.  I will not binge through these over the course of a few days, but leave them to be spread out.

C.  Use habit stacking

1. I have stacked the iPad to the restroom which is stacked to teeth brushing.  Other internet usage is stacked to breakfast which is stacked to getting out the door.
2. I have stacked being at the computer with work.  Being awake at night with work instead of play.
3. The schedule is a stack.  I just need to start following it.
4. N/A

D.  Design your environment

Most of the things here were covered under bad habits.

Make it Attractive

A.  Use temptation bundling– give an immediate reward for working on or completing the habit

One of the examples in the book is to play podcasts or watch shows while exercising.  Unfortunately, the tasks I need to do require attention and so do the temptations.  I mean, I could eat chocolate while working, but that seems likely to be not good for me in other ways.  Post-rewards used to work for me, but lately I’ve been realizing that I can just give myself the reward any time I want to and I end up just, say, reading the entire novel.  I think this may have something to do with being financially independent– I seem to have lost a lot of that delayed gratification muscle.

B.  Join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior

I mean, I do work at an R1, and I did start that weekly brown bag.  So I already kind of am in this culture, but I’m definitely not doing great.

C.  Do something you enjoy immediately before a difficult habit

This is what has gotten me into trouble in the first place, so not a good idea as the enjoyment part has been stretching out.

So I’ve kind of struck out on the “Make it attractive” step.  Any thoughts?

Make it Easy

A.  Reduce friction

1.  Surfing.  Most of these things are covered under bad habits (increasing friction), but for writing in the morning I will plan ahead the day before to know what I will be working on writing.
2.  Home.  Most of these things are covered under bad habits (increasing friction).
3.  Schedule. I need to continue to plan the morning work the afternoon before.  I used to do this and it worked well.  One of the current problems is that even when I do this, I just ignore the schedule.  This started happening when things out of my control messed up my schedule too many times in a row.
4. Free time.  I need to make a list of odds and ends that can be done in shorter amounts of time that is easily accessible.

B.  Prime the environment.

1. Surfing. Leechblock and other things from bad habits
2. Home.  Isolate particular areas of the house, specific machines, and specific times of day for work vs. play.
3. Schedule.  Have a working computer.  Remember to take Vit D (possibly even schedule in the second pill?)
4. Free time.  Have the list easily available.

C.  Master the decisive moment

Not sure what to do about this.  Maybe just be better about getting started on things?  (Though getting started isn’t my only problem– not getting distracted is also a problem.)

D.  Use the two-minute rule to downscale your habits until they can be done in two minutes or less

I think that doing this is part of the problem– it’s not the small habits I have trouble with, it’s the longer ones.

E.  Automate your habits.  Invest in technology and onetime purchases that lock in future behavior.

I’m not sure what to do here.  I could buy another computer, but that’s worthless if I just start using it for play.

Make it Satisfying

A.  Use reinforcement.

See above on “temptation bundling”

B.  Make “doing nothing” enjoyable– this actually belongs under getting rid of “bad habits”

C.  Use a habit tracker.  Keep track of your habit streak and “don’t break the chain”

I need to think about whether or not this is worthwhile for keeping track of writing or getting into work by a reasonable time.  In the past keeping track has been more of a pain than a help because I know if I’ve broken the chain or not without plotting it on a chart.  And plotting on a chart is another step that takes effort I’d rather use for something else.  But I can think more about good metrics.

One big problem with measurement is that when you measure, you tend to focus on the measurement rather than on the larger goal.  For example, with weightloss, you focus on the number which can lead to unhealthy behaviors and forget about the “why” (it’s not actually weightloss that’s the goal, but health or whatever– pounds is a really bad metric for that.  Even if fitting into your clothes better is the goal, pounds are not the right metric).  So I can see myself wasting time writing unnecessary stuff or coming into work completely sleep deprived just to hit some arbitrary metric when that actually hurts my true goal of getting stuff done.  So this is non-trivial.  What are good short-term metrics?  I don’t know.

D.  Never miss twice.  When you forget to do a habit, make sure you get back on track immediately.

I will try to be better about this.  Part of my problem has been multiple days of interruptions outside of my control.  But hopefully those will have settled down.

How do you keep up with good habits?  Any thoughts on how I could fit my desired habits into these laws of creating good habits?  Do you have any tricks to suggest?

I have a work problem: Breaking Bad Habits: Trying out Atomic Habits’ list

This summer and this semester a lot of things have gone wrong with work.  All summer was non-stop bad research news, followed by almost an entire semester of my work computer being broken and/or replaced unpredictably.  I also taught at days/times I’d never taught before and never really figured out a new rhythm (next semester I’m back to one of my more regular schedules).  And I had so many emotional conversations with students needing to drop a class or out of the program entirely (why me? I have no idea).  And I have a ton of service and teaching and those are just so much easier to do than hard research.  Finally, DC1’s heavy homework load and DC2’s lack of a heavy homework load mean that both our kids need more individualized attention in the evenings than previously. These things combined caused me to feel unmotivated and to lose many of my good research habits and to replace them with the quick hit of websurfing and watching youtube videos.  I kept thinking, I’ll be better later…

But, like tomorrow, later never comes.  But in my case it’s jam every day.  And I need a bit of spinach to grow a strong research agenda.  (Obviously my mixed metaphors need work.)

I finally decided enough was enough.  I need to fix my bad habits so I don’t stagnate.  I’d like to get another paper under review before my annual review in Spring and I have lots of projects, just none close to the right stage, and nothing will be close to any stage if I don’t start now.  Today even.

Having just read Atomic Habits, I decided, why not try their recommendations to see if they help at all.  Of course, it’s really easy to create a new habit if the habit is easily definable.  Like, you want to exercise at a certain point each day, or you want to drink more water, or what have you.  It’s a bit hard to know where to start when your problem is a big amorphous work problem.

So my first step was to list my bad work habits (and, in a later post, to list the good habits that I want back!)

1.  Surfing the internet instead of working
   1. This has particularly become a problem in the morning– I used to just check email and read a few webcomics.  Lately I’ve been watching full youtube videos!  What used to be ~15 minutes before getting ready can stretch to TWO HOURS.  That’s ridiculous.  I should either be asleep or working.
   2. It’s also a problem at work.  I’ve been avoiding leechblock by using chrome in addition to firefox, or by getting out my phone and surfing on that instead.
2. I have completely lost my ability to work from home (other than some successes with doing anything involving pdfs on my iPad Pro– more on that when I talk about good habits).  This wouldn’t be a problem if I was being productive at work, but sometimes I have to stay home because DH is out of town and I want to be here when DC1 gets off the bus, or I want to hide out from well-meaning students and colleagues who just want to chat.  I’m great at writing blogposts at home, but not so great at sitting down and doing work.  My home desktop just doesn’t feel like a work computer anymore.  I mean to work, but I either end up surfing the internet from my desktop or I end up on the couch watching youtube videos or reading novels.
3. I have stopped following my daily schedules for work.  I generally put the important big stuff on my list for the mornings and then the stuff that doesn’t take brain power (service/teaching) and has shorter deadlines in the afternoon.  But instead of doing research in the morning, I’ve been doing the service/teaching stuff and then when afternoon rolls around instead of switching, I just do more service.  Or I go home meaning to work but end up on the couch reading instead.  I would say that service fills up any time hole, but actually one of the reasons I said enough is enough is that I ran out of obvious stuff to do and I want to get back into good habits again before it starts filling up again.
4. I am not using little bits of free time, and my definition of “little” has gotten pretty wide.  It’s no longer, oh I have 5 min, let’s check twitter, it’s more, oh, I have an HOUR, well, can’t do that thing on my to-do list that’s marked for 2 hours, might as well surf the internet.  This needs to stop.

I would link to the atomic habits cheetsheet here, but it looks like he’s taken it offline.  You have to buy a copy of the book AND KEEP THE RECEIPT if you want a printable version.

In any case:  Here are his laws of breaking bad habits:

Make it Invisible:

1.  Surfing:
   • Move the iPad charger from the bedroom to the bathroom.  I had initially thought to move it to the living room, but that just lured me to the couch.  I do need to briefly check my email in the morning at home, otherwise I end up checking it at work which leads to a bad habit there.  Putting it in the bathroom provides a good place to do a quick check.  DH also suggested that I allow myself to use my phone while eating breakfast, which will bundle those habits as well (more on this in the good habits post).
   • Leechblock Youtube at work
   • Hide the shortcuts for all web browsers that aren’t Firefox so I don’t just move to chrome when Firefox is leechblocked (my “new” work computer has all the shortcuts)
   • Make the phone more inaccessible at work.  I need it to be such that I can hear the buzz if someone texts or calls, but such that it doesn’t call to me when I should be working.  I am thinking about putting it in a cloth bag that we get tamales in, but it might make sense to put it in a drawer or put a sheet of paper on top of it or just turn it over so I can’t see the face.  I will work on this.
2.  Working at home:
   • I can’t hide the couch or the bed, so I’m not sure what to do here.  We talked about maybe setting up a work station just for work in another room, but my spot in the office really is ideal (nice window, DH’s desk next to mine), so I’m hoping I can reclaim it for work instead of play.  Also I might have to buy a new desktop or laptop to get another station, and I would definitely need another monitor.
3. In theory I could hide the service/etc. from myself until later in the day, but I think that might be counterproductive.  For this one I don’t think making it invisible is the best idea.  It will probably require willpower.
   1. DH suggested a calendar reminder for the schedule, though I’m not sure if that will help nudge me when the list is right there.  But who knows.
4. Using bits of time is more of a pro-active thing than a re-active thing, but hopefully #1 will keep the internet from being as attractive as it had been.

Make it Unattractive:

After talking this one over with DH, we decided this one wasn’t helpful because “highlighting the benefits of avoiding [my] bad [work] habits” just makes me depressed.  I need to think less about this stuff, not more.  Because thinking leads to anxiety, anxiety leads to 2am wake-ups, which lead to too little sleep, which leads to poor work, mistakes, and lost willpower.

Make it Difficult:

Many of the “Make it Invisible” bullets above are also making it difficult.

Make it Unsatisfiying:

The two items recommended here are to get an accountability partner and to make the consequences of bad habits public and painful.  I have a great accountability partner for going on a walk each day, but I have been far less successful in getting an accountability partner for work.  Invariably they start slipping and get irritated by my nagging or they start slipping and I take it as permission to start slipping too.  And when my accountability partner is DH, *I* start slipping and he lets me.  So yes, it would be lovely to get an accountability partner for work, but it’s not realistic.  I did start a weekly brown bag for research at work, and that helps somewhat.  I did have to forbid the phrase, “incremental data progress” from the weekly update recently after using it one last time as it is far too easy a phrase to hide behind.

There’s another item in the “How to create a good habit” list that actually belongs in the bad habit list:  “Make ‘doing nothing’ enjoyable.  When avoiding a bad habit, design a way to see the benefits.”  The example given in the book is each time you don’t eat out, move the money you saved from not eating out to your vacation fund.  I’m not really sure what an analog for any of the four items above would be.

So I wasn’t able to think of ways to get all of my bad habits into his methodology.  However, many of these had opposites that seemed to fit in the “How to create a good habit” section which I will discuss in a future post.

How do you break bad habits?  How do you stay focused at work?  Any thoughts on how I could fit my bad habits into these laws of breaking bad habits?

Another attempt at getting the middle schooler organized

At 7:02am on the second morning of school, DC1 realized that although zie had filled out the bus form and the orchestra forms, and had done the language arts homework (which I’d found on the dining room table the previous night after DC2’s bedtime), zie hadn’t filled out the Spanish forms (which DH had found the previous night after asking if there was any other work that needed to be done and we both told DC1 to complete) or colored in the index card zie was supposed to color in for Algebra.  (DC1’s algebra teacher seems to be less into math than last year’s teacher and a lot more into everybody sharing personal information.  LA’s assignment was also about sharing personal information, but LA is such a joke around here that’s what we expected.  But that’s a rant for another day.)  Zie had also just stuffed the completed work into hir backpack instead of putting it into hir binder folders.  I discovered all of this while going through DC1’s schedule and asking if zie had everything for each class.

Not a great start to the school year.  Especially if there’s going to be homework in more classes than just math.

So I made a checklist and put it on the refrigerator.  (You can’t see it because I am too lazy to figure out how to get wordpress to show the borders, but there’s actually a grid with 5 boxes after each item so DC1 can check-off for each day of the school week.)  Because once the school year gets underway, I sure won’t have time to check through both kids’ work each day.  (DC2’s class is requiring us to look through hirs and sign every night.) We’ll see how well it works.

Pull assignments out of backpack
LA
Español: hw and 15 min
GT
Science
Social Studies
Algebra:  Do, check, and correct
Orchestra:  Practice, Charms
Put assignments away in folders
Piano practicing
Shower

How do you and yours stay organized?

Ask the Grumpies: How to teach organization and time management to a middle schooler.

First Gen American asks:

How [does one] teach organization and time management to a middle schooler.

We have had some luck with putting a checklist on the fridge that DC1 has to go through every night, but it isn’t foolproof. If it were, DC1 would be getting an A in orchestra because zie wouldn’t have forgotten to log hir practice.  How do you remember to practice but not remember to log the practice?  It boggles the mind.

Does anyone else have more/better suggestions?

Ask the grumpies: getting out of unproductive funks

First Gen American asks:

How do you suck yourself out of an unproductive funk. Do you find that allowing yourself to wallow in it for awhile is actually is more helpful than beating yourself up about being unproductive.

Yes, with the caveat that beating oneself up about being unproductive can sometimes be an important component of wallowing in it.  To get the full wallow a little self-hatred is necessary.

To get out:  Just Do IT.  Sometimes I will ask #2 to remind me about vans by rivers and request a kick in the posterior.

#2 says:  I think the how getting-out part for me has involved meeting people at coffee shops.  I haven’t done much of that recently.  Hard deadlines also make me ridiculously productive.   Unfortunately last-minute deadline blitz is unsustainable, if for no other reason than RSI.

We here at grumpy rumblings love to cross things off lovely lovely lists.  Sometimes even if I can’t be productive, I can write a list about what it would take to be productive.  Then day two I can cross one of the things off the list.  Breaking up tasks into smaller tasks is great for goal motivation.  Doing them from smallest to largest is also good for motivation, though one of us works best when she has an important goal that she doesn’t want to do hanging over her head– it makes all the other tasks on the to-do list seem so much more worthy of doing by comparison.

I guess it depends on WHY the funk.  I have anxiety which I manage with meds and awareness of it.

It’s also important to ATTEMPT to realize that it’s really not so bad once I get going.  Starting is hard! But starting is often the hardest part. Like Boice says, tell yourself to do it for 30 min– if that’s too long, then 10 min, or even 5 min. You can do almost anything for 5 min, and once you’re started it usually isn’t so bad.

What do you do, Grumpy World?

How to fix some random kid (and grown-up!) problems

We get a lot of comments, both good and bad, about how much stuff we make our oldest kid do.  Ze, for example, makes hir own lunch for school, has a list of household chores to do (mostly limited only by height restrictions), and is in charge of remembering things like homework and recurring special things like pizza money on pizza day or that Wednesday is special uniform day.

It’s expecting a lot of a 7 year old (and even more of a 6 or 5 year old, which DC1 once was!)  But it’s something we need to do to keep our household running in the absence of a full-time live-in housekeeper.  As full-time working adults with high-level jobs and a 2 year old we just don’t have that kind of mental load.  And DC1 is capable and it isn’t usually that big a deal when we all forget things.

Except occasionally DC1 forgets to wear the special uniform 3 weeks in a row and we get an email noting that if there’s a fourth time, then demerits will follow.  We’re not sure what demerits are going to do, but they sure sound scary.  Or DC1 will forget chores or homework and blissfully spend the evening playing board-games with DH, only remembering long after bedtime or the next morning that there’s an assignment due.

So here’s what we do that works.

Uniform, pizza money, and school holidays/fairs are all put on DC1’s wall calendar.  Each day at bedtime ze crosses off the day and sees what is listed for the next day.  If it’s the special uniform, ze takes it out of the closet and hangs it on hir dresser knob.  If it’s pizza money, ze demands it from DH and puts it in hir back pack.  If it’s a holiday, then we’re reminded.

For that long list of chores, during one of DH’s business trips I made DC1 make a full checklist of all the chores ze has to do each night.  Homework (or workbooks on weekends), piano practicing, making lunch for the next day (if applicable), putting away the clean silverware, loading the dishwasher, feeding the kittens, helping fold laundry (if applicable).  (See, we’re tyrants!  DC1 never gets to do anything fun.)  Once all of those chores are done, DC1 is free to spend hir time as ze wishes on weekends, and can do anything except video games on weekdays (since even the checklist couldn’t help DC1 remember hir chores if video games are an option).

Of course, it’s not enough to do the homework or make the lunch.  Those items also have to make it into the backpack.  So there’s a new rule that they have to go into the backpack as soon as they’re done.  They’re not allowed to sit out on desk or counter where they can be forgotten and then I have to turn back to get them on the way to school and everybody is late.  Because I hate that.

So… calendar, checklist, and automation.  That’s how we keep things together with DC1 during the week and that’s how we’re able to give DC1 so many responsibilities.

Related:  financial diffraction talks about using her calendar to keep track of money

How do you and yours get out the door in the morning every day of the week?  Any tips?