Making the Most of Your Wall Planner: A Guide

If your kids are always forgetting their lunches, your partner frequently misses appointments, and you feel like you’re constantly running late, it’s time to get organised. Stop accepting lateness and disorganisation as though it can’t change. What you need is a family wall planner, and we’re here to help you make it work for you and your family. 

We have put together a complete guide to making the most of your family wall planner. If you’re ready to organise your family life, read on.

How to Make The Most of Your Family Wall Planner

Choosing The Right Planner

The first step to making the most of your family wall planner is to choose the right one for your family. What is it that your family is struggling to stay on top of? Whether it’s keeping track of chores or remembering appointments and birthdays, different layouts of family planners will help you organise different areas of family life.

Weekly/Monthly/Annual Planners

Whether you need a weekly, monthly, or annual wall planner will depend on what you’re using it for. To keep track of birthdays and one-off appointments that are scheduled well in advance, anAnnual Planner will likely work best.Monthly Planners are particularly good at keeping track of busy schedules and events that change from week to week. If your family struggles to remember day-to-day chores and tasks such as lunches and homework, aWeekly Planner is the way to go.

Specific Planners

There are also family wall planners that exist for specific reasons that could be perfect for your family. One example of this is the Command Centre which has boxes for 4 family members, a week layout and a monthly layout as well as room for your Menu and Notes. If dinner is always left to the last minute, aMenu Planner could be the perfect way to plan out the week or assign a cooking roster.

Personalised Planners

Can’t find a planner that suits your exact needs? APersonalised Wall Planner allows you to customise your family wall planner, by adding names or for specific members of the family, meal plan, schedule a chore roster, or anything else you need. Go one step further and choose aBlank Planner to fill in your own custom design.

Find Your Organisation Method

Once you have found the right planner layout for you, the next step is to find the organisation method that works for you. An organisation system will allow you to assign chores, appointments, and events to different family members, and let you fit more on the board. Every family’s organisation method will be different. Here are a couple of universal methods to get you started.

Colour Coding

The first method, (which is also the most fun part of using a family wall planner, in our opinion!) is colour coding your planner. You can assign different colours to different members of the family so that you know exactly which chore or event is for which person. Using loud, bold colours such as those in our5 Pack will also make the board more exciting and eye-catching, which in turn will make your kids more likely to pay attention to it.

Develop a Key

Another organisation method is to use a key. This is a series of symbols that represent something you would frequently see on your planner. Using a key saves space and is particularly useful to mark whether something is an event, appointment, or chore. It can also symbolise when an event has been cancelled or rescheduled, a chore has been started or completed, or if there is anything particularly important on the board that you want all members of the family to take note of.

Placement

The third step to making the most of your family wall planner is to be mindful of where you put it. You ideally want your wall planner to be front and centre so that everybody in the family can see it and are constantly reminded of it. A great place is usually the kitchen or the living room, where your kids will frequently walk by it and notice any changes.

Plan Ahead

The last step to successfully using your wall planner is to actually use it! That means planning ahead and putting aside the time to fill it out every week, month, or year. This step is by far the most important. By setting aside some time at the beginning of every week to check over the planner and make sure nothing is missing or creeping up on you, you will be allowing it to do its job and organise you and your family life.

For more ways to use your family wall planner, make sure you check out ourBlog.