Time Management Tip for Families

This is not just another time Management tip for families. Here we give you time management tips so that you can spend more quality time with your family.

7 tips to get more time with your family

1. TIP 1 - Construct family goals and priorities together. This allows the family to work as a team towards solutions.



2. TIP 2 - Schedule your prioritized tasks. Try to make this fun and rewarding.



3. TIP 3 - Know how you spend your time as a family and individually. If you don’t know where your time goes, then how are you going to know what to work on.



4. TIP 4 – Reduce TV time. The average household watches TV more than 4 hours a day – this can be a big timewaster.



5. TIP 5 – Use family calendars. These are free and easy to use. I particularly like the online free family calendars



6. TIP 6 – Delegate tasks or Get hired help. Are you doing all the chores. Here are some steps to effective delegation. Is it economical for you to get help from outside.



7. TIP 7 – Harness the power of technology. Use the Internet to save you time.

Time Management Tip 1 - Construct family goals and prioritize together.

When setting goals as a family, it important to get together. However, before this family meeting it is important that the parents make some objective decisions about family priorities. This can be based on the family values that you are instilling, the finances and commitment levels of the other family members.

Some questions to ask yourself are Do you concentrate more on school? Will the demands of school change? What about your job? Do you want to have alot of free time or fill up you time with many activities? What are the needs of the different family members? It is always a good idea to have time to be filled by reading, quite personal time and spending time with friends.

When you have determined the overall priorities of the family, now it is time to have a meeting with other family members to discuss their goals and priorities.

Sometimes other family members will have a hard time in figuring out what is important to them. If this is the case, simply get them to rank which one is more important to them. See our activities to rank goals. Then allow the family members to share their priorities and why they chose them.

When setting goals, try to have a goal setting plan.

Time Management Tip 2 – Schedule your priorities

Once you have written your goals and know the tasks that you need to do to move towards your goals, create a schedule of how you are going to achieve it.

For example, you may have a goal to spend more quality time with your family. One task for this would be to spend more time helping the children with their homework, or taking your partner out for dinner.

Make sure that you schedule these high priority tasks, so that they don't get crowded out by less important and more urgent tasks. If you want to explain this concept to children, you can get a large glass/plastic container, some rocks and sand, and explain with this concrete example.

The typical thing about a family is that there is no typical day. Kids get sick and need to picked up from school, or soccer games get washed out. So make sure that you have a flexible schedule. Remember that you are not a slave to your schedule, but rather the schedule is there to guide and serve you.

Time Management Tip 3 - Know how you spend your time.

Heres another time management tip. If you are pressured by time and you want to know how to get more time to spend with your family, then you need to know how you are spending your time.

It is a little like making a household budget. How can you make a budget of future expenditure and savings if you don't know what your current spending habits are?

There are many advantages to tracking your time, but you only get from it what you put in. Track your time for three days and then examine how you spend your time. Write down your TV watching, telephone calls - anything that takes your time.

Download your free log here. On this page there are clear instructions and ways to analyze your time log. I think that this is one of the most important steps to take in becoming more effective.

Time Management Tip 4 - Reduce TV Time

TV is generally a big timewaster for most families. Any time management tip has to involve using the TV more effectively.

Put limits on the TV viewing each day. However, this is easier said than done, but instigating routines can help here.

If you really must watch that show, then consider using technology. Technology can reduce your TV watching by 30% without missing out on the program. It is really quite simple - record the show and watch it without ads.

However, this does another more important thing - you watch the TV on your time, not when the show is on. So this means that TV does not interrupt important family time.

Time Management Tip 5 - Use Free Family Calendars

Here are a couple of calendar options to avoid double-booking appointments or outings and avoid missing important dates.

Use a monthly calendar. Put each persons schedule up for the coming month. The calendar should include children’s school hours, your work commitments, family time, meal times, homework and other activities such as sport and sleep. An important time management tip is to include non-scheduled time so that you can allow a buffer for travel time, preparation and the many things that are likely to pop up throughout the day.

This should be a fun thing to do for you and the family - the more fun and rewarding the more likely both you and the children will stick to the schedule.

I personally like using an online calendar. One of the great benefits of using an online family calendar is that you can check your family's schedule from any computer that has an Internet connection - and let's face it, most of us are on a computer countless times each day. So if you're not sure whether you can accept an invitation for yourself or your family, all you need to do is access your online family calendar to check availability for you or your family. That means you'll avoid double-booking appointments or outings and avoid missing important dates. Of course, you can always print it out when you feel you need to have a copy with you.

I like this free online calendar.

Time Management Tip 6 - Delegate tasks within your family or Get Hired Help

Are you doing all the housework while others sit around. If you are then you are probably not delegating enough.

Delegation is one of the most talked about but least used time management tip. The experts emphasize that if you want to become more effective then learn to delegate well. However there are other benefits to delegate - if done well then delegation can be a way for children and other members of the family to learn and help out. Follow these simple steps for effective delegation.

At the same time you shouild consider delegating to people outside of your family. Lets look at it economically. How much do you earn an hour? Is it $20 an hour? $50 an hour? How much is 2 hours of cleaning really costing you?

Getting hire help can free up your time to do more important things.

Time Management Tip 7 – Use the Internet to save time

People and families are pushed for time. Many companies have made use of the Internet to satisfy people’s time demands. Let’s use an example that all families partake in – grocery shopping.

Grocery shopping can take a couple of hours a week out of family time. However, shopping for groceries on the Internet at any time of the day means that you can save time. You can save money also. Price comparison can be done efficiently and you can resist impulsive shopping.