Creating a weekly family schedule

My husband and I both work full-time and we have two elementary-age kids. This means that our life can get pretty busy sometimes, what with everyone's activities, obligations, doctor appointments, etc.

Several months ago, my husband wished for a way to organize our chaotic schedules, to have a big-picture idea of what was coming instead of just being unpleasantly surprised by his phone alerting him that David has a basketball game across town in 15 minutes. Synced smart-phone calendars help, but they don't do a very good job of giving all four of us a picture of what our week will look like.

In the past, we'd also had laminated chore charts on the fridge so we could check off everyday chores. He wanted to bring those back, too, so I took it up as a design challenge to save fridge space and combine the two: weekly calendar and daily chore chart. After all, I'm a graphic designer turned UX specialist. This sort of thing ought to be right in my wheelhouse!

After several iterations, here is what I came up with. This is an example of a weekly schedule from a few months ago.

Here are some of the notable features of this design:

• Only 4 activities fit on each day, a reminder that it's just not realistic to try and do too much in one day.
• The schedule begins on Monday, because that's how we think of our weeks: five days of school/work followed by two days of weekend. Also, some events go across the whole weekend and having Saturday and Sunday next to each other makes it easier to show that.
• The chores can be changed each week when I print out the new schedule. For example, this week I added making & delivering a cake to the chores. 
• Originally, I had initials next to each chore showing who was supposed to do what. I ended up getting rid of those because everyone already knows which chores are theirs.
• We can use this schedule to plan meals for the week, seeing ahead of time which days we'll have a lot of time for cooking and which days will be 'Leftovers a la Microwave.' If I were a terribly organized sort of person, I might even add the menu to the schedule (but I'm not, so I won't).
• Even the youngest member of the family can easily see which days are busy and which are not, especially useful if you want to know when you can invite a friend to come over.

I'm still working on the design of the weekly schedule, refining features based on user feedback. For example, I'm experimenting with the best way to display multi-day events like the camping trip shown here (especially tricky since this has to work in print, not just on the screen).

I'd love to hear any feedback you have on this design, especially any ideas for improving it!

2014 New Year's Resolutions

I'm not going to bother linking to last year's New Year's resolution post, because I didn't keep a single one of them. On to bigger and better things!

Resolution #1: Lose 15 pounds

One weird tip...

I've looked at several size charts online today to make sure I have these numbers right: my waist is a size 14-16 and my hips are a size 6-8. This means that there is not a pair of pants outside the maternity department that fits me properly. I am tired of pants that fall down unless I wear a belt tight enough to cut off my circulation. I am tired of showing my butt to the world every time I bend over or squat down. I even bought a pair of high-waisted "mom jeans," hoping this would solve my problem. They also sag unless I cinch them mercilessly with a belt.

Back when I weighed 15 lbs. less, I didn't have this problem. So I'm hoping that if I lose the weight, I will also solve my pants problem. In the meantime, I'm going to wear more dresses and skirts.

Resolution #2: Do something creative for 20 minutes each day

If music be the food of love, play on, for at least
it is calorie-free.

I got the idea for this resolution from this post on copyblogger: The New Year's Writing Resolution You Can Actually Keep. The author recommends resolving to spend 20 minutes each day in January writing. The idea is that after a month, this will develop into a habit. And if you can't commit to 20 minutes, try 10. And if that's too much, try writing just one sentence every day.

Because I'm such an INTP, I couldn't limit myself to writing, so I'm going to spend 20 minutes each day either writing, playing the mandolin, or making art. And I'm counting this blog post as today's 20 minutes, since it took me longer than that and involved both writing and photography.

I thought about committing to completing a specific ouvre, but since I failed utterly at resolutions like that last year, I'm just going to work on whatever inspires me at the moment.

Resolution #3: Clean out the living room

This week on Hoarders...

A few years ago, we refinished the floors in the office and family room, so everything in those two rooms got moved into the living room. Then, before we managed to put everything back, we had to do some major kitchen repairs, so everything from the kitchen and hall closets went in there, too. This is in addition to all the stuff that's actually supposed to be in the living room.

We've finally been able to start moving things back into the kitchen, but it's been slow going, since the cabinets and drawers aren't finished yet. A lot of this junk is exactly that: junk. It needs to leave the house by the back door, go directly to the dumpster or the Salvation Army, and never be seen again. The pile is so large, though, that I've been putting off dealing with it. No more!

In my fantasy, the living room will become a reading and music room. My boys will learn to play the piano and I will sit at the secretary and keep up with my correspondence. This room will also be a beautifully decorated cabinet of curiosities where I can entertain my friends. We will sit in the
vintage chairs and hold jam sessions while sipping cocktails. But this dream will never become a reality if I can't get rid of things like that stack of 20 empty yogurt tubs I thought I might need someday.

If I can accomplish even one of these resolutions, I'll be doing better than last year. Here's to progress!

The Books I Can't Part With

The site Lovely Listing features a bookcase of the day, and today's is titled "Limited Selection."

The site asked, "If you could only choose a couple dozen books to keep, what would be at the top of your list?"

Faced with having to pare down my large collection, my first inclination is to keep the books that mean the most to me. That is, the physical books which hold some special meaning and can't, for me, be replaced by an ebook or a library copy.

• My 3 old Bibles
• My 1975 copy of Sybil
• King's Highway, the book I did the cover art for
• Hind's Feet on High Places

The next group of books I'd keep would be the ones that need the printed page and just don't work as well electronically.

• Art books filled with prints and etchings
• How-to books with lots of pictures and diagrams

Finally, I'd have to keep all the rare and out-of-print books.

• Old science fiction anthologies
• Books from my and my husband's childhood (Never Steal a Magic Cat, McBroom Tells a Lie, The Pop-Up Book of Star Wars)
• And probably many more

It's a good thing I do have more space than the little bookshelf in the picture, because I don't think everything I'd want to keep would fit there. But making this list has helped me think of a lot of books I can easily get rid of.

And by "get rid of" I mean "take to the used book store," where I can turn them in toward credit on more books!

Interior Decorating with Endangered Species

My friend Jordana posted a link to this article: 9 Furniture Staples Going Extinct
Here's Yahoo's list of furniture on its way out:

1. Clocks
2. Coffee tables
3. Folding lawn chairs
4. China cabinets
5. Waterbeds
6. Bookcases
7. Futons
8. Roll-top desks
9. CD racks

I'm not going to argue with some of these, but I do have to wonder where the author of this list is shopping that she has trouble finding folding lawn chairs. Walgreens, Wal-Mart, half the roadside souvenir shops along Highway 19 near Myrtle Beach - they're definitely out there. I would also like to point out that the "modern" alternative to the futon she touts is nearly identical to my parents' Danish Modern sleeper sofa from the 70's.

Anyway, this list got me thinking about how much "extinct" furniture I have in my house. We mainly decorate our home based on practicality and price, so we do have a lot of stuff passed down from relatives or picked up at bargain sales and antique malls (did you know, solid wood antiques can be cheaper than brand new composite furniture?).

From the list above, I have clocks (even a cuckoo clock!), coffee tables, folding lawn chairs, a china cabinet, and bookcases. We also have the following dinosaurs which were probably too obscure to make the list:

Drafting Table: Has CAD rendered this obsolete?

Secretary: Nobody has time for hand-written notes anymore

Music Stand: Sheet music for acoustic instruments? How quaint.

I know this doesn't look like your typical music stand. It's a very old-fashioned one that used to belong to my husband's great-aunt. The slots are for holding sheet music and music books, and you can also put music on top to play it. Right now, it's holding my messy piles of sheet music and my husband's LP collection.

What other pieces of furniture ought to be on this list? Do you have any endangered furniture species in your home? Leave a comment and let me know!