Fall equals chaos and full schedules

Can you believe that fall is here? I love fall, especially watching the trees turn all shades of wonderful colors. Fall brings so many memories every year from jumping in leaf piles, pumpkin and apple picking, hay rides, bonfires and watching the local football teams.  My family starts to plan out our DIY Halloween projects we will tackle this season too!  Take a minute to enjoy the beautiful leaf colors!
 
However, fall can be a frantic time. The kids have gone back to school, the juggling of the new schedules from homework to after school activities all with Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas rapidly approaching. Fall also brings a range of home chores – from draining sprinkler systems to putting away patio furniture to leaf clean-up. Fall is also a great time to get your trees checked before the harsher weather arrives and get big jobs like window washing completed.
 
A busy fall means that time management must be your best friend this season. Here are my top tips to help ensure you take time to notice all the wonderful things that this season has to offer:
 

1. Keep a family calendar in one central location. Track everyone’s activities on the calendar. Go over it every day with the kids.
2. Make a list of all the tasks and complete the most important ones first.
3. Don’t focus on how many tasks are on your list – just focus on the most important and most urgent tasks first. Covey’s time management grid is an excellent tool to help with this
4. Devote your time to just the task that you are working on. Multi-tasking does not work
5. Don’t allow unimportant details to drag you down – it’s all about fit for purpose rather than perfectionism
6. Procrastination costs time. Complete your least favourite task first and just get it out the way
7. Divide up chores so that everyone is helping
8. Create Organizing Systems, Being organized saves times. Create a filing system for documents. Make sure all items have a place to be stored. Unsubscribe from email lists if you don’t want to receive their content. Streamline, streamline, streamline.
9. Create systems for toys, clothes, closets and books. Show and teach kids there is a home for everything.
10. Make school prep easier by helping your kids prepare the night before by picking out clothes for the next day, packing school or/and sports bag and packing lunch and snacks.
11. Set up a homework station and establish a homework routine so that you don’t waste time chasing them to complete
12. Learn to say no to extras and things that are a distraction.
13. Keep healthy. Getting rest, eating healthy and getting exercise will help you focus more and increase your productivity
14. Allow yourself me time and don’t beat yourself up if something doesn’t get done when hoped
15. Enjoy! The fall is a wonderful season and you don’t want to miss it from being stressed out!