Hi N.!
First, I have to admit, I grew up in a very scheduled home...to the minute! This is why I think I had no desire to “schedule” home life. It catches up with you though, believe me...so, what works for us is a dry erase board on my kitchen wall. Not the prettiest wall hanging, but who cares… ;)
There are 4 of us in the house, myself, husband, 12 year old daughter and 6 year old son. We each have our own color of marker for our "events" I am red, hubby black, daughter green, son blue, we draw a monthly calendar and leave 4 big blocks in our specific color marker at the top of our board for our " daily stuff" on the day by day blocks on the calendar we write things down in our specific marker color things such as… appt. 10 am, off from school, early school day, track, etc.
I am a realtor so my blocks will say for example… buyer appt. seller appt. settlement etc. so they will know if I am avail. or not and where I am.
It is an "in your face" so to speak daily reminder of who is where and doing what. The kids have simple things in the big blocks like set table 4:30 empty table, dishwasher, homework 6pm, take shower 8pm, bring down dirty laundry, blah blah blah which is an every night thing.
Sooo...Big blocks up top for everyday routine, calendar blocks for not so normal things and it all fits...we run smoothly again.
When the kids were small, we had a very relaxed schedule, based around the kids; they napped great, ate great and slept all night. Once they had "lives" of their own...the dry erase board was a blessing...the kids will do variations of their big block schedule too as long as they know bed time is at 9pm, day over...they can do their ancillary items whenever that day. Say it's a nice day and they want to ride bikes before and after dinner...that's ok but they still have to squeeze in homework etc. so maybe they give up some TV time that night. They love it because they never "forget" what they need to do and they teach themselves some discipline as well. We no longer have “forgotten” homework, and I do not get the 7am "Oh, Mom, did you bake those cupcakes for school today?" questions anymore...lol!
I hope this makes sense and you cannot tell that I have not had my coffee yet today…maybe I should write it down in my big block ;)