family meeting - original articles published by The Civilized Engineer

http://www.thecivilizedengineer.com/2016/01/family-meeting-agenda-details.html?m=1

http://www.thecivilizedengineer.com/2016/01/family-meeting-hardware.html?m=1

http://www.thecivilizedengineer.com/2016/02/what-heck-is-zone-anyway.html?m=1

Family Meeting Agenda Details

I posted recently about the how critical our family meeting is to the smooth (er) operation of our family and home. Just in case I convinced anyone to start this powerful habit, I thought I'd share a little more of the nuts and bolts of how we run our family meetings. First, a simplified version of our weekly agenda:

For people less prone to using an agenda than me (possibly every one?), let me try to make an argument for it. The idea behind any list I make is to get the information out of my head and in to a safe and reliable place where I can access it later. An agenda ensures that every thing is addressed without needing to spend half of my mental energy trying to remember what comes next. But an agenda should be a tool, not a mandate. Our agenda almost always has things crossed out or added until the next time I revise and print it.

Discussion Topics

For a long time, this was the last item on our agenda, but ultimately we decided that addressing any outstanding issues first made it much easier to focus on the other items. This is the time of the meeting when we talk about the things that came up during the week. Sometimes it's an argument that we agreed to table until the meeting, a hurtful comment one of us needed to share, an idea for a family project or vacation or anything else we didn't want to forget about but didn't have time to discuss throughout the week.  

Goal Check in

Every year we sit down as a family and set goals. This is when we sit down and check in on how they are going. For example this is when I update which books I finished that week or how many miles I ran. It provides weekly accountability. Sometimes it also means reevaluating those goals. If week after week we fail to make progress on our goals, we take that as a sign that we need to change something. Does that person need more resources or time? Has that interest changed? We also add relevant goal related tasks to our to do list. I love having this early in the meeting because those are the first things on my to do list each week.

Discuss Last week

When we open our calendars, we usually take a minute to look over the last week just in case there was anything else we needed to discuss that didn't come up during our discussions.

Calendar & Schedule update

This is the majority of our meeting. We compare work schedules, double check childcare arrangements, transportation, etc. To make sure we don't miss anything we have a sub list that we review every week.

Work Schedule

In our family work schedules change from week to week, so this is when we talk about when we are working and make any necessary changes.

Activities 

This is when we discuss classes, appointments, parties, etc. It's also when we add any related items to our task lists.

Athletic/Workouts

Because one of our family goals is to be more active, we started planning our runs, workouts, and family bike rides at the beginning of the week.

Special Events

Vacations, visitors or other things going on.

Chores/this week’s tasks

Any major cleaning or maintenance tasks that need to get done this week get added to the schedule

Group responsibilities

We participate in a variety of community and hobby organizations. This is when we review each, from book club to church, to volunteering.

Kids Activities

I'm always amazed at how such small people have such busy schedules!

Menu Planning & Grocery List

When we had more time and less to discuss, we used to make our menu for the week as a family. Now we take turns, but we still take a minute to discuss it and make any last minute changes.

Chores

Each week we try to focus on getting one area of the house clean, this is when we assign chores for that area or anything else that needs done.

To Do lists

Unfortunately, we rarely fully complete our to do lists. In order to support each other, we share what we didn't get done and offer help when we can.

Budget

We do our budget yearly, so this is just a check in to make sure everything is going as expected. We also discuss any major bills or expenses coming up.

Projects

We have a list of projects, both personal, professional, and as a family. We keep a full list in our family binder, but the few active projects are discussed at the end of the meeting and we make sure we know the next steps for each. Examples of projects are "Remodeling Master Bedroom" "Prepare Taxes" "Find a Preschool" etc.  

Treats

Especially if involving children, I think it's great to end with a treat. We used to have brownies, but since we made our recent dietary changes, Brownies are out! I'm still on the lookout for a a great end of meeting treat!

Family Meeting Hardware

There are a few core pieces of accessories that support my family meeting. I thought it'd be useful to detail what they are and how we use each.

1. Notebook

We've cycled through lots of different notebooks and tasks lists, the general idea is a place for each family member to keep their to do list for the week. Mine, unsurprisngly, is much more invovled and complicated. It also changes every few years. For a while, I kept my lists electronically. Currently I'm using an ARC notebook from staples. I love that I can rearrange the pages. Each week I start a fresh list. My hsuband prefers a simple spiral notebook. It doesn't matter what kind of system you use, but sticking with one will be incredibly helpful. For example, make either your electronic or paper list your 'master' list. In my experience trying to maintain both is a recipe for things getting left off or falling through the cracks. 

2. Clipboard

Our clipboard serves as our 'family' lists for the week. For a while, we kept both of our tasks lists on it as well, but ultimately the personal notebook system worked better, not least of all because we found that each person making their own list, even if we agreed on what should be on it, made it much more likely things would be completed that week. Now, our clipboard maintains lists we all need access to for the week; for example a list of errands, shopping list, discussion lists for the next meeting, a list of current 'projects' and misc notes. As much as I love forms (I really love forms) creating a form for this sheet has always been unsuccessful. For us, this sheets needs to be incredibly flexible each week. Still, because I'm to embarrased to share our actual clipboard sheet, I made a quick sketch up of how we currently use it.

In case you are skim reading, I don't actually use this sheet. I use a blank piece of colored paper that approximates this. I switched to colored paper to make it easier to find the sheet if it happens to get shuffled into a pile of paper. I keep it on a clipboard to prevent it from getting lost and to make it easier to make notes on it. I've tried hanging in, but it was too hard to write.

I'll breifly cover the categoties:

1. Notes

This is where we make random notes from phone calls or anything else. If it has no further action, we strike it out. I also tend to use the back of the sheet for this purpose.

2. Discuss List

This is the area where we write things we need to discuss at the next meeting. It might be an argument we postponed, something from our to do list we need to verify, or a funny story we don't want to forget to share. If we have time to talk about it during the week, we strike it out, but if it's in this section, we can be confident we won't forget about it.

3. Projects

We try to keep our number of 'active' family projects to 5 or less. This is where we list them so we know what we are working on as a family.

4. Zone

This is where we write the house zone for the week. We have our house divided into 6 zones. We keep a separate list of the activities for each zone. Organizing our chores like this has made it much easier to get to annoying tasks like cleaning the inside of the dishwasher, scrubbing the trash cans or doing the shredding.  

5. Errands & 6. Shopping Lists

These categories are pretty self explanatory. 

3. Family Binder

My family binder houses everything we need for our meeting and other things we might need to reference. I'm a big fan of electronic files, but I still find it useful to keep these things accessible. I often think of how beautiful someone with more of a design vew could make their binder, but mine primarily reflects my preference for functionality.

1. Calendars

In this section I keep a sheet with every birthday, anniversary, and holiday that we celebrate in our family or for which we send cards and gifts. We also keep any hard copy calendars we have (dance studio, preschool, work holidays, etc). Even though I put all of that information in my google calendars, I still keep the hard copies here.

2. Goals

Each year when we set our goals, we determine the frequency we will check in with them. I make a one page (front and back) sheet for each member of our family and we check off what we accomplished each week at the family meeting.

3. To Do lists/Projects

This is where we keep a list of all of the projects we'd like to eventually complete as a family. This includes home improvement, future vacations and service projects. When we complete a project, we look here and decide what we want to tackle next. 

4.Budget

I maintain our budget electronically, but each year I put a hard copy of our budget and goals in this category for us to reference if necessary. It also has a list of major bills and due dates (particularly things like insurance, property tax, etc)

5.Wish Lists/shopping lists.

Each member of our family has a wish list. We add things we want to purchase. We also keep a list of things we might want but we are still thinking about. This has helped us be much more intentional with our purchases.  

6. Chores/Zone tasks

In this section I keep a list of the responsibilities for each house 'zone'. I'll post more on this soon.

7. Contacts.

I printed out a copy of our Christmas Card list and stuck it in. If I get a change of address during the year, I update the list and it's available for anyone to reference if they have something that needs mailed. 

8. Miscellaneous 

This section has packing lists, babysitter emergency information and other hard to categorize information that we need frequently enough to justify it being in our binder.

I hope this information has been useful and I'd love your feedback or tips on how you keep your family running smoothly!

What the heck is a zone anyway?

Thank you for the positive feedback on my family meeting posts! I love hearing that people are considering implementing this habit and I'd love to hear how it works for you and your family!

The most frequent feedback I got on my worksheets was "What is a zone??"

Hmm, people aren't familiar with the weird jargon we use in our family meetings? Noted.

I have a very strong dislike for cleaning. I'm not that good at it, and it doesn't come naturally to me what needs done when. So, like the scheduling freak that I am, I made a type of schedule.

This list is very specific for our house. So unless you have the exact same house, pets, and concerns as me, it will need some modification, but maybe it could serve as a launch point. Personally, I think everything would be just a little bit better if we could somehow get it down to 5 zones. By the 6th week, it's usually extremely obvious what zone is next. One whiff of the dogs breathe and I'll know she's up next week.

That probably leads sane people to wonder why I need a list. If I can tell the dogs breathe is bad, why can't I just brush her teeth? I don't have an answer to that. All I know is that before I had this system, I lived in a constant state of feeling behind and stressed out. Everything seemed messy and out of control. Now, instead of worrying if everything is perfect, I can relax and know that everything has a time to be dealt with, eventually anyway.

Some tasks simply can't wait 6 weeks. That's what the purple box in the bottom right quadrant is for. Every Sunday there is a list of tasks that we've decided need done weekly. Toilets, laundry, etc. We've recently adjusted how we handle those tasks, actually, but for a long time this system worked very well for us.

So, that's what a zone is.