Practical Holiday Planner

In my article "Summer Holidays" I outlined some of the things we do in our holidays for little cost but to prevent boredom. 

The purpose of this article is to help you keep a track of things you may choose to do.

My appointments diary is not big enough to allow for more than one entry per day really - and in the summer holidays we often have something planned for every morning, afternoon and occasionally the evenings as well.  Well, that is not strictly true, but some days it is, even if it is just visiting a friend and not partaking in an activity some place. 

As a result I have sorted out a basic alternative that keeps me organised and is convenient to carry in my bag with out sunscreen, bottles of water and other absolute essentials. 

How to make it:

I take a few sheets of A4 paper and fold them in half - each half page is ruled up into 7 days with three sections allowed for each day (basically a table of squares 4X8).  If this is too big then by all means make it smaller, this is for your personal convenience after all.  (See planner pic #1)

• In the first column put the days of the week.
• Across the top row label them morning/afternoon/evening respectively.

Fill them in as things are booked or suggested. 

Be sure to include 

• times from and to,
• the location,
• if the activity needs parental supervision (some require parents only if child is under 12),
• what the activity costs if not already paid in advance.
• (See planner pic #2)

Advantages:

• Saves you double booking anything.
• Keeps everything handy for reference each day - or for future times. 
• Makes you look extraordinarily organised and aware of what is going on (unlike many other parents who are trying to decipher the tiny scrawl in their usual diaries)

Modifications:

• If you have several children it may help to have the sections divided further still or colour coded per child
• Add in an area for phone numbers to contact (I keep any original paperwork with mine as well until I no longer need it, just to verify that nothing has been missed in the copying over)
• Put all relevant phone numbers in address book/ back of your diary/ wherever you usually keep important numbers (this way they are ready for next time!)
• Include an area for activities that will fill in a few spare moments.  We have certain meals that E would like to cook and knitting in this category as well as a couple of local places that we want to visit if we get a day with nothing filled into it.

See planner pic #3 for the final page that I am using for this week.  You will see that I have used a thicker pen to make it clearer in the picture.  I hope that for those of you who end up doing various things and going different places will find this useful in helping to stay organised and up-to-date with what is happening each day.

Happy planning!

Peace
EF.x