I kicked around the idea of how best to organize my own home for years. As we had more kids, more schedules, more appointments, more goals- I quickly rotated through planners and calendars that promised to solve this problem once and for all.. Only to wind up half used before my life didn’t fit the format of the planner. I’ve used productivity planners, parent planners, motivation planners, so many that I took a stack of discarded planners out of the basement and used them as research for what would work best and what didn’t work when I designed a system for myself. As I moved through graduate school, work, and starting a family, how I use a planner has evolved, but I have never found an online platform that could replicate a paper system.
I know I am not alone in this. A Moen survey found that only 8% of respondents regularly use an app to help with home management. Apps are a great tool for specific tasks, but lack in versatility for many interconnected aspects of home management. The pings and popup reminders, along with emails, texts and voicemails have us constantly glued to our phones. The notion of multitasking to improve productivity has long been dispelled in neuroscience. Time lost switching among tasks increases the overall complexity of the task and decreases productivity by 20-40% compared to individuals that focus on one task at a time (University of Michigan study). Going back to paper eliminates interruption and increases attention to the task at hand
This project did not start out as anything other than trying to organize my own home. Months and months of trialing and tweaking evolved into the four part Dovetail planning system. So why jump in and get the whole package? Well, because it works. Think of the many pinch points when it comes to running a household (no matter the number of kids, if any)- appointments, meals, goals, and to do lists are universal management areas. Working through my own experience I found that having these four pieces in place has made our home more efficient and as less chaotic as life with four small kids can get.
How many times a week do you want to ask or answer the question “what’s for dinner?”.. Spoiler alert, my max is once. According to a Huffington post survey, 33% of respondents reported cooking healthy meals, and getting it on the table was a source of domestic stress. With Dovetail, instead of seven times a week, all the meals are planned in one session and written on the calendar for everyone to check. Then recipes are earmarked and the grocery list for the week is done. One session. Hallelujah.
The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) estimates Americans throw out $165 billion dollars worth of food each year, or about $2,200 per household. Another study, from 2018 estimated families throw out 20% of groceries purchased each year. The top suggestion for how to reduce waste? Make a list and stick to it, especially if you want to avoid impulse spending while shopping. In our house, the notebook sits out on the counter until the Sunday morning trip to the store, if it isn’t on the list it isn’t going in the cart.
The wall calendar is the central command for the house. The answers to who is supposed to be where and when are all kept there, which meals are up, and any special events for the week. If it sounds straightforward and simple, it’s designed to be that way. Stickers and 15 shades of pens are the in-app notification of the paper world. A solid framework to organize your days is truly all that is needed.
While the calendar has the days zeroed in, the planner has the 30,000 foot view. This is where the big picture planning is done, specifically the five year plan all the way down to weekly goals. A study by Gail Matthews at the Dominican University of California found that individuals that wrote down goals were 20% more likely to achieve them. They also found that individuals that broke goals into actionable steps with weekly progress reports achieved 40% more than those that did not take the same steps. Putting all the parts together- the recipe binder, grocery notebook, wall calendar, and planner will improve productivity, accountability and efficiency for these home management pinch points (it’ll also save you 15% with the whole package).
Yes, the individual components will add value to your home management plan. All four parts put together is a tried and true scheduling system for people that want a “one and done” approach to organizing the details of their day.