Self-isolated? Self-schedule.

With a professional organizer mom and a school administrator dad, it was only about 20 minutes from the school closure announcement to us having a full daily schedule for our no-school self-isolation period. We created this basic structure to give the kids some comfort, the parents some sanity and our days some general order.

Some notes on this schedule:

• we like eating

• we also like playing

• I like color-coding things like schedules

• we have a preschooler and a second grader, so we’re not heavy on the academics here.

All schools are dealing with closures differently. Some are having fully structured days online, whereas others are sending some weekly work home for the kids, where others are not offering anything. If you choose to set a schedule, do so according to what your school schedule permits.

For us, the most important thing is to have a schedule, any schedule at all. Our kids like structure (they’re the kids of a professional organizer). They helped tweak the schedule above, so it would more reflect their actual school day (Mrs. Hardenbergh - we know they do much more “school” time at school!).

The kids were so excited about the idea of having school at home, they immediately set up desks and a white board in the living room to prepare for Monday. And they have been eagerly asking every 12-14 minutes since Friday if it is Monday yet.

Things to keep in mind when setting your schedule:

• Start your scheduled day whenever makes sense for your family. Our day starts at an unnatural time (5AM!), but I didn’t set a schedule starting at that time, because we usually have those first three hours of the day free at home (hopefully this makes you feel better about whatever way your day starts).

• Include whatever activities work for you on your schedule. For example, we don’t have household chores on our schedule, but that will need to happen some time. We do have “morning meeting” to start our day, just to delineate that our official day is starting and to talk about what is coming ahead.

• You may follow this to the minute or just use it as a guideline, but whatever it is, you’ll have it there as template for your day.

• Continue to treat weekdays as weekdays and weekends as weekends. No need to use a schedule on the weekend (unless that feels fun to you).

• Get dressed every day! Be a good role model for your kids and let them know this isn’t vacation. It doesn’t have to be a serious time, but getting dressed is a good step to keeping things a little bit normal. (Note: I am not a total hypocrite. As you may notice one of my sons in the photo above is wearing full-on pj’s. That is his daily garb. It’s a fashion choice, not indifference).

Having some kind of schedule will make this time ahead better for everyone. You don’t need to type it or color code it but you certainly can make a whole art project out of it (add THAT to the schedule!). Get your kids involved. This is a fun way to kick off this time together. And more importantly, it gets the kids invested in how the time is spent. Exhibit A: my kids counting the minutes until “school” starts on Monday.

Any great scheduling tips? Please share them in the comments below.

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