Tips & Tricks Tuesday: Heading back to school with Remember The Milk

Sending the kids back to school is a busy time: set schedule, lots of tasks, lots to juggle.

This week’s tip, shared by robyn.sukenik, covers so many of the direct and indirect things you may need to think about at this time of year. Take heed, plan ahead, and yes: get that celebratory coffee! 😊☕️

For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere with kids, it’s deep in summer vacation - and halfway to school starting again. Wherever in the world you are, if you have kids, you know that the week before school every parent of a child and possibly some people with just pets will be waiting in line for school supplies. And the backpacks selection will be down to the bare bones. And there will be so many emails and WhatsApps from the kids schools that you will want to bang your head against the wall until it hurts less than from the pain than from thinking about it all.

So…

If you don’t already have one, I want to suggest a “School and Activities List”. In it goes:

School Supplies

Some of us need to buy every last book, some of us need to just buy pencils, most of us need something in between. Make supply to-do lists for each of your kids and add what they need to subtasks.

If you don’t already have a ready list of what they need, email the school now to ask. If there’s no school list, approximate based on last year. If this is your first year, ask your most organized parent friend what they suggest and base your list on that until you get something solid.

Do you need uniforms/pseudo-uniforms/gym uniforms/stuff with the school name embossed? Stick that here with an additional shopping tag.

Add things as they come up/get announced. Cross them off as you pick them up. Make the ones you’ll need to recheck during the year recurring. Group or tag them according to where you want to shop for them (#Walkbooks, #Onlineorder, #SportsSence, etc).

Tuition/Yearly Payments

I put big payments under my finance category, but the things my kids need to show up with in an envelope or need to be walked into the office I put under this list. For me that includes yearly lunch payments, field trip payments, class parent gift funds - things like that.

Forms

There are permission slips for field trips and health statement forms and permission for photos forms and permission to ask for permission forms… I may have made the last part up. Stick a form task up and add the names of the forms as they come along with when they have to go back to school.

Birthday Celebrations

Most schools up until a certain age have in-class birthday somethings - my schools tell us all about what we will need to do at opening meetings - and then I have to remember all of that when my kids actually have birthdays in May and June. Stick a task down already now to be in touch with the teacher a month ahead, and add the notes on what’s going to be needed at the meeting.

After-school Activities

Whether you already know what you’re registering for, or if you’re looking to try things out, add them here.

Check in with your kids’ coaches/teachers/etc about when they’re looking to start and when registration begins if you already know what your child is doing.

Put your research notes on when to check out what/where here if you don’t know yet what you’re looking for. If your local place has basketball and art opening/walk in days, write them down here.

Daycamp/Camp

Yeah, I know. We’re already in the middle of that right now and are hopefully all set - but I stick it here under activities with a due date of April/May with notes on what camps I already know I want to look at next year (and what really didn’t work if I want to remind myself in a note). We’ll be there again before we know it.

Other things throughout the year

In no particular order:

• Setting meetings with teachers or staff
• Gifts for teachers (end of the year/holiday)
• Gifts for in school holidays/birthdays/gift trades
• Checking pencil case/school supplies periodically with kids
• Permission forms that pop up throughout the year
• Whatever PTA or committee stuff you might find yourself in

Last task suggestion

Make a task to remind yourself to go out one morning the first week the kids are back in school to celebrate (small celebration, think coffee - or as big as you want to go) with your spouse or partner or friend or monkey. (Optional, but highly suggested!)

Lots of luck to us all :).

Thanks for sharing this tip, robyn.sukenik! You’re our Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner this week.

Do you have a suggestion for our weekly Tips & Tricks post? Got an interesting set-up or idea? Head over to the Tips & Tricks forum, add a new topic, and let us know how you use Remember The Milk. Each week we’ll give away a 1 year Pro account to the user whose idea inspires the Tips & Tricks Tuesday blog post for that week.