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It is always the same routine and I keep starting from scratch. I am going on holidays with my family and need to do the packing. There are thousands of families doing the same, again and again. Do I have to write my packing list always starting from zero? No, I don’t.

Your online packing list

1. The packing list on the Internet which is most quoted is the  „Universal Packing List“. It has been around for a long time already and was used very often, so it should be tested. You can enter holiday duration, destination, type of people travelling, what you are planning to do there, temperature, etc.. What you get is a packing list according to these parameters you set. I like it a lot as a basis for my packing and then I add some additional (quite specific) stuff. Good basic tool as a starting point.
2. A little more up to date is the  Packinglistonline. It almost looks like a beta version of the  „Universal Packing List“. You can select parameters (same as UPL) and can print or e-mail it. The new feature here is that you can add specific individual things to your list online.
3. Something quite similar is the  independent traveler. You can save these interactive packing lists as excel, word or pdf, or email it. So you have it saved in your own place.

That’s it. Just give it a try, it is quite easy to use and you save some time before packing.

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Hyperparenting is a habit to over-worry and be tremendously concerned about your kid. Actually it also reflects the mistrust in the development of kids and their self-protection mechanism. Zenhabits describes some typical patterns of behavior of parents who continuously interfere in the development of their kids and cannot let it go.

It is obvious that hyperparenting hampers the natural personal development of kids. Montessori, to the contrary, tries to provide everything to help kids do their stuff themselves. Kids under hyperparenting are continuously monitored.

Another fact is that over-cautious parents never relax. They focus on the kids and what they are doing and spend a lot of unnecessary time with worrying and influencing.

So we should try to relax and find our own way on how to deal with our kids. A little reflection once in a while, maybe with a befriended other parent, will help. I think that I am also over-cautious in some regards. But thinking about it and trying to change it might be the first step in the right direction. Maybe this will also help me to free some capacity for more productive things.

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Two things in my life take away time I could easily use for something more productive. I like to do it, I just think that it could be done more efficiently. Before Christmas my family exchanges hand-written wish-lists. All the birthday parties my kids are invited to, challenge me on finding the right presents in time. I need to call up the mommies of the kids and ask for their wishes for their birthday presents. This takes time.

Afterwards I start looking and shopping for the right presents. I compare prices and delivery time or time I need to drive to a shop. In total I get one week for the task, maximum two weeks if I am lucky. This is not easy as it is not my sole achievement of the week, right?

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The solution: the electronic online wish-list to share

It sounds a little management-style instead of romantic wish-lists which are hand-written, but there are some striking advantages to it:

• You can add additional text for more thorough descriptions or embed links to online shops or even pictures (as a mother you very often know where to get the stuff your kid is longing for).
• As someone looking for a present to give to a birthday-kid, you can reserve an item to avoid that there are double presents.
• You can decide whether to see or not which items on the list are already reserved. So you can opt for a surprise or you can manage the list actively (e.g. as a mother).
• If your kid tells you about a wish during the year you can add it on the list and it never gets lost throughout the time.

I have also tried it: you could use the things I want (or any other electronic wish-list on the web). It works fine. I even managed to motivate my whole family to do it for Christmas this year. What an achievement!

How do you plan for Christmas and collect the wishes of your kids?

There is little to add. Maybe that I am using coffee-consumption and sugar reduction in my diet to help my energy levels to stay high.

Actually there are different phases in my life. Sometimes I am full of energy and need for action and then there are weeks when I am merely capable of coping with daily life and nothing else.

How about you? Got any additional suggestions on how to be full of energy?

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My Top 5 list of awfully time-consuming tasks

1. To do the weekly food shopping (supermarket, organic food shop, drug store, butcher …)
2. Laundry, laundry, laundry
3. Schedule appointments with doctors
4. Get rid of stuff we do not need any more (clothes, buggy … trying to sell them)
5. Think about birthday/Christmas presents and organize them

Some of these tasks I like taking care of but often they consummate too much of my time and then it would be nice getting some help on doing this.

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How about you? Any stuff you do not want to do and that takes too much time. Time, you could spend with your family, relaxing or earning money?

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More and more often my partner and I would like to send each other todos. Why? Because we would like to remind each other what we need to decide, to organize or to take care of together. Such todos can be quite simple, e.g. we need to call someone, arrange for somebody, or to book holidays. Maybe it sounds ridiculous, but we got phases when we work too much and then it helps to keep track of our family-stuff. There is also an application on the web to help you: Remember the milk.

My requirements for a family todo application on the web are:

1. I can access it via Internet or from my mobile.
2. I can get notifications and reminders by e-mail or on my mobile.
3. I can send todos to other family members (delegate!).
4. The application is simple, fast, and can be handled with shortcuts.
5. I can have my todos grouped by topics.
6. The service is for free as I don’t want to pay for it.

Is Remember the Milk the right one?

Remember the Milk (RTM) is for free. It helps you to organise your daily tasks and manage them. You can send them to other people and keep track of them. You can access from your mobile or in your iGoogle or directly at RTM’s homepage. There are also some additional features, such as access via Blackberry, Gmail (Firefox!) or iphone (this is not for free). You are a lot faster by using shortcuts and the notification system works smoothly.

Critics about Remember the Milk

I would like to synchronize my todos with outlook but unfortunately this is not possible (at the moment).

What others think

More about RTM can be found at George Donnelly, Dotconnectorblog or Freelanceswitch.

So, get started and register at www.rememberthemilk.com!

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Sometimes I wish for a private secretary.  In such moments I need to accomplish several private tasks at once, such as to research, organize or arrange for alignment of people. There could be topics to work on at the same time, such as organizing a children’s birthday party (including location selection, inviting, thinking about entertainment, doing shopping), finding a destination for a weekend trip including lunch reservation in the area, looking for the right course for my kids to take or looking for a new medical treatment or trying to identify a time slot to meet two families. All of this could be delegated to a talented, Internet-savvy student longing for some extra work and reward.

I have already mentioned the book 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris, which is primarily aiming at the job side of a working mum. However, we can also derive the use of virtual assistants or virtual personal assistants (VPA) for personal agenda points. Activities which are time consuming, simple, which can be clearly defined and could be done independently can easily be delegated to a virtual assistant.

How does it work?

Collect several offers for a tasks including clear specifications (i.e. description of the activity, of the desired outputs, the form in which you need the results, definition of the quantity of outputs and limitation of time to be used for the job, as well as the deadline). Look for the provider you like most and start delegating. After a while you will find out which provider fits you well and is reliable enough.

Where can you find such a service?

You can find information on many suppliers for virtual private assistance on the blog 4-hour work week.

What’s the price tag?

Prices start at 5 USD and can go up to 20 USD for very skilled VPAs.

I will give it a try.

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Managing appointments for all family members is sometimes quite tricky. I am the one being in charge for time management of my family. Keeping the overview, though, is not easy.

The situation is as follows: I got outlook on my job. I use outlook also to manage my private appointments. For the kids, appointments or main events are also in my business outlook but including the status “available”, so that colleagues can still book meetings. These entries, however, help me to keep the overview what I need to prepare for my kids, etc. Problems start, when I need to know whether my partner is available or not in the evening for meeting friends or when I also need to know whether the babysitter is available. On the job, I can check availability of people online, between my partner and me, I have not managed so far. So I keep sending him e-mails proposing possible dates, waiting for answers, coordinating back with friends and in the end I send my partner an invitation so that he got the final appointment as an entry in his outlook on his job. This is not efficient at all.

 The main problem is that I cannot see the booking status, e.g. of my partner. In total, it is quite confusing and not satisfactory at all to have a good personal, business and family overview in my calendar. The current solution is not the best and therefore I am looking for an online family calendar which can unify my needs into one application.

 At the moment I am testing cozi. This is a family calendar plus shopping list application. The family calendar is supposed to synchronize with my outlook and it theoretically gives access to the booking status of several family members. This would make it faster to arrange appointments with friends. It can be accessed via web or mobile, even an iphone application is available. At the moment, the service is for free. I will report back with experience, maybe you also want to try it.