10 tips to stop you missing your kids performances #mummyfail

Both this and last week I committed yet another moment of massive working at home mummy naughtiness. #mummyfail

There is nothing worse than being told by your child that you have forgotten something and can’t be there for them when they thought that you were going to be. My wee boy’s face fell as he explained to me I had “promised” I would be at his assembly, so I couldn’t possibly go to London for my work meeting as I would miss it, and he was really looking forward to it….the last performance he gave he did this…

Please forgive the black bits, this was done before I realised the need to landscape my phone….but how could I miss something like that?

I had to spend a bit of time grovelling to a PR to solve a problem, and also to school that I am a governor at because I have a) double booked myself for an appointment for the next day and b) totally forgotten about a meeting that’s been and gone….

I realised I needed to get a grip, so with the view that if I am having to do this, there are many working parents out there in the same position…here is my advice to all of you to stop you from missing appointments….

DON’T

• Write appointments on your hand the night before, then have a nice, refreshing shower and rub it off without realising
• Put the bit of paper with the appointments written down for transfer to your diary into the bin so that they never actually get transferred into the diary
• Feed the cat when you have the note about the appointment in one hand so you put the appointment note in the recycling bin alongside the cat food foil wrapper – can you see the pattern here?
• Say you are going to a 40th birthday party for a close friend before you have checked your husband’s calendar and find he is on a training course that night, and you have to get a babysitter *expensive evening*
• Tell your son you will go to all his school events in future if he’d just stop moaning about the fact that you can’t go to the harvest festival this year because you have a meeting *oops.* Having not managed to make it, we did get some rather wonderful renditions of some of the songs though, didn’t we?
• Take your calendar off the wall to write down an appointment and not put it back so it gets buried under a pile of paperwork that was caused by your last ridiculously manic day as a working mum….

DO

• Keep a central calendar in the house where you can write all your appointments, something like a calendar by PhotoBox are great because they have a good deal of room to write about our chaotic lives. If you have photosgraphs in it as well, even better, because that might remind you who you are as well, when you forget that too….. If you keep this type of central calendar, you can then write the details of where you are meant to be down somewhere and you know where it is ALL THE TIME
• Make sure you use a central online calendar thingy too which you keep up to date with the paper version as well, we use our iPhone Calendars because it can sync across every device known to man and Apple, AND we have a lot of fruit based technology in this house
• Write down your appointments in these central diaries AS SOON AS you make them. Don’t leave it until later because, even though you think that you have the memory of a sprightly 18 year old, it is nearer to one of an 80-year old. Scientific fact – ish
• Ask your daughter to remember your entire diary, even though she is only nine. She will do it much better than you do. She is, after all, already starting to write your blog for you as well. *redundant at 41*

That’s it – my ten ideas to stop you from being as much of a failure around organising your diary as I am…do you have any others, please?

Helen

Helen is a mum to two, social media consultant, and website editor; and this site is (we think) the only Social Enterprise parenting magazine!Since giving up being a business analyst when juggling travel, work and kids proved too complicated, she founded KiddyCharts so she could be with her kids, and use those grey cells at the same time.KiddyCharts has reach of over 1.1million across social and the site. The blog works with big family brands (including travel) to help promote their services, as well as offering free resources to parents of kids under 10.It gives 51%+ profits to Reverence for Life, who fund a number of important initiatives in Africa, including bringing running water and basic equipment to a school in Tanzania.Helen has worked as a digital marketing consultant (IDM qualified) with various organisations, including Channel Mum, Truprint, Talk to Mums, and Micro Scooters. She loves to be creative in the brand campaigns she works on.Get in touch TODAY!

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