A Grand Planner is a great tool to track your grands’ school year activities. I’ve been a planner buff for years and have tried a variety of ways to track family, business, and volunteer obligations. For me, a digital planner goes part of the way but not fully. I still like to look at paper and have that backup in case the phone breaks, goes dead, or for some reason lets me down. Let’s talk about some options for creating a Grand Planner using your own method.
Classic monthly calendar – Many families have a visible monthly wall calendar to track activities. For grandparents, this is familiar and may be an easy way to keep up. Personally, I like a variant of the wall calendar that fits in my purse and can travel with me. Most people are highly mobile these days and need their planning method to go with them. Here’s a calendar I have used for years:
If you develop a coding system that makes sense to your lifestyle, this can be a really effective Grand Planner. Here’s how I’ve worked with this product in the past.
Color coding for activities and travel:
Black Ink – business plans
Blue Ink – church or volunteer activities
Red Ink – family related
Some might think red is an odd choice for family, but I chose it long ago because it stands out. My family has been my top priority for years and I wanted to catch my eye on those events in my calendar quickly.
In addition to using colored ink to denote different types of events, I use different colors of highlighters to indicate travel by different family members. I assign a highlighter color to each person who travels and then run a highlighter line across the top of each day the individual will be on the move. Travel details go in the initial day’s box and in my phone. For tracking travel plans on my phone, I love the App, Tripit. I used the free version for a long time, then switched to the paid version to get more info at my fingertips.
Need more writing space for daily activities than what the traditional block calendar allows? Consider searching Etsy for printable, daily, or week-at-a-glance pages. I’ve used these at times when lots of commitments required more than the monthly calendar. I’ve also formatted my own daily planning pages at times. It’s easy to do with Word or simple design software like Canva.
The bottom line with creating a Grand Planner, you need to find a system that works for you! It might be a purchased planner, printables, or a combination of all. The main thing is that you know when your precious Grands have events that you want to attend.
Want a deluxe planner designed specifically for grandmas? One that has pages for all the info you could possibly want to track? We’ve created a Grandma Planner that will serve you well! It’s bigger than purse size but it covers everything we could think of that a grandma might want to have in one place. You can buy that here!
Have some great suggestions? We’d love to hear from you in the comments!