Help your child ace planning and organizing

So many times in life, when we go through challenging situations at work or in our personal lives, we think to ourselves, “Wish I was taught how to deal with such stuff and not just math and history, back in school!” We all need certain life skills, to be able to face and deal with things that come our way, and continue to do well in our lives, unfazed. Such skills are called life skills.
One of the most important life skills that we need to help our kids learn is the ability to plan and organize activities, projects or whatever task that needs to be accomplished. Imagine your kids easily breezing through every task that they ever need to accomplish. How stress-free would their lives be! Don’t you want that for your kids?
Getting organized and planning their time and activities can make life very easy for kids. It may seem cumbersome in the beginning, but eventually, this trait will help kids endlessly. You can begin teaching them planning in simple ways initially. Begin small, like they say. You can help your kids take on some tasks at home, guide them through the planning and help them get used to the process of planning and organizing things. The kind of activities that you can look at include:

1. Planning and organizing a birthday party
2. Planning a small family get-together
3. Planning and organizing an outing
4. If your kids can team up and work on something, they could even plan a mini vacation together: they can research about the destination, the culture, look at places to stay and even work on the itinerary.
5. The kids in your apartment complex or locality could even come together to plan an environment awareness campaign, waste management campaign and socially important issues of this nature.

Give your kids a chance to work on projects/events. You will amazed at the kind of results that they produce. Kids are driven, when they have a clear goal in mind, and they operate without biases, ego and other trivial distractions that stop adults from reaching our highest potential in our lives. Do yes, give them a chance.
Here are a few tips that can help you teach your kids how to plan and organize things. You can even help them use this as a planning and organizing checklist:

• Break down tasks into chunks: When you get your kids to take on projects at home, school or anywhere, help them navigate their work by breaking it down into smaller tasks. Then teach them how to prioritise by understanding what needs to be done first.

• Teach them to make checklists and to-do lists: This will really help them throughout their lives. Teach them to create check-lists for every broken down tasks. Get them to make a to-do list everyday, until their project reaches completion. This will teach them how planning can save them from getting overwhelmed with work. This will also teach them how to manage multitasking.
• Help them use a calendar: Get them to put their tasks in a digital or paper calendar, assigning days for every activity. Get them to check against the calendar, every time they finish the tasks. This will help them assess how much time they need to finish a certain work and will help them plan better the next time.

• Teach them time-management skills: Using a calendar to track their work and then assessing how to assign time to every task, will help them understand time management. Do teach them how to back plan everything.

• Help them establish daily routines: We are all creatures of habit, especially kids. Nothing works with kids like consistency does; this is the first rule of elementary teaching. Therefore, help them create daily schedules, so they know what to expect throughout the day.

• Have fun with color-coding: Kids learn how to use excel at school these days. My nephews knows how to format his excel sheets better than I do. He even teaches me a formula or two! Teach them how to use color-coding to help plan their tasks better!

• Create a conducive work environment: Teach them how they can get a lot done when they work in a quiet, conducive work space. It could be a table or any quiet, comfortable corner in your home.

• Help them stay ahead of time: Get them to assess their work every day so that they can stay ahead of the time.

• Teach them to anticipate problems: Now this is the crux of the ability to plan. Help them have an open mind. Let them be easy going and have fun through all this work. Teach them that they ought to expect surprises and be prepared to be flexible, change their plan and improvise when need be.

• Teach them to respond and not react: If this involve steam work, there could be clases. If you are easygoing, your kids would take after you. If you aren’t, they could tend to get stresses. Teach them to have fun and learn, no matter what happens.

Use these tips to help your kids become ace planners and organizers. Do tell us how it goes for you. And remember to laugh and have fun, through all of this! If you have any specific queries, do not hesitate to reach out to us!