A shared household management
Over the years we have refined how we share the work of managing our household and found some services we wouldn’t want to live without. Here are some of the ways we manage our household.
Shared email
We have a shared email account that we use for any shared service. When a bill is due, someone ordered pizza, or the doctor sent a note in the portal, we are in the know.
Shared calendars
Through our shared email account, we have a few shared calendars.
Our main calendar has repeating events for childcare pick up and drop off, and bed time. These events are also assigned to someone using our self-appointed emoji. When we are tired, we don’t have to wonder who is doing what, because the calendar tells us.
(For those keeping score, Saturday is our alternating bedtime night. Also, in this home we call it “Read book mommy/daddy.”)
We started another calendar, Work schedule, during COVID. On the calendar, we each block off important meetings and then one of us will create a childcare schedule that ends up looking a lot like Tetris. We still use it for sick days.
Shared notes
We have tried a lot of different note apps (this could be a post on its own), but always come back to Apple Notes.
This is our knowledge base and we document everything: holiday planning, manuals, what to do when the water pump makes that funny noise, future house projects, and more.
Our most used note is called “To discuss”, where we add thoughts, ideas, or links that we want to share without the immediacy of a text message.
Other services
- iCloud drive. Our home for shared documents. We have a special folder where we save scans of our child’s artwork.
- TickTick. We use TickTick to share reminders, mostly chores. We do have nice reminders to plan date nights and check-in on our personal goals.
- 1Password. We have a shared 1Password vault where we store shared logins and other important information.
- Private GitHub repository. We have a private repository that we use off and on to track projects, like our wedding way back when.