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I jokingly call our family the Hot Mess Express. If you invite us anywhere, expect us to arrive 20 minutes late in our unwashed minivan with kids whose hair may or may not be brushed. A water bottle or volleyball may accidentally roll over as the door opens, causing a child to fall, followed by someone possibly yelling, “Guys, I At the end Found the blue water bottle!”
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The oil in the minivan needs changing, the laundry needs washing in the house, the dishwasher needs unloading – but there’s always a doctor’s appointment, school event, sports or extracurricular event to get to, so there’s never enough time. My sanity saver in the middle of this hot mess? skylight calendar 2.
I’ve owned a Skylight for a few years, but the new Calendar 2 is exactly the upgrade I needed. Having a digital calendar that my husband and I can access from anywhere and that everyone in the house can see has been a game-changer for our family – seriously. I have a widget on my iPhone so I can always see the day’s events, and my kids can see what they’re eating for lunch during the school week, who has an appointment and when.
How do I use Calendar 2
My husband and I both work full-time, so we are busy parents of three kids. My youngest is a preschooler and still quite demanding, as younger children tend to be, while older children dive head-first into extracurriculars. My two kids have biweekly treatment plans, I have to drive them, and I spend some time each month in the hospital for their medical treatments, so I’m always balancing rides, activities, and errands.
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The Skylight Calendar 2 is a gorgeous 15-inch display that came down from heaven (or, erhm, a FedEx truck) to save us. It’s much faster and thinner than the first version, and the display looks sleeker. Its curved corners give it a soft finish, but its framing makes it fit in with any home decor. One nice thing is that the frame is magnetic, so you can change it to a black, white or wood finish look to match your style.
Skylight offers a great user experience with the above widget availability and compatibility with most major digital calendars. The Calendar 2 device is easy to navigate, with a menu on the left side of the screen that lets you access Calendar, Lists, Tasks, Rewards, Food, Recipes, Photos and Settings.
You can add different profiles for each person or event in your home. I have created profiles for each member of our family and have created a separate profile named Family, where I add birthdays for our extended family and major events. Every time I add an appointment or event, I add the child whose appointment I have scheduled and the adult who is taking them, so we all know who to run them to and when.
More than just a calendar: a complete family planner
Events let you add external contacts by email, so they’ll get a calendar invite to your event, along with a description, location (which shows the weather if the event is within a week), and even a countdown. Countdown is a new feature that’s always visible in the calendar view, so we added countdowns for trips and upcoming birthdays so our kids always know how many days are left until X.
Meal planning is easy, especially with the new Sidekick integration. This AI assistant can create a complete meal plan for you, around irritants, allergies and restrictions, with the ingredients you need. You can add the ingredients to your list and then go shopping.
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perfect chore chart
After trying (and failing) with a variety of task charts over the years, I decided to use the Tasks & Rewards feature of Skylight Calendar. It lets you add multiple tasks and tasks, which can be custom or chosen from a preset list, and then add stars for completion. The stars can then be redeemed for rewards as you earn them.
I wanted my kids to maintain control over their to-do chart, and since the Rewards feature was available in the old Skylight calendar, I moved it to a place my kids could access when I set up the new calendar in my kitchen.
I added simple tasks like cleaning all the dirty clothes for one star, more complex tasks like cleaning dishes for two stars, and the most difficult tasks like cleaning your room for three stars. Then I added specific rewards for the kids that they could redeem, like getting a $5 toy, getting ice cream from a specific place, or a trip to the cinema to see a specific movie.
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Now, my kids are learning how to earn and budget their stars, while I watch clean rooms, clean bathroom counters, and laundry-free floors. The rewards I’ve created range from 17 to 40 stars depending on their value, and my kids have already redeemed them twice.
ZDNET’s shopping advice
skylight calendar 2 The knight in shining armor is what busy families need. It’s the Olympic lifters coming to help moms carry all the mental load. This tool is an all-in-one family planner that covers meal planning and household chores management. Although it can’t wake my little ones up 20 minutes earlier, the Skylight Calendar 2 is doing wonders for controlling the heat and mess of this Hot Mess Express.
However, it is not for everyone. Not everyone wants to spend $300 on a wall-mounted or tabletop calendar display, and that’s legitimate. Many of the best features also require a $79/year subscription, like uploading a school calendar and magically importing it into Calendar 2, meal planning, photo screensavers, and rewards.
