Do you ever feel like your family runs in a million different directions, with a bunch of different schedules, projects, and due-dates? A family calendar, personalized with your family's pictures and posted in a place your family shares, can help you keep track of upcoming events and ongoing obligations.

Use an Outlook calendar for family schedules

If your whole family shares a computer, you may want to use a Microsoft Outlook® calendar to make it easier for everyone to stay up-to-date. When you use a calendar in Outlook, you can enter new schedules and appointments, switch rapidly between daily, weekly, or monthly views, get reminders on your computer, and share your family's schedule with others over the Internet.

Keep your family schedule on your computer with an Outlook calendar

1. You can begin working with calendars in Outlook by clicking Calendar. If you already use the calendar feature in Outlook for work or your own personal scheduling, the best way to start is to Copy your Outlook 2002 calendar .
2. In your family's new calendar, enter new meetings, deadlines, dates, or appointments by pointing to New on the File menu, and clicking Appointment. (As a shortcut, you can right-click the time you would like to schedule, and then click New Appointment.)
3. Enter the time, date, and relevant information for the event you are scheduling. If the event you are scheduling happens on a regular basis, click Recurrence and select the recurrence pattern. For example, for a weekly soccer practice, under Recurrence Pattern, select Weekly, and under Range of Recurrence, enter the date for the end of the season.
4. Click Save and Close to add the meeting to your family's schedule.

You can change the way you look at your family's calendar by clicking the View menu. On the View menu, you can select from Day, Work Week, Week, or Month views.

When it is time for a family member's meeting or appointment, a reminder appears on your computer screen, and you hear a sound to remind you. If you keep your family's computer in a place in your home where you spend a lot of time and your computer is usually turned on, turning up the volume on your computer's speakers can help you to get out the door on time.

You can also color-code your family's schedule to make it easier to find everybody's meetings and times.

To color-code your family's schedule in Outlook

1. In Outlook, click Calendar, and then click the Calendar Coloring button below the top Outlook menu bar.
2. Click Edit Labels.
3. In the text box beside each color, type a family member's name.
4. When you schedule your next event for a family member, in the Appointment, click the arrow in the Label: box and select the family member's name.

Share your Outlook calendar with others

If you would like to share your family's schedule with extended family members, babysitters, or others, you can read more about Ways to publish schedule information in Outlook 2002 .

Print a calendar for your family with a calendar template

If you want to create a personalized calendar that you can print, you can use a calendar template from the Templates Web site. A calendar template provides you with the formatting and basic structure you'll need to make a calendar, so you can concentrate on the dates and scheduling information that your family shares.

Download and use a calendar template from the Templates Web site

1. Download the 2001 calendar or another calendar template in the Templates Web site by clicking the Edit in Microsoft Word button.
2. Personalize the calendar with images and notes that are important to you and your family.

Here are some suggestions for personalizing your calendar template:

• Add notes for important dates   Add a note to the top of the date for important dates for your family, such as birthdays, anniversaries, and vacations.
• Add text and graphics for events   Add more text to daily or weekly events. You can copy and paste an item to schedule recurring events or ongoing meetings (for example, weekly civic club meetings or sports practices). You can also use AutoShapes to draw arrows through vacation periods or to add basic shapes like hearts, smiles, stars, or banners around your text.
• Color code   Color-code your appointments for each family member (for example, Mom's meetings are brown, Dad's are blue, the kids' are green and lavender, important days for everyone are in all red letters) by selecting the text and clicking the Font Color button.
• Add graphics   Delete the placeholder images from the template and add your own digital photographs, children's art, or scanned images. You can also find clip art to decorate your family calendar at Clip Art and Media .

When you are finished personalizing your calendar, print it out and place it where everyone in the family can see it and use it. You may want to keep a pen close by so that you and your family can make changes or additions.

You could also use a calendar like this to show when bills are due, when school projects need to be finished, or when chores or other tasks need to be completed.

A printed calendar, complete with family pictures and significant dates, can also make a nice gift for grandparents and extended family members.