Busy parents know that when it comes to organizing family life, chaos often rules. And while paper calendars are a trustworthy way to remember dates – provided they stay tacked to the wall – relying on memory to buy the milk or to recall where important documents are stored is not. That’s why the developers of organizational software targeted at families are not only offering more functionalities than the online calendars of the past, but are helping families organize their daily lives so that they can always stay connected.

Easy-to-use, family-friendly online calendars are not new. Companies such as Google and Microsoft have been providing web-savvy families with their version of the family calendar for years. But the companies behind applications such as Easy Family and Famundo are taking the concept of a shared calendar one step further, combining a number of functionalities in one place – the family’s own web space.

“It’s your family hub,” says Richard Kuhlenschmidt, CEO and founder of California-based Famundo. “It makes your family’s schedule manageable, giving you control over your daily life.”

Essentially, it is the digital answer to sticky-notes, address books and loose-leaf documents. And paper calendars, of course.

Thomas Furuskog, commercial director of Swedish Easy Family, hopes that his company's application will help families save time. "We offer a tool that will help families organize their everyday work and in that sense it will hopefully give them more time to do other things," he says.

Kuhlenschmidt says: "We wanted to take a little bit of stress and work out of families' lives so they can spend more time enjoying it." 

With lack of time an issue for most busy families, these applications do not only offer their users an online shared calendar with multiple-user accounts, but can store important documents in a secure virtual family vault, as well as give families access to a joint contact book. Users can also create and update to-do lists, post messages on the family page across a secure server and receive reminders to pick up the dry cleaning via SMS or e-mail. Easy Family even aims to make dinner time simpler by sending a daily recipe to the family e-mail inbox.

But Famundo takes the concept of total organization to the next level by making it easier for families to synchronize their calendar with community organizations, such as schools or scout troops. Community calendar events such as parent-teacher meetings or sporting fixtures can then be uploaded to the user's own calendar automatically.

Kuhlenschmidt plans to further integrate Famundo to its user's social community by following some of the ideas behind social networking sites such as Facebook. Families will soon be able to share their photos, blogs and personal information with their friends and extended family, making sure that only those authorized to see the information are able to.

Because most things families do occur outside of the home, staying hooked up to family members and community organizations alike is as easy as being connected to the internet. Famundo and Easy Family can be synchronized with mobile devices such as PDAs, making them accessible from anywhere.

"Easy Family is always connectable, wherever you are," Furuskog says. "At home or at work, this platform is always available." Can't say that about paper calendars, can you?

Kathy Kuc