Reconciling Family Members' Schedule

Problem: Keeping track of all of the schedules in your family.

Solution: Go electronic with the family calendar. Google (calendar.google.com) and Yahoo (calendar.yahoo.com) calendars are dominant. Google's format allows you to create color-coded calendars for different members of the family. These can be viewed separately, or on one page. To sync calendars with Yahoo, each family member would need to open a separate user account, or you could form a family group in groups.yahoo.com. Both calendars include a variety of sharing and privacy options as well as email and mobile alerts. Famundo.com offers a family message board, a list manager for shopping or trip planning, and a "vault" for secure storage of valuable documents.

Caveat: Before you choose an online calendar, check to see if it syncs with the hand-held you use. For instance, Google's calendar can import and export from Microsoft Outlook and iCal but cannot sync with those.