In the latest Weekly Wright Report:
- Technology and Your Two Home Family
Technology and Your Two Home Family
For the parent who because of a separation or divorce suddenly finds himself or herself having to keep track of family members in a way that he or she have never done before, the task can be daunting. Access schedules, school schedules, birthday parties, doctor appointments, music lessons, sport practices and games, just to name a few things. The list is seemingly endless.
In our household, we have always used an Outlook calendar just so we know what everyone has on the schedule. In that way, the chance for conflicting appointments are significantly reduced. If you are out of town for business or pleasure and you mark it on a family calendar, your ex will know that the children are totally in his or her care on those days. However, unless you mind your ex having access to your entire schedule, it is probably a good time to set up a “family calendar.” You can utilize the Google calendar or even better, a program called “Family Wizard” to keep your family organized.
If there are funds being exchanged for extracurricular activities and extraordinary medical expenses, you can use Quicken to track all of your expenses and those of your children and send reports that indicate payments made that are subject to reimbursement. The added benefit is that your finances immediately become more organized. If set up properly, the program will allow you to easily organize your income and expenses at tax time, and allow you to monitor your cash flow, among other things.
If there is something going on between you and your ex that you believe may be the subject of future litigation, or if you are in the midst of litigation, you have a solution for tracking that information in the palm of your hands. Indicate on your personal calendar “Notes” and the subject matter. Then, contemporaneously write a note in your notes on the subject matter with the subject matter as the heading and make dated entries so that there is a record in your calendar, which will coincide with a note to yourself.
Finally, there is a computer program called “Decipher” that allows you to download your text messages to your computer and organize them by caller so that the conversations are much easier to follow. When lawyers receive messages that are cut and pasted in an email, or of a screen shot sent via email, they sometimes do not include important information such as a date. This program takes care of that problem. It is also makes it easier to understand who is saying what to whom in the messages.
Computers, smartphones and iPads are powerful tools that you can use to keep you and your family organized. If you are in need of legal assistance for a family law matter, please call me at 410.659.1389 or email me at rbronfeinades@wcslaw.com.