behold: a beanie wall for your whole family

Every year, without fail, my mom pinned a monthly calendar to the kitchen wall.

The squares of that family calendar, each one filled to the brim with scribbled notes handwritten in erasable pen, were always there to let us know something special was coming up. Looking at it was a comfort, because I always knew what to expect.

Because of that monthly calendar I always knew, for example, that Tuesday was Book Club Night, where our family friends from the neighborhood would gather around the kitchen table, wine or tea in hand, avidly discussing that week’s book, or more often, just chatting about whatever. I also knew that when I emerged from my teenaged bedroom, sauntering down the carpeted staircase of my youth, I would be walking into an avalanche of motherly compliments about how tall I’d grown or how handsome I was (the operative word, in this case, being “was”).

At the end of every year, one of the holiday presents from my mom would always be next year’s monthly calendar, meticulously chosen to match our specific interests and hobbies. I would pin the calendar to the wall of my bedroom, just like my mother did, and scribble my little kid plans into the squares, like “sleepover at matt’s house”, or “disneyland!!” (where we always went for my birthday).

not my actual family calendar. but something like this. brings back memories.

And by the way, while we’re taking this nice walk down memory lane, another fond memory from childhood was the weekly allowance I got for doing my chores every day (well - almost every day). My chores routine taught me a valuable lesson in responsibility, hard work, and exploiting legal loopholes. Because, and I’m a bit nervous to say this, since this is the first time I’ve ever admitted this out loud, my mom never really had a reliable way to track whether I actually did those chores.

I knew I could fudge some of them without my mom ever knowing, and I’d still get that glorious fistful of dollar bills (well, dollar bill), which I’d immediately shove into my pocket while jumping onto my bike to ride down to the Pill Box Drug on PV Boulevard to buy that crinkly brown paper bag full of Lemon Drops, Red Hots, Nerds, and Fun Dip. And to anybody who tells me that Fun Dip was just glorified colored sugar, come down here and say that to my face: I’ll fight ya. (Like Popeye, just let me mainline some Fun Dip first for strength.)

A few weeks ago, we started the chores routine in our own house. As long as the boys finish their homework and chores every day for the week, they get their allowance. I did all this with full knowledge that I’d probably be outsmarted by my own kids.

My oldest immediately ran to the printer to get a piece of paper, and wrote down his chore board:

cute, although it barely lasted a week

The original chores paper is gone, but the kids still beg for their allowance every Saturday, while guaranteeing that they finished their chores, so they can take that same trip I did down to the corner store and get their treats. The routine is on, and I need to continue feeding my little kids their weekly allowance (which they now demand).

The biggest problem is that I know, from my own personal experience, that kids are sneaky little weasels (albeit cute sneaky little weasels). So how do I stay one step ahead of the game?

The beanies.family app is already the centerpiece of our family. Why not make it the centerpiece of our living room, and the arbiter of completed chores, too?

Well we now have, if I do say so myself, one of the coolest and most useful features I’ve ever built for beanies.family: the beanie wall!

Some apps, like Skylight, already do the living-room-digital-calendar-and-chores-board thing pretty well. I really wanted to offer my precious beanies a new and fantastic experience, and also one that wouldn’t cost you an arm and a leg (and another expensive hardware purchase).

I thought it would be useful to combine the daily calendar, the chores board, and any and all important family info (travel plans, grocery lists, etc.) into a beautiful, supremely useful, and easy-to-use console that truly is the heart of our living room, while also re-using those old tablets that tend to accumulate in your house when you have multiple beanies who all love screens.

I also wanted to address some of the biggest (actual) complaints about the Skylight calendar we could find across the internet:

• No expensive hardware - just re-use an ipad or tablet you already had sitting around! Or, if you really want, just buy a cheap one.
• Expensive subscription? Free while we’re in beta, and no hardware purchase required.
• Your data is private - Your family data lives in your own encrypted file, not on our servers.
• You don’t even need wifi (when wifi drops, as home wifi tends to do, the wall will simply resync the next time you connect)

The result? Well, let me show you. Here it is:

not our real schedule. i’m actually writing this while sitting on the floor at my son’s cubing competition.

you better finish those chores if you want that allowance. and daddy’s gotta finish packing too.

And how do I know my family loves it? Well, check out these (drama) beans.

members of the academy - for your consideration

Theatrics notwithstanding, the kids are actually neck-deep into their chore-checking routines now, and it really does seem like they finish their chores more proactively. Not only that, they ask me about upcoming events on the calendar, and run to me for their allowance as soon as their weekly chore board is complete. It’s like a beanie dream come true. Now, if only I could get them to start sharing their toys.

On my side, I can flip back in the app at any time to make sure they checked everything off. Of course, whether or not they really did that chore - that requires me to actually check their homework. Someday, I’ll make an app for that, too.

The beanie wall is now officially live in my house, and we’re loving it. I’m excited to see how your family likes it as well - so if you set it up too, let me know how it works for you!

Use the beanie wall to get your whole family on the same page, and stay one step ahead of those little buggers. They’ll thank you for it when they’re older. Probably.

Stay on your game, my beans. Like I know you always do.

-greg

by the way for those who haven’t already, subscribe to our substack below to receive new posts when they come out, learn about beanies.family features, and be enthralled by techie dad jokes, like the one about the 2 wifi engineers who had a wedding. the reception was fantastic. (thanks. i’ll be here all week.)