Family calendar — Ladim
Most family mix-ups are calendar problems: two people booked the car for the same evening, nobody remembered the parent-teacher meeting, and grandma's birthday dinner clashed with a work trip. Everyone has a calendar — just not the same one.
Why a shared calendar
Personal calendars are good for personal things. But a family has plans that involve two or more people, and those need one place everyone can see:
who picks up the kids and when;
doctor and dentist appointments;
school events, practices and recitals;
birthdays and family gatherings;
trips, guests, deliveries and repairs.
What to put in — and what not to
Put in anything that affects someone else: if your plan means you can't drive, cook or pick up, it belongs in the shared calendar.
Leave out the details nobody else needs. A colleague's one-on-one doesn't have to be on the family calendar — a simple "busy" block is enough.
Don't type everything twice
The fastest way to kill a family calendar is to make people copy events from their work calendar by hand. Connect the calendars you already use — Google, Apple, Outlook — so they show up next to family plans, and nobody has to retype anything.
Reminders for the right person
"Dentist at 4" is useless if the reminder goes to the parent who isn't driving. Reminders should go to whoever is responsible — and early enough to act: an hour before for an appointment, a week before for a birthday gift.
Look at the whole week
A day view hides collisions. Once a week — Sunday evening works well — look at the whole week together: who's away, who's late, who drives where. Fifteen minutes saves a dozen "I thought you were picking her up" moments.
Guests and other people
Some events include people outside the household — friends, grandparents, a babysitter. It helps when you can invite them with a link: they reply "going", maybe sign up to bring something, and get a reminder without installing anything.
How Ladim helps
In Ladim the calendar and tasks live together: an appointment is just a task with a time.
Week, three-day or day view with a "now" line.
Compatible external calendars can be read by iCal/ICS subscription link alongside family plans; availability and refresh delays depend on the provider.
You can subscribe to your Ladim calendar from an app that supports iCal/ICS. This does not promise two-way editing.
Agree which plans belong on the shared island. Your private appointments do not become visible to the circle automatically.
Invite guests by link: they reply "going" and take on an item — "I'll bring the cake".
Reminders go to the person responsible, including in Telegram.
Ladim is free and works in the browser; the iPhone app is in beta.
The Ladim calendar in an iPhone test build. The interface is shown in Russian.
In short
Put in the shared calendar anything that affects someone else.
Connect work calendars instead of retyping.
Send reminders to the person responsible, early enough to act.
Look at the whole week together once a week.
Ladim editorial team. Examples are fictional. Prepared with the help of AI tools.