My top 15 Back to School Tips + Tech (and 3 I’m waiting for)

Back to school season is an exciting time for our kids, but it can be the most overwhelming time for parents. We’re trying to figure out the class placements of our kids, their school schedules, and planning for after school activities, all while scheduling doctors appointments, running out for school supplies, and completing fall/back to school clothes shopping. For the younger ones only entering preschool or kindergarten, the phasing-in requires many parents to remain at school for several hours per week–and prepare for many play dates and meetings. I’ve become a big fan of technology to help me save time for work and my family–and keep everyone organized and on time.

Run fewer errands: Outsource your shopping

Grocery shopping can be wonderful but not many of us have the time to stroll through WholeFoods during the week to stock up the fridge. The solution? Deliveries!

1. Boxed I use this delivery service for stocking up on kids supplies and household items. It’s a sleek and super easy-to-use app. It’s a wholesale delivery, which means you’ll always stock up on two boxes of Cheerios and ten Nutella-to-go. Delivery time is two days but most of the time the package arrives next day. Boxed, similar to Amazon, delivers nationwide. It also helps to add regular purchases to a subscription.
2. Amazon has added a subscription service to its delivery services which delivers recurring items once a month. It takes some planning and adjustments, but for people with enough storage it’s a great way to save time.
3. FreshDirect (New York and some areas of Connecticut and NJ only) is Sophie’s favorite. She has been using it since it started more than 8 years ago. The food is fresh, delivery slots are reasonable- two hour window, delivery drivers are courteous and not bothered by barking dogs and toddlers under foot. Prepared food from them is good- frozen pizzas and lasagnas, and also the soups are great for packing in a thermos for school lunches in the winter.
4. Postmates: Started off as a delivery services for restaurants, now rapidly expanding to deliver anything from Starbucks coffee to office supplies (urban areas only).
5. Instacart A grocery delivery service from various grocers in 15+ urban areas, rapidly expanding. Delivery within a three-hour window.  Each of the delivery services with an easy to manage app and interface. The picking and sorting (and transportation) is outsourced.

I also loved trying out some of the niche deliveries like

6.  Naturebox delivers healthy snacks.
7.  Dollar Shave Club Sends a beautiful white razor with a subscription monthly blade supply.

Say it right: Use scheduling and communication technologies

Most mothers (and some dads) are running the family schedule for everyone. The hardest part? Making sure everyone stays on track. Here are my technology helpers:

8. Cozi This free app is made for easy family communication; from sharing to-do lists to shopping lists and calendars. I like the calendar functionality best. Once an event has been saved to a family member, one can set reminders, including alerts for the babysitter or parent who is driving. The alerts are only available for the premium subscribers ($29.99 annual subscription).
9. TeamSnap A communication and scheduling tool for parents, coaches, and team managers. Helps to coordinate the times / location of games and keeps everyone on track of what to bring.
10. Google Calendar A great tool, especially the newly redesigned app. I love it for all of my work meetings, but prefer to keep all of the  schedules in Cozi.
11. Sign Up Genius Are you the class parent? You probably heard of Sign Up Genius which is a great quick tool to ask for volunteers, donations and all other kind of group organizations. Luckily my school uses it a lot.

It takes a village: Use your neighbors as extra helpers

It’s wonderful to have a neighborhood to help out. And often we just need to reach out and ask for helping make our daily life easier. Here are the technology tools that will help to coordinate:

12. Mealtrain Have a friend who just gave birth? Your neighbor had a surgery? It’s easy to help out organizing a meal train with your neighbors and friends using this scheduling app.
13. Nextdoor A private social network for a neighborhood. Once you join with your home address you are added to a predefined neighborhood by the app. According to Nextdoor, 69,000 neighborhoods are active – some neighborhoods are obviously more active than others. My friends in Palo Alto use it for everything from garage sales to dog walking. My Connecticut neighborhood is still building out, but it’s certainly a useful tool to stay connected.

Beyond the village: Find extra help

Sometimes we just need the extra help – for a couple of hours or a longer time period. Leaving my love for technology  aside, an email to your friends will most probably find you a great recommendation for a babysitter, a dog walker or cleaning help. If you can’t find someone this way – here are the tools that helped me:

14. Care.com For finding a babysitter or ‘mother’s’ helper. I have posted my babysitter needs three times on this platform, with a bit of a mixed result. While I love to be able to get easy access to a larger pool of babysitter profiles, not all of those are actually searching for a job. The communication can be slow. And there is a bit of a big price tag to it. I did find nice sitters in the end, and it beats Craigslist for sure!
15. Living Social I’ve become quite a fan of this coupon-based website for finding services in my neighborhood, but also for services when traveling. On a recent business trip to San Francisco I booked myself a haircut using the website (and landed in a beautiful salon for 2/3 of the regular price); for my home I easily booked air vent cleaning and gardening services at a steep discount. The app is super easy to navigate and the coupons are easily redeemable. An alternative to Angie’s list, which switched to a paid monthly plan recently. Love it.

These apps are all really helpful for parents with kids going back to school. But there are three things I still need:

1. Syncing and managing all of my contacts in one place. Meeting so many new parents at school, the soccer club and at our kids orchestra it’s hard to keep track. I’d love to have an app that syncs them all into my contacts. It exists for business (LinkedIn) but not for the family.
2. A curriculum / school progress update. All subjects in one place: Sure, there is Schoology, but it still takes a while to understand where your child needs extra help or discuss what they’ve been studying at school.
3. A great carpooling app. Despite this being the age of Uber and Lyft, it’s still a hassle to organize a carpool. We’re solving this problem with our very own GoKid app – the greener way to go.