Taking Time in Hand
6:30 shower 6:55 dressed 7:30 children's breakfast

By Annie Groer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 31, 2007

On nice weekends Phoebe and Harry Cole often take their children to an Alexandria park for a picnic.

While 6-week-old Carolina sleeps and Caleb, 3, frolics with Mom, Dad cooks. And cooks: turkey burgers. Salmon. Chicken. Sausage. Pork chops.

That takes care of the family's meat for the week, said Phoebe Cole. "Some of it we eat at the park; the rest I take home and refrigerate or freeze. It's all part of my weekly meal planning, because food is my weakest area."

The grillathon is one of many strategies Cole, 35, uses to stay on top of an increasingly busy life. She says the lists, schedules and calendars at her "command center" desk in the living room allow her to spend more time with the kids, her husband and herself.

They also are the hallmarks of a new career she took on last year, even while expecting a baby. Cole is one of about 100 women nationwide who work with clients in a home-based occupation known as "certified family manager coach."

The term was coined by Kathy Peel, a Dallas author and founder of Family Manager Inc., who developed a $499 online certification course based on home-keeping principles found in her 18 books. Newly minted coaches go forth and charge $199 for a household assessment and makeover and two consultations aimed at helping the harried better manage their domestic lives.

The emphasis here is not just on redesigning closets and alphabetizing spices. It is on involving the whole family in setting goals and priorities and managing time. "Getting kids to school on time is more important than getting the clutter out of the basement," said Peel, 56, whose Web site is at http://www.familymanager.com.

In a nation whose citizenry already hires others to walk the dog, prepare meals and get the car inspected, it's hardly a leap to sell consumers a multi-tier system promising rewards from cleaner floors to time for a facial.

But not everyone is convinced. Domestic coaching "may be the fad du jour," said trend spotter Marian Salzman, senior vice president of J. Walter Thompson advertising agency. "We are willing to try anything that will buy us time."

In Peel's ideal universe, a family works as a team, led by a manager -- and, yes, it's nearly always the mom. The coaches teach such basics as "communication, priorities, getting your kids to help with housework," she said. Family meetings, chore delegation, house rules and self-nurturing are all part of the business plan.

"The point here is that the job of family manager is a valuable executive-level position, and we need to get over any preconceived Stepford-wife notion about what it means to oversee the goings-on of a home and family," Peel said. "The makeover service helps people figure out what needs to be done first" in seven areas: home and property, food and meals, family and friends, money and finances, time and scheduling, self-management, and special events.

That last one, Peel said, "sends lots of people over the edge. On top of everything you have to do, there is the holiday season, vacations, garage sales, weddings."

After Cole quit being a social work administrator to stay home with Caleb, she said, "I started developing, scheduling and researching how to operate my family as if it was a job. I came across Kathy Peel; it was a perfect fit."

One of her clients is Mindy Costanzo-Romero, who sought Cole's help in juggling an at-home job, housework, meals and the stress of caring for two young daughters, a pair of dogs and a husband who often leaves their Joppa, Md., home at 4 a.m. and sometimes doesn't return until 8 p.m.

"I really need the motivation and encouragement. I wanted to get to a point where I didn't feel like I was drowning," said Costanzo-Romero, 33. "I have a hard time delegating and deciding what has to be done first. When one area is out of balance, it throws everything out."

After she learned to tell her husband, Michael Romero, that she really needs help in the evenings, he now tries to get home by 5. He plays with the kids while she cooks or cleans. And she adores her new digital planner.

Six months ago, Vienna homemaker Calyce Magee, 36, sought help because her life was "spinning out of control." With two young children, two dogs, a 4,500-square-foot house and a working husband, she said, "I was just struggling to get a nutritious meal on the table, make sure the house was not a pigsty, spend more time with the kids, wash my face, take a shower."

Looking for a professional organizer, she called Sandra Forbes of Vienna, who also turned out to be a Peel disciple. Magee took a quiz about her household's stress points and priorities. After two in-home meetings, Forbes wrote an assessment and gave Magee a tip-laden makeover booklet.

"Sandra didn't make me feel judged, that I had to be a certain way," Magee said, "just how to figure out what was important: my kids, their health, my husband, everyone having nutritious meals." Magee said she felt reassured being told, "You don't have enough time to do everything."

She also learned to fix a lopsided cleaning routine in which she vacuumed dog hair every day but let loads of laundry pile up because she dreaded the folding. Forbes helped her balance the chores so she stayed on top of everything while giving herself a bit of a break.

"I do a little laundry every day, put dishes in the dishwasher every day, make sure we are having nutritional meals, have a weekly family event, eat meals together at night. We watch much less TV, and I've actually picked up a couple of hobbies."

Now she vacuums only every other day -- and makes time to take better care of herself.

If she backslides, she can turn to her makeover booklet for hints and inspiration or call for a $60-an-hour follow-up. (She booked a session for next month, before the family moves to Delaware.)

Forbes, 46, said she expanded into family coaching because simply organizing people's clutter made her "feel limited. A client says, 'I need help with my paperwork,' but you know as you work with the client there are underlying issues going on. The kids are going crazy. This is one step further. . . . A lot of it is deciding what not to do. You wouldn't say no to your mother-in-law every month. But you may say no this month."

Family management is a new niche in the home organizing industry. Web sites such as http://www.messies.com, http://www.flylady.net, http://www.shesintouch.com and http://www.gomominc.com have been offering advice and even e-mail reminders for years. Countless self-help books -- Peel's latest, "Desperate Households," comes out in July -- aim to help people manage time, families, papers and possessions.

The National Association of Professional Organizers, formed in 1985, recently began to "certify" its members, who often list personal coaching among their skills.

This fall, "Time Makeover," a 30-minute show, debuts on the Fine Living cable TV network. Experts will help people wring precious hours from busy schedules for things they really care about, such as parental "date nights" and regular family meals.

Chad Youngblood is general manager of the network, a corporate cousin of Home & Garden Television. He said the show's target audience is "time-starved Sarah": A 40-ish married professional woman with kids and "more money than time," who can afford paying extra to have the computer technician, hair cutter and car detailer come to her home.

"Time is the ultimate luxury item, and organization is what we crave. It's the only way to buy ourselves time," said Salzman of J. Walter Thompson.

She places part of the blame for the time crunch on overextended adults who overschedule their progeny. She also blames television.

"All these reality shows where the super-nanny comes in, all these domestic gods and goddesses come to your home and make you better. We have the super-athletic coach, the professional coach, 'What Not to Wear' on TV, and we've all become convinced someone else's life is better than our own, so we're driven to go buy whatever product or service" might improve it.

Cole, who charges $75 an hour for coaching, calls the family management notebook she devised "my second bible."

She writes Caleb's daily activities on a whiteboard in his room, downloads the family schedule onto her husband's computer and keeps monthly and yearly family calendars. She even has a 20-year-plan, which includes a third child.

Baby Kenneth or Baby Hannah is scheduled to arrive in 2010.