We had in mind an organizational tool for kids making the transition from elementary school to the upper grades. It is a classic problem that these students don't know how to schedule their time and homework. Together we (the developers) have about 50 years of experience in planning and logical processes, and we think we have succeeded in adapting professional planning methods for upper school students. We think we have come up with something that doesn't really exist for kids (at least we couldn't find it).

We were surprised to see that we could not find a single tool that gives kids (and parents) at the same time a bird's eye view of their activities for a few weeks and a close-up view of what needs to be done tonight – all in one glance. Our goal was to give them something that would be effective, simple, and free, thus giving students of all economic backgrounds an equal chance to get organized. We think we succeeded.

Our tool is made out of regular loose leaf paper and tape. It is very low tech, but the advantage is its cost effectiveness, and the fact that it takes very little time to use and learn. Our deadline was to develop this before school started and consequently we worked on it all August in our free time. A site with the planning tool is ready right now.

All the information is on the web site with a Creative Commons license so that everyone can use it: http://www.plan-it-yourself.com/.

Also the site will be translated to French in about a week. We don't speak Spanish so we are looking for a Spanish translator. If you can help with that, please email translate@plan-it-yourself.com.

Finally, as we say on our Acknowledgments page: "We would like to thank Barack Obama for the inspiration of his "United We Serve" summer volunteer program. It was the little push we needed to get this out the door."