The week of phone calls usually starts with a feeling that you are doing too much. The feeling is real, but it does not tell you what to hire. A coverage map does. It takes about twenty minutes, and it turns 'I cannot keep doing this' into a short list of named gaps you can take to a provider.

Local option: New Plan Care gives families in the St. Louis area in-home help so a parent can stay home: companionship, help with bathing and dressing, meals, and overnight care. Call (314) 405-0887.

Step 1: List the tasks, not the worries

  1. Write every task the person needs help with, one per line. Include rides, meals, bathing, dressing, laundry, errands, bills and paperwork, the phone and the door, and any needs after bedtime.
  2. Next to each line, write what the task looks like on a normal day in one sentence.
  3. Add a final line for medicine reminders and pharmacy pickups. Medicine stays with the family, the doctor and the pharmacist, so write down which family member holds that line, even if no outside help is involved.

Write in your first list here: ____________________________________________

Step 2: Name who covers each task now

For each task, write the name of the person who does it today, and the days they do it. If the answer is 'me, when I can,' write that too. Be exact. A task covered by 'whoever is free' is a task with no owner.

Name for each task: ____________________________________________

Step 3: Mark the blank days

Draw a grid with the seven days across the top and your task list down the side. Fill each box with a name, or leave it empty. Then look at three things:

  • Empty boxes on days that matter, such as a morning with an appointment or a weekend with no one scheduled.
  • Boxes covered by one person every day with no backup. That is a single point of failure, even if it is working today.
  • Boxes covered by someone who is worn out. That is a different problem from a gap, and a hire will not fix it alone.

Count your empty boxes: ______ . Count your single-person boxes: ______ .

What the map tells you

If most empty boxes fall on tasks the person cannot safely wait on, you have a coverage gap and should compare providers against the specific blank days. If the empty boxes fall on tasks that can wait, such as a errand that can move to the weekend, you may not need a full hire yet, and the map gives you a schedule to test first.

Bring the finished grid to the first call. A provider can only quote the hours you can name, so the map is the first document in the hiring file. The step-by-step sequence for the rest of the hiring work is on the Start Here: Five Steps to Hiring page.