As a couple juggling work and family, Elizabeth and Keith McCormick are doing some seriously heavy lifting.

Each works long, constantly changing hours -- Ms. McCormick as a direct sales representative for Longaberger, a maker of baskets and home decor, and Mr. McCormick as a technician working 12 1/2-hour night shifts for a big technology company. Their two children, 15 and 6, take part in three sports teams, a scout troop (which Mr. McCormick leads) and driver's training between them. Ms. McCormick heads a women's mentoring group and Mr. McCormick helps his father-in-law part-time in his construction business.

'My biggest problem was trying to keep track of all the different things going on -- work, sports, school and jobs,' Mr. McCormick says. Ms. McCormick was irritated when her husband forgot to do an errand. 'I was feeling like I had to nag him. He'd say OK, and then wouldn't remember, and I'd have to ask him again. It was a very negative feeling,' she says.

So the McCormicks turned to technology -- a shared, online family-management system that serves as a calendar, organizer and communication tool. Ms. McCormick also tapped an online grocery-shopping planner. The tech tools have helped her ease up on the multi-tasking and enjoy her family more, she says. Their daughter Adara, 15, says her mother nags less, leaving the whole family 'more time to talk about what is going on in our lives.'

Say goodbye to Post-It notes and giant paper calendars plastered on the fridge. Newer and easier applications can tackle time-management nightmares that plagueworking parents. Shared online calendars synch family members' busy schedules; meal-planning websites help get home-cooked dinners on the table, and videoconferencing can link parents on the road with family at home. And while using technology to manage family life might seem to risk turning everyone into robots, parents say the tools help them feel calmer and more in control.

For Betsy and George Christian, who co-own a legislative consulting and research firm in Austin, Texas, the challenge is planning family dinners for them and their two children, George, 7, and Kathryn, 9. Ms. Christian had been spending two hours a week browsing websites and cookbooks looking for inspiration. Now, she recently started using a menu-planning website, relishrelish.com, that offers meal choices and generates grocery-shopping lists for the entire week's meals. It has cut her weekly meal-planning time to 15 minutes.

The family-management system the McCormicks began using last October, PlumLife, allows Ms. McCormick to enter all their business, family, household and community events and tasks on a joint calendar. Ms. McCormick, who handles all of the calendar entries, also has inputted the contact information of the 100 or so people that are critical to the family's juggle, including her father, who helps baby-sit, her co-workers, her women's group members, and the scout troop families. Based on Ms. McCormick's instructions, PlumLife automatically sends email or text-message reminders shortly before an event to each person involved, then emails Ms. McCormick about whether and how they have responded.

A typical day starts when Ms. McCormick rises at 6 a.m. and fixes breakfast for Luke, 6, then wakes him and checks the clothes he has picked for school. After Luke hops on the school bus at 6:50 a.m., Ms. McCormick snares 45 minutes for an at-home workout. Adara gets up to get ready for school, and Mr. McCormick, who works three night shifts a week plus a fourth shift every other Saturday, arrives home from work at 7:45 a.m.

Adara and her father check their PlumLife calendars every morning by computer, to see what tasks and activities are laid out for the day. (They each get their own individual calendars, which includes information relevant only for them.) Either Mr. or Ms. McCormick puts dinner in a crockpot, then Ms. McCormick leaves to drive with Adara to high school. Mr. McCormick sleeps on days following his night shifts, while Ms. McCormick works most days and many evenings and weekends with individual customers, at sales parties or at weekend craft and gift shows. Throughout the fall, the couple shared chauffeuring duties to get Adara to driver-training sessions and Luke to practices for his two sports teams.