Getting Organized Day 10

Do you have 15 minutes a day to spend on a simple task that will make your home life run easier. Here's how I'm doing it. With a little help of Home Storage Solutions and their 52 week challenge, I am going to get things organized a little at a time.

 Today's Task: 

Declutter everyday tablecloths, napkins, placemats

I have two tablecloths, no napkins, and a few placemats. This was pretty easy to declutter. I kept the tablecloths and got rid of a few placemats that I just don't need. 

Keep pile

Donate pile with added bonus find

 

Getting Organized Day 9

Do you have 15 minutes a day to spend on a simple task that will make your home life run easier. Here's how I'm doing it. With a little help of Home Storage Solutions and their 52 week challenge, I am going to get things organized a little at a time.

Today's Task: 

Clear off kitchen table

Since moving into our home almost 4 years ago, the table has been keep pretty clear. We eat at the table at least 2 of our meals.

Most days my table actually looks like this: 

 One area in my kitchen that is usually easy to keep clean.

Getting Organized Day 7

Do you have 15 minutes a day to spend on a simple task that will make your home life run easier. Here's how I'm doing it. With a little help of Home Storage Solutions and their 52 week challenge, I am going to get things organized a little at a time.

Today's Task: 

De clutter and organize kitchen sink area

I did this awhile ago because I was so tired of having too much around the sink. When we got a new faucet, it had a soap dispenser so we filled it with hand soap. The dish soap went under the sink. All my little things are in a small container and my husband got a small hanging basket for over the cabinet under the sink.

Getting Organized Day 6

 Do you have 15 minutes a day to spend on a simple task that will make your home life run easier. Here's how I'm doing it. With a little help of Home Storage Solutions and their 52 week challenge, I am going to get things organized a little at a time. 

Day 6 task is decluttering kitchen utensils and silverware drawer. I didn't think I'd actually get rid of a lot. Surprise, Surprise! 

Here is what my lid and medicine drawer looked after I cleaned (I forgot a before picture). 

I put many lids on the cups and on our top shelf since we typically use them when little ones are over. I had a vary large pile of medicine dispensers. Every time we get a new bottle of something, there is a medicine dropper and it just kept getting tossed in the drawer. Lots of room for a few little items that were crowed into another drawer. 

The drawer that was crammed full of odds and ends looked like this: 

After moving this into the other drawer and throwing things away, it looked like this:

Nice and clean and no digging for things anymore.

Lastly was the large utensil drawer that has to be a certain way for it to close and not get stuck. Here's what it looks like and it wouldn't shut at the time of the picture:

And since I had room in another small drawer, here it is all organized: 

It was nice being able to discard things we didn't need and wipe out the drawers so they are nice and clean. It's the little things in life that make your day.

Getting Organized Day 3 and 4

 Do you have 15 minutes a day to spend on a simple task that will make your home life run easier. Here's how I'm doing it. With a little help of Home Storage Solutions and their 52 week challenge, I am going to get things organized a little at a time. 


The weekend organization was super easy. To get caught up here's what you need to do:

1. Make a to do list. I made one, laminated it, and put it in my household binder.
2. Declutter old Christmas cards or something else. 

Here's what I decluttered as I put away the Christmas tree. 

If I haven't used it in the past few years, I threw or donated it. Most items were my mom's old toss off or dollar items from our first Christmas.

Creating My Household Binder

Well to get a jump on my goals for 2014, the last week of December I was spent putting together my Household Binder. I keep adding as I go, when I find something lacking. There are some really great household binder printables out there, but none really seemed to fit as a whole. I took one here, one there and feel pretty confident with what I currently have.

From organzinghomelife.com I took the daily and weekly chore chart. This helps to break up my day so I'm not looking at the clock and trying to do everything as I'm trying to cook supper. I also have a couple chores each day that need to be completed and there is usually enough time in the morning to complete them. I lamented this after creating my daily and weekly chores, so I could just check things off with dry erase markers everyday.

http://www.organizinghomelife.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Blank-Chore-List-Snapshot.png

I also took the monthly zones from organizinghomelife.com. In my house there are 4 zones that need a lot of work: laundry room, bedrooms, kitchen, and my sewing room. Small chores that need to be done monthly are listed in each zone. This I also laminated making it easy to check off and reuse.


http://www.organizinghomelife.com/archives/4433

Because we have a lot of insurance policies, I also printed those and the password and username sheet. There are many more to chose from just check out Organizing Home Life.

Over on Money Saving Mom I printed off a menu planner and a monthly/ semi-monthly cleaning list. These were both laminated, making checking off easy with dry erase markers.

On imom.com I printed off their cute calender to keep appointments and schedules organized.
 


I printed off my 2014 goals and my book list for 2014 so I can cross things off as I complete them. I also lamented a page to write my weekly goals on. I also put a notebook in to take notes for anything but specifically for blog ideas and organization.

Last but not least, I printed off a prayer journal from AmyBayliss.com. I love it because it is simple, but pretty. It has a space for date, person, fulfillment date, prayer request and any scripture that might be beneficial. 

My prayer is that I use my household binder to keep me organized and motivated to keep my house and family well taken care of. If you haven't made a household binder, I strongly encourage you to take a look at what's out there and see what might work for you.

Get Organized!

 

The second session I attended at Hearts at Home was titled "The Get Yourself Organized Project". This was a really nice session with basic advice for those of us who are really tired of trying to be Martha. I love how she defined organization: "Organization is getting the things done that are important." 

Her ideas are pretty simple. There are two things you need, a system and accountability.

She gives 8 simple rules for getting organized:

1. Work Backwards: Break up a task so that you don't have to do everything at the last minute. Give yourself time to complete tasks and do them on days/nights that are less stressful. This is a great concept to teach your children when it comes to school work. 
2. Apply Pressure Where Needed: What makes you feel the craziest? Which room do you hate to walk into? If you feel better having a clean kitchen focus there, if it's the bathroom then focus on that room instead.
3. Wait For a Path to Appear: There is no perfect solution to organize your craziness. Take a look at what your problem is and where the path is. Her example was shoes in the entryway. To solve the problem she bought a shelf and put it out of the way to hide it from visitors. Well that of course didn't work. Her husband suggested a basket by the door where shoes end up. I'm sure you can guess that it was much more successful. There was a path already and the basket was just placed on the path, where the shelf was trying to create a new one.
4. Never Organize Alone: It seems like common sense but use your family. This is a great opportunity to teach your kids responsibility and how to be part of the family.
5. Treat Your Home Like A Grown Up Kindergarten Room: Have you ever been in a kindergarten classroom before? EVERYTHING is labeled. Why? So the children can do for themselves. I organize and my kids and husband unorganize, why? I know where things go but they don't.
6. 3 Boxes 2 Bags: I've heard similar strategies before. Set the timer for 15 minutes and work on one room. Grab your 3 boxes and 2 bags.
• GREEN box: give away
• Purple box: put back
• Orange box: other rooms
• 1 Garbage bag
• 1 Recycle bag
7. Make a Decision Even If Its Wrong: If you are unsure about an item, pretty soon that one item starts multiplying. If you don't need it or don't use it, get rid of it. You will always be able to replace it later.
8. It's Your House You Make the Rules: As a mother of 3 preschoolers I am seeing the importance of house rules when it comes to cleaning and organizing. Some parents might not make their kids clean up their messes but in my house, if you make the mess then you can clean it up.

It was a nice session that reminded me just to be simple in cleaning and organizing. There are great blogs out there helping you get organized but it can be overwhelming. What I took away from this was to make things simple for myself and family. Help them learn how to organize and stay organized. I don't need to do everything on my own. This is our house and we ALL need to be responsible for taking care of it. Nothing was mind blowing but gentle reassurance that I can do better and I'm already doing ok.

For more ideas check out http://www.kathilipp.com. There is so many great posts on her website and several books available for purchase including The Get Yourself Organized Project.

How To Stay Organized With All Those Kids Clothes

With three kids under the age of five, it has been a struggle to keep clothes under control. If you have young kids you know how fast they grow out of everything. This past year I have started being able to move clothes from one closet to another but with the extreme changes in weather Minnesota brings, not all clothes stay out all year long. 

If I don't stay on top of clothes this is what it looks like:

 For my older two, when they outgrow clothes or we change seasons I get out the tub for their sizes and put it right in the laundry room. As the clothes come out of the dryer or off the clothes line, they go right in the designated tub. I start doing this as the weather starts changing. After a few weeks almost all the clothes are put away.  

I have also learned that the best time to change sizes are when the seasons change. Since my oldest was two she has been sizing up as we enter summer. I have the clothes stored in their rooms and under their beds for the next change of sizes. I can do this a month or two before size changes allowing me to better see what the needs might be for the next size of clothes.

For my youngest, I do something similar. The main difference being that her clothes will be gotten rid of in the near future. 

This fall I had my first garage sale. I've explored other options but with all the clothes I have currently to sell, a garage sale was the best option (it also forces me to go through the house and grab things we don't need). 

It can be time consuming to price everything and that is why many chose not have one. Since everything up to 18 months is already priced and in tubs, most of the work is done already.

As my youngest out grows her clothes I take an evening and sort through them. Soak some that have stains, throw away some that are in horrible shape, and grab a few items that I love and want to hand down to my future nieces. Then I start pricing clothes that are left. There are usually one to two tubs per size, so it takes about 30 minutes if I'm not interrupted.

Our town does two city wide garage sales, one in May and the other in September. My goal is to have two a year. I know there will always be things to sell for the next several years. With everything priced ahead of time, it will take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to set up my sale.

Organization: Bill Paying

If you are anything like I used to be when it came to bill paying, you need help organizing your bills. I didn't often mail things late but the bills would sometimes get lost. I would stack them on the counter and then my husband would look through them and they would never be put back the same way. The envelopes would be missing and I would have to sift through everything to find them again. 

We tried an organizer, which quickly got filled up with just about everything. Bills would be scattered from the organizer, the entry way table it sat on, to the kitchen counter. It was just never organized and it was costing us money for those times we were late becuase the bill was misplaced. 

Finally I found something that really helped me out. Echoes of Laughter gave a really easy way to organize and make sure all bills are paid. I took her idea and made it work for us.

I took an old binder left over from my college years and some left over page protectors. The front cover I put the check book, all unpaid bills, and Post It's in case I need to write down anything. 

I picked up a free calendar from our utilities office to write down when everything is due. Since I use the Gazelle budget from Dave Ramsey, I write down any bills that we have automatic bill pay in addition to those I have to write checks for and when I need to apply for my husbands unemployment (he is seasonal so it is only for a few months and I sometimes need that reminder). I sit down every Monday and pay all bills that are due the next week or two and fill in our Gazelle budget. Once they are paid I use my highlighters to cross it off, so I can just glance and know what needs to be paid.

The page protectors I use to orgainze our paid bills. Most bills only need to be kept for a month. I put last months bills in the burn box and it keeps my filing cabinet cleaned out. The back pocket has everything that does need to be kept and filed. You should keep pay stubs, receipts for taxes, charitable donations for taxes, and one to three months of bank statements.

This has been so great. I feel so organized and we have not misplaced any bill since starting this. It is so simple and takes a few minutes every week to pay bills.

Organizing Your Time: Make yourself a cleaning schudule

     I find the hardest thing to do as a stay at home mom is organizing your time. At the end of the day I am always thinking of more I would have liked to get done.  
     Being a stay at home mom doesn't mean sitting on the couch watching TV and eating chips, like my husband tends to think. My day is spent picking up toys, clothes, and other messes, cleaning, breaking up fights, and trying to keep my girls entertained.
      I found myself waking up with a long of list of things to get done and never feeling like I accomplished anything. I spent my day trying to figure out when I last mopped the floors or cleaned the bathroom.
      One day I came across a cleaning calendar on pintrest. It was just what I was looking for to organinze my cleaning and time. I had to tweak it of course to better fit my needs. You can check out the orginal calendar at Tips and Pix.

My Cleaning Schedule

Morning: Wipe bathroom sinks and counters
         Empty dishwasher
            Put dishes away
             Do one load of laundry

Evening: Load dishwasher
         Hand wash dishes
         Wipe kitchen counters and table
         Quick sweep/spot clean kitchen floor
         Pick up toys

Weekly:
  Monday:    Vacuum and wash bedding
  Tuesday:   Mop bathroom floors and tile in                basement
  Wednesday: Scrub toilets and bath tubs 
  Thursday:  Mop kitchen floors and entry way
  Friday:    Swing Day  

Swing Day Activities:
  1. Wipe down furniture and cabinets 
  2. Scrub oven, microwave, and fridge
  3. Wipe down wall, baseboards, and doors
  4. Clean laundry room
  5. Clean out van
  6. Dusting and windows

     I have found this schedule to be very effective in actually getting things done. I have a few things to do everyday and since everything gets done each week my house stays fairly clean. 
     I love the idea of a swing day. There are things that don't need to be done every week and most activities don't take long and I can do more than one. I can also get my kids involved in washing windows, dusting, and wiping things down.