"Order is individual. Some minds are built to create pristine stacks and others have a natural urge to sprawl and display."
"One person's mess is merely another person's filing system."
First, we learned some ways to organize our home:
- Everything has a home: make sure there is a place (a "home") for everything
- Evaluate your attitude towards "stuff" (book recommendation: "Throw Away 50 Things")
- Make organizing a priority
Where to start?
- Control the Incoming - create a system/files for incoming papers, forms, mail, bills, etc
- Categories for Sorting Papers are: toss, to pay, to do, to read, to file, unsure
- Room by Room - go through the house room by room and evaluate your organizational needs. First, assess what you have and need to organize and then go out to buy bins/baskets/racks.
- Categories for Sorting Things: Give away/sell, Toss, Save, Unsure (save for 1-2 months and then sort again).
Some practical ideas to use with our kids include having a "gem jar" (get 30 gems/rocks/pennies and a jar, pick a chore you want your child to work on, they put a gem in each time/day they complete that chore, and get to pick a reward once jar is full), chore charts, the "one thing in, one thing out" rule (getting rid of one old toy for each new toy your child gets for birthday/Christmas/other gifts), bulletin boards/pegs for backpacks, school papers, etc, and keeping an open bin in your child's closet where you put their clothes as they outgrow them.
Next, we learned about organizing our time:
The key is that time, like money, needs to be budgeted. Look at your day or week and try to determine what things in your life really distract or draw from your time (is it TV, computer/email/Facebook, something else?).
Some practical tips for saving time:
- Meal Planning
- Keep cleaning supplies in bathroom and clean it while kids are in the tub
- Clutter Collector: grab a box/basket/bin, start in one room, gather things that don't belong and should go in other rooms, move to next room, empty what goes in that room, repeat to all rooms, find a home for remaining items
- Schedule your Time: for example, if you want to go to the gym 2x a week, pick out those two days, let your spouse and kids know you will be going to the gym on those two days so everyone is prepared, and then go.
Hope you have learned some new ways to organize your home and your time. Join us for our next meeting (March 20th), when we will learn how to be "Confident Women".
