With all the organizing we’ve been doing don’t forget to rest. We need breaks in our work. Today I am taking time off to rest and be fully present with my family. I’ll see you back here tomorrow with more organizing ideas.
31 Days to Becoming an Organized Mom: Day 7: Don’t Forget to Rest
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31 Days to Becoming an Organized Mom: Day 6- Controlling Clutter
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Are you seeing any progress on your journey of 31 Days to Becoming an Organized Mom? I sure am! These little steps are making a big difference. Today, I thought I’d share some of the ways that I have found to be successful in controlling clutter for my family. With 6 kids, there are some things that really help me out and I think they may benefit you and your family as well.
Keep a Family Calendar
We have a large dry erase calendar in our Kitchen that we can change out Monthly {I purchased this one on clearance from Pottery Barn a few years back}. My older daughters help me keep it current and we all add our events to it. This helps me to feel a little more sane on the days when we are going in 8 different directions. One of the ways I organize it is by having a different color marker for each family member. So when my oldest has an art class we write it with her blue color and when the youngest has a doctors appointment we write it in orange. This method works very well for us.
I do also use Google Calendars and share with my husband but I find that the calendar on the wall is worth the extra time because I am a visual person and when I see it all laid out for me every day I feel way more on top of everything.
Baskets Everywhere
Kids seem to breed clutter. I have some clutter controllers in my home that help with the everyday messes. I have a large basket {with a lid on it} at the bottom of my stairs which is also in my family room {This particular basket came from HomeGoods, which is one of my favorite stores ever!}. This basket is for collecting escaped toys and items that need to be put away upstairs. We collect items in there and once a week we clean everything out and put it all away.
We also have baskets for shoes {This one’s from Target}. When you have six kids there are potentially 12 socks and shoes kicked off every day. We are working on teaching them to take them off and put them away right away but I have always felt like this is an uphill battle. That’s why I have a basket by the front door and near the garage door to collect shoes & socks to be put away at a certain time of day. These baskets also work well for mittens and scarves on cold days.
A Place for Everything
We have several hook racks in our home {I made this one from a board and hooks that I purchased from Michael’s}. They are great for holding towels, purses by the door, bags of items to return to the store, backpacks, etc… It’s worth the effort to teach kids to use them to keep floors clutter free.
Crazy Paper Piles No More
Kids seem to get paper from everywhere they go. We get notes from school, homework papers, activity sheets from church, coloring pages and more! Too often these papers end up in piles and I cannot find what I need when I need it. Enter the hanging files {I found this one at Target in the office supplies}. The kind I have found has exactly 6 folders and this works out to be one for each kid for me. I have it hiding in my pantry in the kitchen and this is where papers go. This eliminates so much frustration over where to find papers when you need them. We clean it out every couple weeks to make sure we are on top of everything.
What Can I Eat?
“What can I eat?” is a famous question in my house and is usually prefaced with “I’m SO hungry!” I was getting frustrated with hearing this from 6 different kids coming home from school at different times each day. So I got a big basket and put it in the pantry and it is the “Snack Box.” My kids know what is in it is what they are allowed to have for snacks. I have also made sure they know to only eat one serving size of whatever the snack is that they choose.
That’s it for now. Hopefully these ideas will get your organizing juices going and you can tackle some of the ways clutter builds in your home.
Tell me your tips too! I’d love to know what you do to tackle and eliminate clutter.
31 Days to Becoming an Organized Mom: Day 5- Life’s Curveballs
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Today has been anything but like what I had planned. I was going to have an incredibly productive day at home organizing, but instead I am sitting in a Barnes and Noble reading books to my little girl and typing this post out on my phone while I wait for my van to be fixed. It was supposed to take 40 minutes but 4 hours and $400 later I’m still waiting.
I’m attempting to have a good attitude about all of this but can’t help but feel disappointed about not checking anything off my to do list or furthering my home organizing. But life happens and will continue to throw us curveballs.
It is because of days like this that I strongly desire to get and stay organized. These days will be less painful if I am more on top of life. It’s a journey though and I’ll get there. I just have to remember that it takes time to get there.
How’s your week been? Have you had an curveballs thrown at you this week?
31 Days to Becoming an Organized Mom: Day 4 Eliminating Distractions
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Eliminating the distractions is such a big step in becoming an organized mom. Distractions keep us from being as productive as we can. Some distractions are hard to break free from but there are some ways to help avoid distractions that will rob you of your time.
2 Distractions to Eliminate that will Save you Precious Time.
I like to get mail. There is something rather thrilling about a shiny new catalog addressed to me with pretty pictures and things that I would love to have. But there’s a problem. These catalogs stack up and I feel the weight of them each day as I pass the pile. I need to get to them but I keep putting it off. When I do go through them I don’t want to get rid of them because they are filled with things that I want to purchase one day when I can afford it. But, hey, would I have ever even thought I needed that “thing” if I hadn’t received this catalog in the mail that shoved it in my face and pretty much yelled at me “you didn’t know you needed this but now you cannot live without it.” What if I never got the catalog? Would I ever even miss the thing that I thought I really needed?
It is for these reasons that it has become easier for me to say no to these distractions. I have begun to unsubscribe from catalogs. Instead I only see things when I am searching for them specifically. Chances are good that if I don’t need it I wouldn’t be looking for it anyway and wouldn’t need a catalog to point it out to me.
This also works for email. Sometimes I feel like I will miss something if I am not getting all of the store sales and deal emails. That’s where they get you though. You think you’ll miss out and they get to influence you to buy things you didn’t even realize you wanted/needed. Think about how much time you have spent browsing a site after getting an email about a “big” sale. Perhaps sometimes you do find a deal but often you just waste precious time browsing through stuff that you don’t want or can’t afford. It can be hard to let go but I’ve also found that if there’s really a great sale that I shouldn’t miss my friends are pretty great about making me aware of it.
I am pretty sure that, by {mostly} eliminating catalogs and sale emails from my life, I have saved hours a week that I can use on more important things. Seeing the lost hours return makes it all the easier to unsubscribe.
How about you? What distractions suck your time? Do you have any tips for getting some of that precious time back?
31 Days to Becoming an Organized Mom: Day 3 Where to Start in Your Home
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I should have done this 31 Days to Becoming an Organized Mom series a long time ago. It is really working for me and I am starting to really get more organized. I am more than a little excited about this! Yesterday I talked about where to start which is really all about your mindset. Today I am talking about where to start practically in your home.
Where to Start When it All Seems Overwhelming
If you are anything like me then it may be hard for you to even start getting things organized when everything seems to be a disorganized mess. I know that organizers will tell you to just start somewhere and work on a little bit at a time but I often want to tackle a whole project and get frustrated when I don’t have time to complete it. So, I really put a lot of thought into where to start organizing. Since I need to spend time in each room in my home I struggled with where to start. Finally it came to me.
Start in the room that you spend the most time in.
This is the room that the family hangs out in the most. When this room gets cleaned, organized, and even a little more thought put into decorating, then it feels so peaceful. And, like icing on the cake, when this room is done it seems to automatically make me want to extend the beauty and peace to other parts of the home.
So there you have it. Short and simple. Start where your family spends most of it’s time. This may be the living room or family room for you or even then kitchen or dinning room. For us it is our living room and it is starting to shine {pictures to come}.
Where are you at in your organizing journey? Are you able to work in small chunks of time or do you dive in and work until it’s finished?
Find all of the 31 Days to Becoming an Organized Mom posts here.
