31 Days to Becoming an Organized Mom: Day 30- Stay on Top of Laundry

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If you’ve ever wondered “how can I stay on top of laundry?” then I think you qualify to join the secret mommy club of laundry doers.  Not that the club is really secret, we just all have that question at some point right?!

I wonder all the time when I will one day find “the secret” to staying on top of laundry and I’m still perfecting my system.  I’m not sure there is one perfect secret but rather what works best for you and your family.  I thought I would share some tips to help make doing laundry a bit less tedious and slightly more fun.

Beautify Your Space

It’s a bit easier to want to be in a space, even a work space, when it is a beautiful space.  So make your laundry room {or space} a place where there is beauty. Pick your favorite paint color and add pictures that make you smile. Organize it well.  Laundry rooms can be the last rooms that we pay attention to in our homes because, well, we do the laundry in there, but I think they should be the first place we make beautiful since we almost live in them.  My laundry room was the first room that I painted in my home and even when the mounds of laundry pile up in there, I can find beauty in it.

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Make it Fun

While you are doing laundry turn on some music that you love. Light a lovely smelling candle. Think of the memories made by your kids in each outfit you fold.  Find ways to bring some fun into the mundane of laundry.

Remember it isn’t Supposed to be Easy

We need to be okay with laundry not being easy.  It just isn’t.  There are a rare few who love to do laundry but for most of us it is a tedious chore.  It is hard work and takes discipline.  So be okay that it isn’t going to be easy and commit to doing it…for the rest of your life.

Find YOUR System

There are LOTS of systems out there for staying consistent with laundry.  Find yours.  Find the one that works best for you and your family.  Flylady suggests doing one load a day, every day, from start to finish {washing to putting away} so that you are always on top of laundry.  This doesn’t work so well for me because I need to do more than one load a day, every day, to stay on top of laundry for 8 people. However, doing laundry for one person in my family each day works really well and my big kids help by doing their own laundry on their day.  Find what works for you and stick with it.  There will be a day when you realize you are caught up and it feels great!  Yes, the basket will be full again tomorrow but enjoy today!

Have you found a good system that works for you?  What one thing can you do today to make your laundry room a more beautiful space?
Filed Under: Organization

31 Days to Becoming an Organized Mom: Day 29- A Bit of Dreaming

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How are your 31 Days to Becoming an Organized Mom going? Are you finding peace in a clutter free home?  Are you seeing the beauty that’s already there? We are almost there, almost done with our 31 days of thinking differently and tackling those things which weigh us down.

Today, after just getting back from a blogging conference, I am pretty busy unpacking and getting back to life but I want to keep going with my organizing.  So, I decided to take the day to do a bit of dreaming.  What would it be like to have an organized home?  How much beauty would I find already there? What ways could I make it more beautiful?  So I am committing to spend about 30 minutes of my time today dreaming and planning for my future organizing goals.  I am playing around with Pinterest Boards and working in my home {moving objects, finding beauty}.

Dreaming of an organized and beautiful entry way:

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Dreaming of a large chalkboard for my kitchen:

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Dreaming of splashes of color in my home:

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What are you dreaming of today?  Share your inspiration and dreams in the comments.  I’d love to see your organizing Pinterest Board if you have one!

 

Filed Under: Mommy Tips, Organization

31 Days to Becoming an Organized Mom: Day 28- Printable Chore Checklist for Kids

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Whew! Are you as tired as I am?  I hope you had a great week of organizing and are really seeing progress!  I added a few more printable chore checklist for kids to my arsenal for my kids.  Here they are if you care to download them:

Chore Checklist-Little Boys Bedroom

Chore Checklist-Little Girls Room

Chore Checklist- Big Girl Bedroom

Chore Checklist- Counters

Chore Checklist- loading the dishwasher

Chore Checklist- Tween & Teen Bedroom

Enjoy! Hope you have a lovely and restful day!!

Filed Under: Mommy Tips, Organization

31 Days to Becoming an Organized Mom: Day 27- An Ideal Life

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Occasionally I will think about the crazy busy life I live and feel like dropping everything and moving to some remote village in France.  I long for an ideal life. I imagine it would be quiet and serene and life would be simple.  I would walk to the market and buy fresh bread, butter and cheese everyday.  My kids would wake up early and do chores and work hard because, well, that would be the lifestyle. I would spend my time, while they are at school, gardening and canning and preparing meals.  I would also make time for decorating our home.  It would be simple and it would be a beautiful life.

Back to reality.

I wake up early ever morning with a to do list that is already a mile long. We rush to get through breakfast and get 5 kids off to 3 different schools. My days are filled with grocery shopping at different stores to find the best deals, cleaning a house that has toys scattered in every room, meal planning, running all over the place to find the supplies my kids teachers just asked for that they need tomorrow, paying bills, blogging here and there, taking kids to soccer and volleyball practice and games across town, all with my youngest in tow who doesn’t seem to care for any of it…

And the thought creeps in that I hate this busy life.  I really dread it every day.  There’s little joy in the doing and the details seem draining.

One day, while stopping at the 2nd store on my list and agonizing that there are 3 more to go, I had the thought: What if I could live the simple and beautiful life I long for?  What if being grateful and looking for beauty is the key? What if stopping to survey they beauty and uniqueness of the fresh produce and wondering at the blue sky while I walk back to the car were all I really needed to make my life more beautiful and simple?

What if I chose the things I love over the things I think I need?  What if I made my shopping excursions about what was available from the farmers market and had the guts to throw something together that night with my finds instead of meal planning boring casseroles & crockpot meals every. single. day?

What if I made cooking a more enjoyable by thinking of it as art by living in the moment?  What if I treasured the time I spent doing homework with my kids because it was time I actually had with them to invest in who they will become.  What if our car rides to and fro became beautiful because our conversations turned deep as the music was turned down?

We glorify a busy life now days.  We glorify a mom who “does it all.”  Especially if she still looks good and doesn’t seem tired.  But it is running us ragged. We are overwhelmed and listening to voices that keep us in this crazy cycle of being at whits end with no hope of ever not being there {with the exception of when it has all passed us by and our kids are raising their own kids and following in our example of crazy busy lives}.

I wonder at a life with margin; extra space that allows for beauty. It seems thrilling and hopeful and unachievable at the same time.

But it is possible.  It is possible in the laying down of caring about what anyone else thinks of you {and this is really the key}.  It is possible in becoming a hunter for true beauty and a purger of clutter {of things and appointments and tangents}.  It is possible in going after the great things and letting the good things just pass you by.

My calling as a mom is shifting.  I used to feel called to just survive but now I feel called to thrive.  I’m just beginning to figure out what this means.

How about you? Are you just surviving? What can you do to begin to thrive?

Filed Under: Mommy Tips, Organization

31 Days to Becoming an Organized Mom: Day 26- Scheduling Chores for Kids

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Scheduling kids chores is a great way to teach them to get and stay organized.  If kids are used to completing tasks on a regular basis it sets them up for understanding the good results that a schedule can bring. I highly recommend scheduling your kids chores and randomly having them do them.

Start with a list of chores that you want your kids to learn to do and do well. Then figure out what time of day works best for them to complete them.  You can have a daily schedule as well as a weekly schedule.  If you have multiple kids you can rotate the chores every week so they have some variety.

In my house, our kids have chores after breakfast, after lunch, before dinner and after dinner.  I know it seems like a lot but with everyone working together it really isn’t.  It’s basically cleaning up after mealtime and cleaning up the day’s activities before dinner.

We also assign a bigger weekly chore {according to the child’s age}.  This is usually dusting multiple rooms, or straightening an entire room for the little ones {5 to 9 years old} and dusting, vacuuming and mopping entire rooms for my older kids {10 and up}. They love it! Ha! I hope you didn’t think that was true.  They don’t love it but I know it’s so good for them to learn to work and to follow a schedule.  They’ll thank me one day {am I dreaming?}.

Do you have a system in place for your kids? Any tips or advice?

Filed Under: Mommy Tips, Organization
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