Final ideas from friends - ORGANIZATION edition

HERE are the last ideas from my friends (again no editing by me). These ideas are for organizing my world. I have really done many changes and plan to make a few more as time permits. I really enjoyed when my house was super clean for Thanksgiving and want to work toward more clean days!

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  Purchase white underwear and colored underwear for your family to avoid the ":no clean undies in the drawer" dilemma. If you have some colors, some whites, then clean ones will come out of every load. And at our house, it takes longer for me to have a full load of whites since they are small socks, underwear, undershirt stuff.

· White Socks: Since I have all boys, and they are close in age but wear different size socks, I purchase Target's gold toe socks…they have gold lines/stripes around the toes for different sizes. The oldest has" 3-liner", the middle boys "2 lines" and the youngest "1 line". This allows the kids to also sort and fold their own socks. I also have a giant sock basket (actually 2): one for unfolded clean socks and another for matched/folded socks.

· Paper Clutter: I keep a clip board in the pantry in the kitchen which holds ONLY the school lunch calendar and each of the boys school calendars. Every day the boys can look and read the menu and let me know if they want hot or cold lunch. Since we refer to their school calendars frequently and for a month at at time, they are right there too.

· Paper Clutter: I have a basket that only holds the kids artwork/school work that I may want to keep. The best stuff goes on the frig or wherever. The boring stuff goes in the recycle bin ( which I keep a paper grocery sack next to the trash can for) when they are not looking. Later I will sort through the artwork.

· Paper Clutter: This is my newest system: I made a list of all the different activities we are involved in that I collect papers from first off. Once I realized how much crap we have going on, it made me feel much better about how much clutter I was collecting. ( F&F, NE Elementary, Preschool, Boys Sports, Cub Scouts, My Mary Kay Business, Relig., Ed, etc.) Then I got a file thing that sits on my desk where I can throw everything quickly and also find it quickly. This system take a little work, but it is helping some.

· Schedule: I use Outlook on my computer and am able to send it to my husband's work where we can add things to calendar. Both of our phones also have our calendars so we can refer to them all the time.

· I keep a laundry basket in my kitchen as well.

· I put stuff on the steps that needs to go up or down so I can take it with me the next time I go that direction. Hope to teach my kids to start noticing their crap on the steps and take it up themselves!!!

· I have those Monday/ Tuesday /Wednesday things in the kids closets and put together outfits so they can dress themselves.

· Plan your day in advance.

· Good babysitters - you need to start getting some babysitters into your house so you can get a break once in a while. Especially while your husband is gone. When Brian was deployed the best thing I ever did was to continue doing jewelry shows where I got away once in a while in the evening. News flash - our kids need a break from us as well! Join a book club or a women's group or something that you HAVE to attend so there's no backing out at the last minute.

· Have you heard of flylady.org? Check it out. I've read her book - have it if you want to look at it. She's ALL about routines. If you're struggling with something it's probably because you have no routine to handle it. I was that way with grocery shopping. HATED it. But now with the grocery game I know I'm shopping either Thursday, Friday, Saturday and somehow it seems more bearable.

· We are just starting this so it's only mildly successful (not a routine yet!). We do a 'roundup' every night and each child picks up 5 things and puts them where they belong - does not have to be their own items. We do an allowance for our kids so doing this goes on their 'allowance' sheet and they earn money for it. But you could do other incentives - stay up an extra 5 minutes, an extra story, stickers, a bedtime snack, etc. It's amazing what a difference that makes in the house! If mornings are better, you could do it in the morning before they eat breakfast or right after school before they get a snack.

· I also have a routine where I do laundry every M,W,Fr. Another thing I was struggling with was getting laundry done. Now I just know - it's Monday, time to do Laundry.

· Lastly - who cares! Who cares if your house is not perfect or laundry isn't always done on time. Cut yourself some slack, give yourself a break. You can have everything you want you just can't have it all at the same time. Someday you'll look around at your spotless, toyless house and think, gosh I miss having those kids around! Don't make their strongest memory of you be about perfection or stress over the messy kitchen. That stuff doesn't matter in the long run.

· Organization- family calendar, morning, after school, and night time routines

· Papers: I have one big computer paper box for each kid to save their best artwork. I only save original stuff, and sort through as I go to keep the number of papers manageable. Aside from that, we have a standing file that we put our mail into right after it arrives with these categories: kids, ours, social, bills, coupons/gift cards.

· Getting organized: I'm trying to think through my day the night before and put the stuff I'll need on errands into the car, pack the bags, etc. I'm not very motivated to do this in the evening and usually run out of gas before I do!

· I toss all of D*'s "art work" the minute it comes home and put the "to do" things in the top shelf of my plastic paper trays

· Also, someone told me to only touch a piece of paper ONCE. I can't say I always follow that rule, but I try to. When you pick up a piece of paper, either mail, school stuff, or whatever, immediately file it away, fill it out, put it back in the bag, or whatever is needed. Don't lay it on the counter or pile it in a pile because then you will have to pick it up again which would be touching it twice. I can't remember how many times, average, a piece of paper is touched before it really is where it's suppose to be, but it would surprise you. It really does help if I can stick to it!!!

· A new thing I am just trying.....got a three ring binder with some plastic sleeves. I put in things like the schedule to the nature center, the zoo newsletter, one folder with restaurant menus and coupons,....anything I want to save for the short term, but don't want to pile up. Following my mom's model, I keep a steno notebook with "to do" lists, things that people tell me on the phone, etc so I don't lose little papers. I haven't figured out what to do with "recipes to try", but I think I am going to stop clipping since I don' try many. Ones I get/receive on email Is age in word documents for future reference. For toys, we have more than we need. My friend and I doing toy swapping which works great since it's like getting new toys when you swap AND when you get the old ones back.

· School calendars go on the inside of the pantry door – my kids eat hot lunch every day so I don't have great hints there except to make them the night before and store them in the fridge. Papers get looked at once and the junk mail never even makes it in the house – we have community boxes, so it gets sorted and recycled before it hits the back door.

· Toys are all supposed to stay off the main floor (with the exception of the ones stored in the toy box here). Everything else is sorted into labeled smaller totes and stored in the basement credenza. Theoretically only one bin per child should be out at a time, but we're still working on that one.

· D* also has a monthly calendar on his bulletin board that we update the "long term" projects, practices, Mass serving & Safety Patrol on. This seems to be helping him keep on top of how much "extra" stuff he has to do.

· As for the toys, I don't know that I'm much help there, but when M* was little, I never put out all her toys at once. Too overwhelming for small children. Instead, I divided them up into 3 or 4 big bins, and rotated them every 1-2 weeks or so. Some people refer to this as "blessing" the toys. Kids are so excited about seeing old favorites come back out to play again after they've been MIA for a month or so!