Simplifying Your Life
People think home organization is stressful and confining...the truth is, that once you are organized, you have more freedom and less stress! Let me help you free up your life by organizing and simplifying a few things to give you more time to relax and enjoy the things that really matter!
Attacking the Witching
Hour
–
The best defense is a good offense!!!!!
I
don’t know about your house, but my house has a time
of day that becomes frazzled all at once. It seems
somewhere between 5ish – 6ish each night the tension
in the house begins to thicken…The children are
hungry, the youngest is cranky...the phone begins to ring
off the hook, dinner needs to get started (or it is time to
leave for soccer practice and pick up dinner on the way),
the final load of laundry needs to be put away, the dog is
chewing on you daughter’s last pacifier, and the boys
down the block are ringing the doorbell in hopes of working
on the giant “crater” they are digging in your
backyard…oh…and they need a bag of popcorn to
get started! And without fail…all this seems to come
down at the same time of night! This time seemed like a
huge bear attacking my sanity and me, and though it is a
short period of time it felt like it took over the morale
of the entire day. Many have coined this time for
mom’s “The witching Hour” and rightfully
so…because at this time of day, even the sweetest
moms can morph into the nastiest of witches! (click title
to read more!)
Closet Cleaning and Organizing
101!!!
When getting ready to tackle a closet all at one time - it
is important to have a block of time to work on it. Maybe
farm the kids out to friends for the morning or use your
little one’s nap time (if they are long
nappers)
Getting Organized Room by Room:
Shoes!
The
Closet should not be a black hole that sucks thing in never
to be found again, nor should it be a space in your house
upon leaving one might need a tetanus shot. Believe it or
not, closets can be a wonderfully practical, useful and
functional places in your home. But so much of the time
they turn into an extension of the family junk drawer. In
the next few weeks we are going to look into closets and
begin turning them into positive spaces in our homes.
Ready?
10 DAILY TIME SAVING
HABITS
By
Marcia Ramsland, author of
Simplify Your Life: Get Organized and Stay that
Way!
This List Spiral –
Don’t leave home without it!
I
have already mentioned earlier the idea of using a brightly
colored note card to keep you daily lists on (it is the
post titled “Respecting Your List”) but what
about all the other things you have to remember…like
your dates and times for class reader at your child’s
school, the thank you’s you have to write, or that
“toy wish list” for you son. These are
important things to keep listed, but where??? If you are
not a list maker then you will not be moved to implement
the following idea, but if you are like me, then you will
love the consolidation of lists into what I call “The
Spiral.”
Contain the
Madness
One
of the best ways to reduce stress is to reduce clutter and
one of the best ways to reduce clutter is to toss it, but
if some clutter-inducing things cannot be tossed, therefore
you much “contain the madness.” This means take
the “untossable stuff” and make it
presentable…this comes through acquiring a variety
of containers in which to present them!
What in the World is for
Dinner?
We
have all been there…the dinner hour has arrived, the
family is hungry and you are staring into an
“indifferent” pantry with absolutely no idea
what you are going to serve for dinner. All of us struggle
with preparing meals on a regular basis, and it becomes
such a challenge, frustration and stress inducer. There is
a solution, and it can be simple…plan ahead. Once it
becomes routine to plan your menus and your shopping list,
you will wonder how you ever managed before.
The Little Gnome in our
House
In
my house, I am certain that there is a little gnome who
lives under the stairs…and when no one is looking he
runs through the house throwing, tossing and disheveling
all that he encounters…He opens the cabinets and
leaves them open, he takes trash and places it all around
the house in inconspicuous places, he fills my sink with
dirty dishes that I have no memory whatsoever of using, he
leaves half full sippy cups and random articles of clothing
laying around the stairs and the floor …and to top
it off…he even plucks my dog’s hair and leaves
little clumps of it everywhere! And, he does all this in
what seems like only minutes since I last picked up the
house!!! How does he do that?
Paper Boot
Camp
Ok...this
post of Simplify Your life is going to be super easy and
super fun!!!! I want you to take this week and make it
paper boot camp!!!! Admit it; you have WAY too much paper
clutter in your house…from old magazines, to school
and neighborhood newsletters, catalogs, and junk mail!!!!!
Start in the farthest corner of your home and work you way
through it.
Guilt Free Down
Time
Years
ago, I realized that I was frustrated that I never read
a good novel, or flipped through a girly magazine, or
caught that Oprah that everyone was talking about and to
this day I still don’t know who Dr. Dreamy is,
except he is on that new hospital show! BUT…in
the midst of that frustration I realized that I had no
one to blame but myself…I could try to blame the
role of motherhood, or wifehood, but then I began
thinking…If I am going to be a professional then
I need to understand that professionals allow themselves
time off, they take a lunch or an off period or a
sabbatical or even a vacation to recoup and resettle in
order to be more effective at their profession. We I am
a professional mom and I need to allow myself the same
much needed breaks that other allow themselves. (Click
the title to read more)
Lost and
Found!
At
this stage of my life, I find that when I go somewhere I
often leave a trail…meaning…I can trace where
I have been by what I have left behind…my son's
baseball cleats at Logan’s house, my daughter's
bathing suit at my sister-in-law's pool (since last
summer), my sunglasses in the dressing room, my
daughter’s sippy cup in the grocery cart, and my
brain in last year!!! And I am ever so delighted when
someone brings my “left item” to me at our next
meeting or their next convenience. (Click the title to read
more)
Taking on the
Kitchen!
I
strained my brain this week trying to find a new post for
Simplify Your Life, and then I realized that I was thinking
too big. I have covered most of the big things, like
routines, paperwork, the witching hour, list making,
etc…then I realized that there are so many small
ways to continue in this endeavor of simplification that go
unnoticed! So I am going to start a new series…we
are going to dissect our homes and with a fine toothed comb
to learn ways to make them into havens of simplicity! To
begin…THE KITCHEN!!! (Click the title to read
more)
Time to
Minimalize!
Ok…it
is 2007...time to Minimalize!!! What do I mean??? I mean it
is time to go through your house and see what has not
budged throughout the entire year of 2006…that TV
your husband placed in the closet under the stairs with
every intention of calling a repairman. Or the fax machine
(your got at a garage sale) that you just know you will use
if you figure out how to work it, that lip liner that you
bought in 2005 that you have not even had to re-sharpen
yet, that baby bag that you just had to have but is still
on the top shelf in you two year old’s closet, the
size 4t clothes in you 7 year old son’s closet, and
that third coffee maker (covered with dust) that you were
sure you might need if you threw a big party! (click title
to read more!)
"Power Through Your
Paperwork!"
By Marcia Ramsland from Simplify Your
Time
The
average household receives fifteen pieces of mail a day.
Five of those are junk mail and can be tossed immediately.
Likely, five more are bills or important papers you can
file appropriately. And the other five, which I call the
"dangling five," start a paper pile on the kitchen
counter.(click title to read more!)
A little chore
– A lot less stress
Ok…Simplifying
Your Life will not come with a little sacrifice…many
people think that to simplify one’s life it means
skipping some daily “chores” in order to spend
time doing other “duties.” WRONG –
Actually just the opposite happens…(click title to
read more!)
Respecting Your
Lists
I
don’t know about you but I am a total list maker!!!
It comes with being an organization freak…I am the
crazy person that actually writes stuff on the list that I
have already made and then I immediately cross it off...I
love the feeling of crossing things off a list!!!!! It
brings me joy!!!! (click title to read
more!)
Guilt Free Clutter
Nooks!
We
all have them…those areas of “allowed
madness”. Mine is in my closet, my back door, and a
few other “clutter nooks” They are the places
that you allow yourself to gather clutter! They are the
little nooks that random household things go in when the
miscellaneous-ness of them is too much to bear - like loose
coins, or the bookmark you got as a party favor, or that
Pottery barn kids catalog you are waiting to flip through
… (click title to read more!)
Laundry Days
– Plural and Established
I divide my Laundry up into three days a week…I used
to have a laundry day, but I often felt overwhelmed by the
mountain of darks, whites, and delicates that piled up in
front of me and threw it all in on cold. I also never ended
up putting much of it away as it was too much to put up in
each room and into it’s proper drawer or cubby! So,
it sat there most of the week and we dressed out of the
pile of clean clothes sitting on a dirty
floor…yuck… (click title to read more!)
Have you ever been at the grocery store and wondered what
that item was you thought about earlier in the week to buy,
but you cannot, for the life of you, remember what it
was…then when you go to feed Sparky the next morning
and realize that there is 1/8th
of a scoop of food left you remember that the item you
needed to buy was dog food! I was making a habit of this
practice until I decided to “fight
back.”
(click title to read more!)
Getting the whole house clean can be overwhelming. Let this
list help you!(click title to read more!)
Some people cringe at the thought of a routine. What they
don’t realize is that even a 20-minute routine can
save them a daylong headache trying to play catch up.
(click title to read more!)
OTHER
TIPS FROM OUR READERS:
HERE
IS A TIP FROM A MOTHER OF 3 BOYS:
I
also have a new tip I just discovered that has really
clicked with my boys. I purchased some inexpensive small
baskets at IKEA in 3 different colors and labeled each with
a boys name. (I cut out a tag from an old box, made a hole,
wrote their name with a sharpie, and tied it on each
basket.) Now when I find things downstairs that belong to
them, I just put it in their basket and remind them later
in the day to carry it upstairs and put everything in it's
"home". I also made a big deal about returning it to the
stairs immediately so there is no issue with it getting
lost in their rooms.
HERE
IS A TIP FROM AN ORGANIZED SHOPPER:
Find
a day to go to the grocery store and just jot down what is
on each isle. Then when you go home you can jot that isle
number next to the items on your list and it makes your
trip so much shorter. For one you are not roaming on isles
you don't need to be on and for another you are not going
back for things you have forgotten!
Other
Links:
Feeding Your
Family
About Us
The Name
NotOprah
Kids Eat
Free
Redeeming Time in the Carpool
Line
Conversation
Starters
Great Web
Pages
Majoring
On Motherhood without Minoring on
ME!
Simplifying your
Life
Weekly News
Wrap
Home Page, Resources, Polished Moms, Professional Moms,
Competent Moms, Recipes, Top Five, Simplifying Your Life,
Daily Prayer Guide,
News at a Glance