365 days to an organized life - Day 5

Today, let's talk menu planning. I keep a list for Cooking on Remember the Milk app.

We never plan breakfast or lunch. Lunch is usually leftovers. Breakfast is usually some sort of cereal and fruit. So all I'm focusing on planning out is dinner because that is the meal that fuels our lunches as well.

Step 1) I take a notebook into the kitchen and look through my freezer and pantry. I make note of what meals I can create using mostly what I have and I also make a note of any missing ingredients.

Step 2) List all the dinners on the planned days in the Cooking list. I set them all for low priority which is my mark for evening tasks.

Step 3) List all the ingredients in the Shopping list. I set the shopping due date as never because some things on the list like waterproof glue are not necessary to get today. Don't forget to include any breakfast items, cleaning, personal care products, etc.

Step 4) Look at the menu plan. On some days will you need to start bread earlier that day? Do you need to defrost something? Do you need to soak beans? Add those tasks to the Cooking list for high priority for that morning or low priority the night before as needed?

Now, you are set up for success in providing home cooked meals to your family all week.

365 days to an organized life - Day 4

It's amazing what can be accomplished just by being purposeful about it. Yesterday, I had a relatively clean house. We got schoolwork done including preschool activities with the 2 yr old. They practiced piano. We baked sugar cookies for the boys to decorate. I baked the sourdough bread I had started yesterday. I cooked italian for supper. I cut hair for all five, even the youngest needed a small trim. They all got baths. I almost finished crocheting a second cozy/coaster like the one I did yesterday. And I'm still going to bed with a clean house. Nothing is slipping through the cracks because I got on a wild hair or something.

Today's featured task is Pick up/Put away.

This needs to be done all over the house. Combine smaller areas into one task if there's not enough in one area to call for daily attention. I added hall to my list of areas to pick up and put away because the children's toys have a tendency to spill out of their room. But after a few days, there really wasn't much to do besides pick up carpet fuzz. So I combined it with the entry way. The entry way has all the shoes and winter gear so that can always be straightened a bit.

Pick up and put away is not major deep cleaning. If you have a desk or shelf or corner that is particularly troublesome, divide that project into small tasks in your scheduler until it's clean. Pick up and put away is just for the daily things that get left where they don't belong. The toys on the floor, the socks/shoes by the chair, the cup on the table and the trash on the desk are some examples. You can use a time limit or a number limit. Eight items is my minimum but on days like after Christmas when wrapping, gifts, and more had been strewn all over, 15 minutes of everyone pitching in got things back to normal.

Just start with something even if it feels quite unnecessary or even grossly inadequate. Whatever you do every day will build up and become big things before you know it. And I guess that goes for good and bad habits alike.

365 days to an organized life - Day 3

Sometimes, we need a reminder to take care of ourselves. A simple way to start is water. We greatly underestimate the importance in being properly hydrated. So I added six tasks to my schedule to repeat daily on Remember the Milk app.

Drink 1st glass of water
Drink 2nd glass of water
Drink 3rd glass of water
Drink 4th glass of water
Drink 5th glass of water
Drink 6th glass of water

I set the first two to High priority which lets me know I need to drink two glasses in the morning. I set the next two to Medium priority which need to be drank in the afternoon. The last two are Low priority for the evening hours. I have been having a soda or sweet tea in the evening when I'm sure that I have or will have all six glasses of water drank that day.

The first day that I did this, I had lost 2.5 lbs the next morning after eating holiday candy the day before. Yes, I know it's water weight. But my pants aren't as snug so it feels great.

I set this up for my older boys and are reminding them to drink their water. I gave them smaller glasses, but I'm finding it is hard to get them past 4 glasses. We'll keep working at it.

365 days to an organized life - Day 2

Next item to add to the schedule is laundry. Different households have different needs as far as laundry goes. For our family of six, just our clothes make a load each day. That doesn't count towel, rags, sheets, etc. So some days, I can get by with one load but it is usually two loads a day.

We don't have a working dryer so we hang the clothes on hangers from the shower rods and on drying racks. Some sheets and things get hung over the bedroom doors. It works well but I think you have to have a good washing machine for it to work.We bought a washing machine a year or so ago and it spins out the water so splendidly. In fact, some items like my crocheted dish cloths can almost go straight to the drawer. I also use an extra rinse to get all the detergent out of the clothes. This prevents them from being so stiff.

So my schedule has all four aspects of laundry

1) Start a load in the washer - I do this as soon as I can in the morning. I keep a laundry sorter in the utility room and I gather the hampers from both bathrooms as I am going to the kitchen in the morning. I quickly sort the new dirty clothes and start the load before breakfast.

2) Fold clothes - After breakfast, I gather all the clothes that have been drying since yesterday.Since many of the clothes are already on hangers, I can quickly put those away. The folding usually takes no more than 10-15 minutes.

3) Hang clothes up to dry - Don't you hate it when you wash a load of clothes and then get busy with this and that until you have to rewash the load of clothes you forgot to dry? Yeah, me too. So I make sure I have this on my list of to do's so that I am not wasting water and energy washing something twice.

4) Put laundry away - With just a load or two to deal with a day, it's not a big chore to put it all away. I have one basket for the older boys' clothes for them to put away and I put away the rest.

So let's say goodbye to Mt Washmore and Mt Foldmore. We've got laundry under control!

365 days to an organized life - Day 1

I'm going to start off with three basics today. If you are following along with me, add whatever tasks you do today and repeat at an appropriate interval for your life. But here are three areas that I think are an important start. I am using Remember the Milk but use whatever works for you.

1) Prayers/Bible Study - Add whatever you feel led to do this year. You could add the Rosary for the morning, Office of Readings for midday and Daily Examen for night. Or simply 15 minutes of quiet time. Or you can change up the study and prayers month by month. I just feel it is important that God is at the top of our priority list. I also find that as I am adding more things to my schedule and not trying to keep track of them in my head, my thoughts are more focused on God.

2) Sort your mail with your scheduler handy - Anything that comes into your house needs to be checked for deadlines and to do's. If your child has a party to go to, add the event to your hanging calendar and scheduler. But also think of anything that needs to be done before the event. If you need to make cupcakes or a costume, add those steps to your schedule. If you have a bill, mark when you will pay or mail a payment. If there is a fair, festival or other event that you would like to attend, add that as well.

3) Dishes - I add two tasks related to dishes.

Load Dishwasher

Unload Dishwasher

I separate the two tasks because on crazy days, I can usually just do one part at a time. Depending on how much I cook that day, I may have to do another load or two of dishes. But those two tasks seem to keep it on track.

Consistency - Why it's important

I can think of a million things that I would rather do than clean house. It's not difficult. It's just painfully monotonous and never ending. I can do all the dishes and laundry in the house and there will be piles of both within a few hours. So what's the point of doing it every day when you will just have it to do every day in the future?

The secret is consistency. There is a difference between washing one load of dishes and having to do 3 loads before you find the bottom of the sink. There's a difference in quickly folding a load of laundry and taking half the day to fold a week's worth. There's a difference in being able to take 15 minutes to pick up the house and it taking 2-3 days to even be able to vacuum.

Consistently doing the house cleaning builds slow momentum. Let's say, your living room is just trashed from kids being home from school and the Christmas festivities. You may think you have to wait for a huge chunk of time to make a dent, but start with what you can do today. Pick up all the trash. Tomorrow, pick up the trash and the dishes. The next day, pick up trash, dishes, and any dirty clothes. The next day, pick up the trash, dishes, dirty clothes, and misplaced books. The next day, pick up the trash, dishes, dirty clothes, books and toys. In just 5 days, your living room is infinitely better with no more than 15 minutes of work each day. The key is not the 15 minutes. The key is doing it EVERY day. Because let it go for 2-3 days and especially if you have a lot of kids like me, you will have to start all over again. It makes you fill like a hamster in a wheel. A never ending cycle that doesn't get better.

So if you are making a schedule, make it work for you in a way that builds daily consistency. My minimum effort in each room is to pick up 8 things that are out of place. My minimum for dishes is one dishwasher load loaded and unloaded. My minimum for laundry is one load of laundry a day. Some days require more than that but by continuing with the minimum even on the busy days, I'm keeping the momentum going.

Some days, you may have to reduce an activity to make it work into your daily schedule. I try to get 15 minutes of exercise on the Wii Fit every day. I haven't been consistent with it. I had thought I was being mostly consistent one week and realized that I had only done it twice out of seven days. So, my minimum is now 5 minutes of step aerobics. Once, I am consistent with that amount, I will try to raise it to 10 then to 15 and up to 30. I was waiting around for time to do 15 minutes and wasting those 5 minute blocks of time.

Gonna start tomorrow with some activities that I have listed in Remember the Milk app.

2013 Resolutions

This is the time of year when we begin thinking of what areas we would like to improve on in our lives. For me like many, organization is at the top of my list. I've learned that consistency is like compound interest. Every day gets a little bit better. I would like to expand my list of consistent tasks.

I've used many methods of scheduling. To do lists, Cozi, home management binder, control journal, day planner and more. I've discovered this year that none of them have the flexibility, consistency, inclusiveness and ease of use that I needed. All the methods have helped and have benefits but I needed something more suited to me. 

I had tried Remember The Milk some time ago and fizzled out on it. I found the Ipad app later and it has been really amazing. It is so much easier to use with the touch screen. I can divide out the tasks among family members, cleaning, cooking, craft projects, etc. There are three levels of priority. I use High for morning chores, Medium for afternoon chores and Low for evening chores. I use no priority for things that can be done at any time of the day. 

I can plan out how to use my leftovers. Remind myself to cut up the leftover ham to use in quiche or beans later on. I can remind myself with a morning task to start beans soaking for Cuban black beans. I can remind myself to put the sourdough starter in the fridge the next morning. 

I can put in a reminder to take movies back to the library or mail a bill payment. I can put in reminders for church and school activities. I can take a project from pinterest and make a list of tasks under a special list to no due date. This way, the great idea isn't forgotten. 

Every time I do a task, I add it to Remember the Milk. Last week, I had to clean the filter in our washer. It had not been completed in well over two months as suggested. So I added the task, marked it complete and set it to repeat every 2 months. Viola! I put away our advent wreath so I made a task to repeat in a year. I read the story of St Stephen, the first martyr and I put a reminder for that to repeat in a year. 

It is extremely flexible. If I want to cook tomorrow's menu, I mark it complete and postpone today's menu. If I have more time today, I can complete some of tomorrow's tasks. If the mopping just can't wait til tomorrow, it is done today. If I don't get everything completed on the list, I postpone it til tomorrow. 

So I am going to attempt to make a list of at least 5 tasks each week for each week of 2013. Let's get organized in 2013.