It’s now the middle of January, and hopefully those of you who have made New Year’s Resolutions are still on track with them . . . even just one of them is a huge achievement.
Besides loosing weight/getting fit, giving up smoking, for many of us getting organised is a massive priority. Whether it is to be more organised in our personal life or our professional life, our home or even ourselves, for some it may appear to be just to daunting.
Benjamin Franklin said, “For every minute spent in organising, an hour is earned.” Imagine what we could all do with a few extra hours in our day!!
Here are some of my top tips for staying organised this year in your home life.
1) 2014 Diary
Most importantly, have a diary. Whether it be the old style pen & paper, using Outlook, your phone etc I believe this truly is a must have. I am an old pen & paper kind of girl, and even though a little big and bulky by today’s standards, I carry a page to a day diary. This way I can list everything I need to do. Everyday I try to get at least 80% of the things on my list complete and the others get carried over to the next day. Even the seemingly obvious like grocery shopping.
2) Weekly Menu Plan
Each Sunday evening over dinner my family and I plan our menu for the week and write a shopping list to reflect our choices. This saves so much time stressing about what to cook, unnecessary trips to the supermarket and therefore unnecessary spending. Note: my least favourite meal is dinner. Remember, you can’t please all of the people all of the time!
3) Cleaning Schedule
Depending on the size of your home and if you can manage to bribe some of the older kids into helping, this can be quite a helpful plan. Maybe doing bathrooms one day, vacuuming and mopping another, dusting etc on another. This way it is broken down into smaller tasks which don’t seem so big and you won’t feel like you have spent the whole day cleaning. You can also add the monthly and yearly maintenance tasks as well. Maybe lawn mowing, cleaning windows, fire alarm checks, cleaning gutters etc. Note: if anyone has any tips in getting the teenagers to help please send them to me. That seems to be a loosing battle. I often wonder what they are going to do when they have their own homes!
4) Wardrobes
I have my wardrobe split between Summer/Autumn and Winter/Spring. I always keep my current clothes for each season in the most accessible area of my wardrobe. I know some people who pack their out of season clothes away in storage tubs and remove them completely from their wardrobe. Sometimes difficult to do now with the unpredictability of our weather. This includes footwear as well. Note: you can probably ignore this if you are lucky enough to have one of those fantastic walk-in wardrobes with a dressing room. The rest of us can only dream!!
5) Plan Ahead
Keep a birthday calendar, plan school holiday activities for the next holidays, family holidays, a family budget for the year. These plans don’t have to be stuck to rigidly. We always have to allow for change. Don’t stress too much and enjoy the extra time you have found again and spend it doing what you love to do!!