Pause for Randomness: Today is brought to you by the letter C!

C is for Curves – I got up this morning and did my workout that I missed the past two mornings and man, I love how much energy I have when I leave!  If you are a woman who knows she needs to work out, but just can’t find the time and/or are worried about people will think about you at the gym, Curves is for you!  It’s only 30 minutes and it’s awesome.  I feel so much better about myself, have more energy, and I’ve made some great friends!! 

C is for Color – There’s a little spot of the flower bed in the backyard that is empty and while I love all of the green in the yard, it’s a full-sun spot and there are so many beautiful annuals that I thought “ya know, I’m just gonna get a couple things”… so this morning after working out I headed to Home Depot and got two pots of purple petunias (the mini ones that have the white edge around them… so beautiful!) and two pots of dark pink begonias.  I planted them in the spot, and when the sun comes out from behind the clouds I’ll go out and take a picture.

C is for Clean – Then it was time for a shower.

C is for Catch-up – So because of the dog hair I normally sweep every other day, and then I do the Bona wood polish stuff once a week.  Well, the last time I swept was last Thursday.  So, this morning was catch-up morning.  I swept and swept and oh my goodness I can’t believe how much hair these dogs shed!  I really didn’t realize it when we had carpet, but now that we are in a room with hardwood floors, it has nowhere to go but to get swept!  I’m so glad we are doing mainly hardwood and tile in our new house, and you can bet that I’m going to be vacuuming the carpet a whole lot more often now that I realize how much dog hair is lying around!!!  (Which by the way – a tip for when you are sweeping/mopping and you have dogs – if they aren’t crated, train them to lay on the bed while you are sweeping and mopping.  I’ve found that if I send them outside, then they come in and carry crud onto the clean floor, and otherwise they try to follow me around and “help” – so it’s great that they’ll stay on the bed until I’m done mopping and the floor is dry!!  I love my well-trained dogs (thanks mainly in part to Cody)!! :)

C is for Clorox – Then it was time to clean the bathroom.  I have a friend who asked me at one point to tell her what thing I clean each day so that it reminds her to do the same.  Well, if she’s relying on me she now knows that I am NOT SuperWoman, but merely Lois Lane… I have good intentions, but I don’t always get around to things.  SO today was clean the vanity, clean the toilet, mop the floor, and clean the mirror day.  (And typing this just made me realize I forgot to clean the mirror… be right back!)  Ok – now that’s done.  Anyway, I’ve noticed that I get my cleaning done a lot quicker if I do it in the morning before I eat breakfast… a rumbling stomach seems to be motivation to me to move a little quicker.  Not that you have to do that, it’s just what works for me.  In the process of cleaning the bathroom I dirtied a few rags so I decided to go ahead and wash a load of towels and underwear too.

C is for Clients – Ok, so this C is a stretch, but yesterday I was at Office Depot getting a couple of little things for my travel agency job and while I was there I saw several awesome products that I just have to share about.  The first were in the Post-It section – they now have Post-It organizing pockets that you can stick on the wall and then put things in that are removable!  They have a packet that has three different sizes, and then one that is “bill” size and made for holding mail and bills, and that packet has two that size in there.  Now they are about $6-$7, but it’s a really clever way to get organized, so I had to share.  Another thing they had in the little bins by the checkout was a collection of the “for Dummies” books, but they were little mini-pocket-sized ones.  One of them was “Organizing for Dummies.”  I flipped through and it had some great tips if you are just getting started organizing your life.  The other product I was impressed with had nothing to do with organizing, but it was really cute… they now have a tape dispenser that’s a high-heeled shoe!  SO cute.  I was thinking this would be great in a small cubicle where you really don’t have a lot of space to put cutesy stuff – but you’ve got to have a tape dispenser!  They also have a Post-It holder that’s a heart.  Fun fun.  I love Office Depot.

And the final C is for Cross-Stitching – When my to-do list is done today – which it almost is!! – I’ll be starting a new cross-stitch piece!  The past couple of days I’ve taken care of getting the fabric, pulling my floss and it’s sitting with the Fray-Check drying as I type this.  I’m so ready to start this new project… it’s another C – a calendar!  When I get it all done I’ll have to post a picture.  Today is mainly “me time”, which is nice b/c I’ve done a lot of travel agency and PC stuff the last couple of days.

In Closing.. (he he he I couldn’t resist another C), have a fabulous day and don’t forget that you can’t be SuperWoman all the time, but on days when you do have to play Catch-up, you’ll feel so great and accomplished when it’s all done!! :)  You go, girl!

Goal thirteen: Organize your kids –no matter how young

As a kid I remember being told to “clean my room.”  I remember telling my students to “clean the room.”  I’ve heard friends tell their kids to “clean your room.”  SO, I can assume from these quotes that we often tell kids to clean up.  We tell them… but do we show them?

Some kids have a natural knack for cleaning and organizing (I was one of those kids… hmm… guess that probably went without saying, huh?).  Over the four and a half years I taught, I was typically blessed with one of these students a year.  However, the last group of kids I taught had literally zero organizational skills whatsoever.  This is frustrating as a teacher, and I’m sure it’s frustrating as a parent as well.  BUT you can’t just tell your non-organizer to clean their room and expect it to happen!  You must start from the time you are teaching your baby to sort colors, and even when you are picking up the toys after your toddler, by having them play a game with you.  It’s the cleanup game.  In this game, you are doing all the work and they are merely observers.  Then over time, they become helpers, and eventually the do-ers.  In this “game” you are teaching your child that all the Legos go in this box, all the Lincoln Logs go in this box, all the socks go in this drawer, pjs in this drawer, etc, etc. 

It’s important that kids have a place to put each toy, whether on a shelf or in a toy box.  It’s never ok to shove the toys under the bed, or to cram them into the closet.  When they learn this by watching you as YOU clean their room, and then they help by not just following the direction of “put this away” but rather “put this in the bottom drawer” or “put this on the second shelf.”  Never assume that your child will remember where they got the toy from, until they are at least 6 years old.  At that point, the command should start as a question – “Where does this go?”  When the child replies correctly, praise with “What a good memory you have!”  If the child doesn’t remember correctly, don’t get upset.  Many children have a recall memory that is short.  Even if it’s their favorite toy and they play with it often, the first three or four times of putting it away, they may not remember where you want it to go - remember it’s you who decided where it should go in the organization strategy, not them… and they can’t read your mind!  So, if they don’t remember correctly, respond with, “What other toys is it like?  Where do they go?”  Continue this line of questioning until the child responds with the correct answer.  Don’t tell them.  When they conclude correctly and are praised for having a good memory, they’ve had to work it through and are more likely to remember in the future than if they are just told. 

If you have not shown your older child how to organize and you are just starting with them, from Kindergarten through 3^rd grade you should involve the child in the process.  Have them help organize their room by starting with leading questions.  Sort toys together into like objects, then ask your child where would be a good place to store this item based on its amount of use.  You might also discover that your child might need an additional piece of furniture in his/her room to help organize, such as those cubby shelves from Target/Walmart that have canvas baskets, or perhaps one of those little shelves that holds colored plastic tubs.  Encourage your child with organization.  If they don’t have enough places to sort their toys into, then help them out as much as you can in that area. 

Don’t think that your child will be organized in one day.  After you go through and organize your child’s room WITH THEM being involved in the process, you still aren’t going to be able to go in the next week and say “clean your room” and expect them to remember how to do it all.  I encourage you to have a time each day where together you go in and do a quick pick up.  Don’t use this as a time to berate your child for making a mess of their room, but rather use it as a time of being together in a positive way.  If your child was playing alone in the room, ask questions about the toys you can tell they played with, and make it a game to see who can pick up the most toys and put them back in the right places.

Remember that it takes two weeks for adults to create a habit, so plan that you’ll need a month to get your early-elementary aged child into a routine enough that you could then go in and say “clean your room” and they would know what you expected of them.

For middle-elementary through high school if you are just now starting, I must say you are a little late, but there may still be hope.  Introduce your child to a label-maker – perhaps even get them one of their own.  Sit down with them and make sure that they have the furniture they need to keep everything organized.  Perhaps your 13 year old needs a desk with drawers to organize his art supplies, or your Junior in high school needs help learning how to use her planner so that it’s effective.  I recommend a talk that begins like this: “I’m recognizing that you need some help getting organized because your room is often cluttered.  I’m willing to help you get it straightened up if you will commit to keeping it that.  I’m even willing to entertain the thought of a piece or two of furniture to add to help you with the process.  I want you to have input because it is your room, but I’d like to give you some tips and help you get it sorted because I know it’s going to be a big job and I don’t expect you to know how to do it.  I’d like to work with you…” etc.  Remember especially with your middle schooler that if you seem like you are putting him down, he will retract.  With your high schooler if you are giving her one more command, she will shut you out.  It’s all about working together and figuring out what will work best for him/her.  Good luck with this one. 

I highly recommend getting your child organized – and the sooner, the better!  They are never too young to start realizing that we clean up our toys after we play with something, and that everything has a place.  SO – in all your spring cleaning and organizing… take time to teach the kids!  They can’t do it how you want it if they haven’t been taught… remember that they are NOT mind readers.

Oh!  And one last thing – a great way to help your child (of any age) remember what it should look like is to take pictures and then post them in that area.  After you get the closet done the way you want, take a picture of it, and post that picture inside the closet door.  The bookshelf, same thing, toy box, same thing.  Pictures help tremendously in the memory process.

Goal twelve: Family Calendar

After recently discussing multiple subjects that skirt around it… I’m finally there… to the day when I talk about organizing your family calendar.  Now this may seem a little odd since we don’t have kids yet, but there is no time like the present to start a habit that will carry on and prove to be useful in the future when we do have kids with busy schedules.

In addition to your planner that I’ve recommended you buy, you also need a dry erase whiteboard calendar for the week.  (Not for the month… there’s too much to write and the spaces are too small, so it’s a waste of money because you won’t end up using it even tho you intend to…)  I have a weekly calendar from Pottery Barn that has the days of the week already printed on it, and then it divides each day by Breakfast Lunch and Dinner sections.  Here’s how I put this to use:

I not only write the meal plan on each day in one color, but I put events and appointments on there in another color.  If it’s an event such as a special birthday it’s one color and goes at the top b/c it lasts all day, and appointments I need to go to are in another color, and are written in the box that best fits their time of day, and I write the time with it.

Imagine how great this system would be for a family of four with kids that go to gymnastics, soccer, karate, and swim lessons, for example.  Use a different color for each kid, and put the appointments in order in the box based on when they will occur in the day.  The important thing is to keep the calendar rolling.  Each morning part of your routine becomes to erase the day before and add the next one.  For example today, Wednesday, I would erase Tuesday the 12^th and put up Tuesday the 19^th.  I check my planner for events, but then this also makes it easy when a friend calls last minute for lunch to glance at the board and see what appointments I’ve got going on tomorrow at 11:30 when she wants to meet… and I don’t have to pull out the planner.

Then put your white board in a central location where everyone in the family knows about it.  Then anyone can easily check to see what’s for dinner tonight, or when their recital is Thursday night.  This is where you broadcast “date night” and “family game night” as well.  If it’s happening in the family, it goes on the calendar.  Also – for your sanity, have a post-it note pad close to the calendar so that when others want to add events they can jot it on a post-it and you can add it to the calendar.  ONE set of handwriting is easier to read, and also you can make sure you are consistent with your color coding, etc, where others might not.

As always, it’s only a suggestion… but it works for us! :) 

Goal eleven: Important Papers

As I sit down to right tonight, I must tell you I was inspired by a friend who shared some secrets with me that I’m going to pass along to you… so they won’t be secret anymore! ;)  I’m really glad she shared, and I hope that more of you will be inspired by this blog and will share with me the areas of your life that you are really proud of your organizational skills… because I love to get new ideas from people and learn from others!!!

 

When I think about organizing and I and talked some previously about organizing papers and sorting things into stacks and such so you could finally get down to seeing your desktop, I didn’t go into much detail on how to do that, so today I’m going to share Carrie’s secrets to keeping medical documents organized, and I’m going to share Cody’s system for bills and receipts, and hopefully between these two organization ideas, you’ll come up with something that works for you.  Because, as I always say, I’m not here to preach at you and tell you how to do things, but merely to get you inspired to figure out what works for you! 

SO – Medical Documents – Carrie has one of those accordion files that has a zipper.  Which I must pause here and say that whoever thought of those was a flippin’ genious.  Seriously.  Organized files you can take with you anywhere that aren’t going to fall out b/c it’s zipped closed!  Genious.  Sorry, I digressed.  The accordion file with the zipper.  In this particular one there’s a pocket in the front that zips as well, and she keeps the medical insurance card in there as well as the business cards for each doctor.  Brilliant.  THEN – she has a medical file for each person in the family as well as a dental file for her and her husband, a dental file for the kids, and an ortho file.  In these files she keeps EOBs, bills, statements, and all that junk, as well as it’s a great place to keep any xrays (on cd), etc.  (Also – I don’t know if she does this or not, but it would be a great place to keep those medical info sheets from the pharmacy regarding rx for each person as well.)  She made sure to tell me also that she keeps them in reverse date order so that the most recent event is in the front.  I must say that I tend to use this system of filing when it comes to ANY documents with dates. It’s always convenient to organize your papers this way.  If you’ve never tried it, do – that alone will revolutionize your life….  Again, I digressed.  Then, at the end of the year, she reverses the file so that January is on top and December is on bottom and staples it all and then it goes into the file cabinet.

WHY A MOBILE CARRYING CASE?  I’m seriously so gonna do this when we have kids.  I love it.  She’s quickly able to reference appointment dates, previous bill amounts, payments already made, and can reference any little past medical details in case of emergency or need to see a specialist.  It’s kept in a convenient place where both she and her husband can locate it, so that whoever handles the latest emergency with one of their kids can just grab the folder on the way out the door.  I love this idea.

As for organizing those other important papers like bills and receipts, Cody has a great system of manila envelopes.  Everything gets sorted by month.  So right now we’re working on the April envelope.  At the end of the month when all of the last pay stubs, bills, and receipts have been collected, they’ll go into an envelope marked April 2011.  Why organize this way vs by company you’re paying, etc?  This is very convenient during tax time – and any other time of the year really, because you can easily track what checks you wrote in a month (we keep the duplicates with our receipts), you can find a receipt for an item you purchased quickly, etc, etc.

Now, as with everything, I will say that I am not perfect.  Carrie is not perfect.  Cody is not perfect.  Just because we have these systems that we use does not mean there aren’t times when we fall down and forget to do something or put it off b/c of other priorities.  We are not superhuman.  BUT – it does mean that these are things you CAN do if you put your mind to it.  You are not too busy.  Remember that it only takes two minutes to do one little thing to start organizing your life.  If that two minutes happens to be when you are at WalMart to grab a zipper accordion file and some manila envelopes, then that’s your two minutes for today.  You are then one step closer to making this a change in your life.

Getting organized is a process.  It will NOT happen overnight.  It will not happen over two weeks.  It may take you two years to develop a system that works for you.  But, hopefully reading this blog has helped you (and will continue to help you) to realize little things that you can do to get “on track”, and hopefully you will also come to realize that NOT having a system is not an option.  We all need, in fact CRAVE, routine.  And don’t tell me your routine is to be spontaneous.  Spontaneity is ok, and variety is the “Spice of life” and all that jazz, but you need to figure out what works for you to get you into a system and a routine that will help you get organized.  Being organized WILL revolutionize your life, it will build self-confidence, and it will boost your self-esteem.

YOU CAN GET ORGANIZED...  I BELIEVE IN YOU!  DO YOU? 

Goal ten: Remember important dates

Well, after my vacation some of you may have thought I’d give up my habit of blogging, but I’m BAAAACCCKK!!! :)  We had a wonderful time but while we were gone I realized that I had missed some friend’s birthdays that occurred either during the trip or this week and I didn’t have cards or anything for them.  SO, I thought I’d share with you a system that I’ve just started to help remember those dates.  It’s not tried and true yet because I’m just starting it, but I’m hoping that some of you might like to share what you do to help remember important dates and then we can all learn from each other.

A while back I got a little birthday book from my friends at www.buttonedup.com and I finally sat down and filled it out recently.  It’s just pocket-sized, so it fits anywhere, and it has a tab for each month, and several lines for each date of each month.  I pulled up Facebook events and went through and recorded those extra-special birthdates on each date.  Now I’m going through and trying to get family members and other special dates that aren’t on FB – like anniversaries of close friends, their kids’ birthdays, etc.  It’s a process, but I’m hoping that in a couple of days I’ll have my book completed, and then I can make it a habit when I plan my grocery list for the first week of the month to look and see what birthdays and anniversaries are coming up that month so I can buy cards for the whole month at one time… that way I’m not frantic because I forgot that so-and-so’s birthday is in two days.

Also did you know that you can select in your settings on Facebook to have it send you an email reminder the beginning of each week to tell you which friends are having birthdays that week?  I just discovered that one recently, as well.  That’s helpful so you don’t forget the ones who you’re friends with but not close enough to send a card – just to drop a note via FB on their special day.

Another thing that’s easy to forget is those bi-annual or annual dr. appointments.  It’s hard to want to go in the first place, so it’s easy to forget to conveniently call and schedule your appointment.  Then you end up with vision problems or a cavity in your tooth and you kick yourself because prevention would have been far less painful and expensive.  Worse yet, if it’s an appointment for your child or pet you might not even realize there’s a problem before you are way past simple repair even.  It’s difficult however, to schedule appointments when you are there because it’s so far out, so I always say, “oh, I’ll call you.”  Here’s how I remember to call:  As soon as the appointment is finished, go home and pull out your calendar.  If it’s a six-month appointment, I make a note five months to the day from my appointment that says to call and make the appointment.  Then I know better what my schedule will be in the next month, and I can make sure that I don’t forget when to do it.  If your appointment crosses the calendar  (for example if it’s an annual appointment, or one in the fall to call back in the spring), make a note at the back of the calendar that’s “as big as Texas” that says what date you need to call and set up the appointment.  That way when you get your new calendar you can check the notes page and see what things you need to add.  Many calendars have a mini calendar for the next year in the back – circle the date and put a sticky note on the page so you don’t forget what you are supposed to do on that day!

And there’s one other important day that you need to remember if you are married – and especially if you have kids.  That important day is date night.  You must remember to take time for just you and your spouse, and it’s hard to schedule that in when you’ve got busy schedules – especially if the kids are running here and there with sports and what-not.  I know some couples try to make date night once a week but the problem with that is that other things get in the way and then they end up giving up the idea.  SO here’s what I intend to make work when we have kids – date night once a month.  The third Saturday or the first Monday or the second Friday.  Figure out when it’s going to be and STICK TO IT.  Don’t plan anything else for that night.  One couple I know has a partner couple and that’s how it works for them – my friends have date night the first Saturday night of the month and their friends have date night the third Friday night of the month.  On date night they take their kids over to the friends’ house and they have a family game night.  Whether it’s Rock Band or board games, the parents have committed to playing games as a family with the other family’s kids included.  Then they switch.  It’s been awesome for both couples and it’s great for the kids because they feel like they have FOUR supportive adults they can turn to for advice, etc.  All in all, for them it’s a win-win.  Just remember that just like I’ve “preached” about the importance of “me” time and “we” time with your family, you also need “just us” time with your spouse.  That’s VITAL to the health of your marriage.

Remembering important dates is all about organizing your schedule and taking time to make time for your friends, your health, and the health of your marriage.  You can do it!!!!! 

(If you haven’t figured out by now, it’s really important that you invest in a good planner… you can get cheap ones at WalMart or expensive ones at Barnes and Noble or electronic ones that are apps for your smartphone… I don’t care where you get it or what it looks like… you need one!)