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Keep Your Holiday Supplies Simple With an Inventory and a Plan

Tsh — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:00:37 +0000

This week’s project is not revolutionary or a brand new idea, but the kicker is doing it in plenty of advanced time. This week, we’ll take inventory of our holiday items, get rid of what we no longer need, and make a shopping list for the things you need to buy.

Our family doesn’t have much Christmas decor to begin with, but in the next two days I’m going to get it all down and make a simple list of what we have. And then I’ll keep an eye out for what we need, well before the insane holiday chaos begins.

Here are a few tips to get your organizing juices flowing.

Organize Your Ideas

First, organize your holiday ideas. If there are craft projects you’ve found online that you’d like to do, bookmark them in a logical way where you’ll find them. You’re probably not surprised that I keep mine on Delicious.

Also bookmark decorating photos that inspire you. Don’t hold your home’s standard to an immaculate Pottery Barn catalog spread, but use those forms of eye candy to generate some ideas (I love Meredith’s inspired ideas from the coveted store’s catalog photos). Most professional decorating ideas can be done much more frugally.

Once you have a general idea of some projects you’d like to tackle this year, you can scratch out a basic list of supplies you’ll need. For example, I already know I want to make a new tree skirt this year, so I’m going to keep my eye out for fabric now.

Edit Your Stuff

Embrace the philosophy “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful” for the holidays as well as for life, and set aside any Christmas knickknacks you don’t truly love. If something doesn’t line up with your taste, you probably won’t love having it on display for the holidays. Even if you got it as a gift, you’re not required to keep it.

Then, depending on how much you have, either sell the items individually on eBay or Craigslist, or sell them as an entire set of holiday decor. If you don’t think you’d make enough cash for the hassle, consider posting your stuff on freecycle – someone else may love your stuff.

Inventory Your Supplies

You should be left with items you like and want to use this year.

Test your strands of lights, and if any of them are burnt out (and beyond simple repair), throw them out. There’s no need to hold on to them, and they’re easily replaceable.

Inventory your wrapping paper and see if you need to replenish your supply. I recommend mostly using season-less paper you can use year-round, but if you want specific holiday wrap, the earlier you buy it, the better the selection. I’ll share more tips on creative gift wrap ideas soon.

I love wrapping gifts with real ribbon – if you do, too, check how much you have, and keep an eye out for inexpensive spools year-round at craft stores.

Store Your Items Logically

After you inventory your stuff, store it logically according to when you’ll use it. If there are some holiday supplies you’ll use first, for example, box those items together in a box labeled “Christmas – Box #1.”

Even better, make a simple list of the box’s contents – then either write it directly on the box, or write it on paper and tape it securely.

Make a Shopping List, Keep a Sharp Eye, & Make a Plan

Make a master list of what holiday supplies you need to stock up on this year. Then keep it someplace, like your Home Management Notebook, where you can easily access it when you’re shopping online or when you’re going out and about.

Keep an eye out for items in stores, and watch for coupons. You might want to go ahead and schedule some of the project ideas on your family calendar, especially if they involve multiple people.

I’m looking forward to doing some holiday project “research.” Is there anything you already know you’re going to tackle? What are some things you no longer need? Start organizing and planning now, while there’s still plenty of time until Christmas. All in all, it should only take you a few hours this week.

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Keep Your Holiday Supplies Simple With an Inventory and a Plan is a post from Simple Mom

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The 2 Key Questions to Ask While Decluttering

Tsh — Fri, 09 May 2008 04:57:35 +0000

In the poll I had in my sidebar last week (I’ve got a new one there, by the way), I was somewhat surprised to learn that most of you find organizing to be the hardest part of your home management. I wasn’t surprised because I think it’s easy, but because you said it was harder than money management, menu planning, cleaning, or juggling parenting in the mix of housekeeping. None of those tasks are easy.

Photo by Molly

“Stuffitis” can clog our clarity, productivity, and peace to the point of exhaustion. It makes organizing our homes so much harder. When we have so much stuff that those items are no longer useful or provide enjoyment because the mere having it causes added stress – it’s time to rethink its purpose in your home.

One of our unexpected benefits of moving to the other side of the world last year was forced downsizing. Because we were limited in how much stuff to bring, we literally questioned every single item we owned. It either went with us, it moved into a very small storage unit (for those items we wanted to keep but not risk a major overseas move – like family keepsakes), or it left our home and went to another (via garage sale or donation).

And when we inventoried our belongings, the two main questions we asked – sometimes unconsciously – were:

1. Is this item useful to us?, and
2. Is this item beautiful to us?

The answers could be quite subjective, but it pointed us to an overall theme in our life and in our home that I hope we now keep lifelong. It’s this simple quote that is now my homekeeping mantra:

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” -William Morris

Sounds extreme, and in a way, it is. But I like it because it validates the things you do have in your home, and it gives you the freedom to truly enjoy having them pass your threshold. Rather than making that collection of candles on top of your TV cabinet feel pointless, you can enjoy having them there because you’ve made a conscious decision that they were worth being there. They passed the test, in other words.

It helps us that our home isn’t too big. We live in a very urban high-rise condo, which provides about 1,300 square feet of living space. We have one closet, which is actually pretty unusual here, since closets are a rather American concept. Our bedrooms have wardrobes which serve as ample space for all our clothes.

Most families won’t have a major international move to force them to downsize. But I highly encourage you to quickly ask yourself an object’s purpose or beauty in your home the next time you declutter. If it merits neither, then maybe it shouldn’t even belong. Perhaps another family would find a better use for it.

And you might be surprised to learn how little you’ll miss the thing once it’s gone.

2nd photo by karly b

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How Do You Declutter?

Tsh — Thu, 08 May 2008 09:46:21 +0000

There are two schools of thought when it comes to decluttering:

Touch everything only once, and
Declutter in steps, moving piles around until it’s done.

Photo by Camilla Engman

When you touch everything only once, you pick up an item and put it in its rightful place immediately, even if it means going to the other side of the house. Sometimes you can maximize the effectiveness of this method and pick up several items going to the same room, using a basket to take your goods with you. Then you stay in that one room, reshelving everything you brought, and when you’re done, you return to the room you started in and continue on your work.

When you declutter in steps, you essentially make piles. If your dining room table is cleared off, you pile everything together that’s going to your daughter’s room, then the bathroom, and so on and so forth. When all the declutter has been transferred to their appropriate piles, you focus on shrinking the piles until they’re gone. When there are no more piles, your place has been decluttered.

Most home organizing “experts” advocate the Touch Everything Only Once method, but it doesn’t work for me. I get too distracted. If I crate up just a few items for my bedroom, before I know it, I’m perusing the magazine on my nightstand, or I’m organizing the shirts in my wardrobe by sleeve length and color (I’m a bit sick that way – ask my husband or my college roommate). The original room I started in has long been forgotten.

My method is to stay in the messy room and pile its misplaced belongings in one central location, then move on to the next room and add to those original piles. After I’ve gone through the whole house and decluttered, I should have only one big pile for each room. Now all I have to do is empty a pile at a time until it’s gone.

What do you do? Have you even thought about it before? Just wondering if I’m in the minority or the majority here.

I’m off to make some piles.

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Home Management Notebooks are a great idea.

Tsh — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:00:13 +0000

Home Management Notebooks absolutely work for me.

Here’s are quick links to my Home Management Notebook series:

Having a Home Management Notebook is good.
Identity and target your Most Important Tasks.
Consider using a Daily Docket.
Use a Weekly Checklist as your main reference point.
Brainstorm ideas for what else you might need in your Notebook.

I hope you found this series useful. Using a Home Management Notebook isn’t a new idea – chances are, many of you already use one. But if this is new to you and trying one is uncharted territory, here are a few pointers:

• The point of a notebook is to have all your management tools in one place. Include what you need, leave out what you don’t.

• Do what works for you. If you prefer to scribble in pencil on a Moleskine Notebook, then by all means, do that! You could even have it all online using your favorite tools in one location. I’ve thought about doing that myself, but I just can’t handcuff myself to the laptop – I share it with my hubby, and I’m up and around too much during the day. Maybe one day, though.

• It helps me if my notebook looks pretty – know I use it more when I like to look at it. I use scrapbook paper, magazine clippings, and whatever else strikes my fancy to personalize my baby and make it mine.

• If it doesn’t work at first, don’t throw in the towel! Give it more time, or change it up, or take a short break and think about what might work better for you. We all manage our households differently – the point is to do it well, simply, and stress-free.

~~As promised, here is a FREE PDF download of my Daily Docket and Weekly Checklist.~~ Update: All the downloads can be found on the downloads page. I’ve made them a bit more generic, so maybe you’ll find them useful. In fact, I’ve included two Daily Dockets – one is identical to the one I use; the other has two areas with blank titles for you to fill in, in case mine aren’t something you need. You’ll see what I mean when you download it.

And finally, here’s a little more inspiration juice to get you going on a notebook that works for you:

Here’s a basic list of more ideas on what to include.
Organized Home has a few downloads you might like.
DIY Planner has some good ideas using the Getting Things Done system.
And my favorite… a beautiful visual homemaking journal, courtesy of Ann at Holy Experience (follow other links for inspiration!)

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The Rest of My Home Management Notebook

Tsh — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:02:18 +0000

Photo by esotericsean

So far, I’ve discussed my Daily Docket and my Weekly Checklist as the essential components of my Home Management Notebook. I use the Checklist as my reference for my Docket – my general goal is to complete everything on the Checklist every week. Rarely does this happen, but having a master list as a visual reminder really helps.

So what else do I have in my Notebook?

• Calendar – I use Google Calendar for my personal daytimer, and I usually just refer to it online to keep track of my appointments. I especially like that I can have it remind me of events via email or pop up – very handy when you’re writing emails and you’ve lost track of time. But I also print the calendar several months at a time to keep handy when I’m not near my laptop and I want to jot something on the schedule. I also menu plan monthly, and I enter this online when I plan (99% of my recipes come from the internet). When I print the calendar, I have a month’s worth of my dinner plans easily accessible in my Notebook.

• Grocery List – I’ve written up my master grocery list in Excel, and it’s a lifesaver. How often do you forget what you need to stock up on? For me, it’s all the time – so having my usual purchases already written out really helps trigger my memory. I normally have a print-out hanging in the kitchen, so that anybody can mark what we need, but I keep several copies handy in my Notebook. And I make sure I have several blank pages of paper in this section for me to jot down menu and food ideas.

• Budget – I write a monthly budget a la Dave Ramsey, and I also print out a copy of this and keep it handy in my Notebook. I use Pear Budget for now, which has a $3 monthly service fee, but there are lots of good budgeting resources out there. More on that soon. I also write out current financial goals we have and where we stand on reaching them, and any other financial information that might prove relevant that month (bank statements, important receipts, etc.). My husband has a lot of work reimbursements for his job, and I also keep track of this here. I have a little plastic envelope where I keep all the current month’s receipts.

• Master Project List – My brain is flooded with little ideas throughout the day, and if I don’t write them down within a few minutes, they leave and don’t return. I have a few sheets of paper to jot down anything that comes to mind that I want to work on – make slipcovers for the pillows, fix the bathroom towel bar, order such-and-such book on Amazon. Having this blank space adds a nice combination of order and stream-of-consciousness to my thought process. I can doodle or outline, and this really helps me.

• Blogging Ideas – Similar to above, I keep paper handy for jotting down blog post ideas. If I don’t, they’re gone, and frustration inevitably ensues! I’ve lately used the process of mind mapping to come up with ideas, and it truly works. Right now I have 79 post ideas for this blog alone!

• Babysitter’s Guide – Our kids are pretty easy, but we want to keep current information handy when someone comes to watch our kids. We list our cell phone numbers, bedtime routines, what’s off limits, and what to do in case of basic emergencies (like where we keep our bandaids). We even have instructions on how to turn on our TV and DVD player!

• Kid Stuff – I jot down ideas or websites that come in handy for anything regarding my children. If I find an article online that’s so helpful, I’ll print it out and keep it here. I’m currently working on creating some basic letter writing curriculum for my three-year-old, and I keep any good resources I find in this section.

• Gift Ideas – When my parents ask me what I want for my birthday, nine times out of ten I can’t think of anything at the moment. In this section, I jot down any gift ideas I have for our family, along with good gift ideas for us to give to others.

• Language Lesson Notes – I keep my current language lesson handy here so that I can easily study when I’m nursing the baby. For those of you who aren’t currently learning a second language – if you have any other work-at-home responsibilities, or if you’re involved in some sort of adult education, you can keep that info handy here as well.

• Personal Stuff – This is where I write down my Scripture memory notes, other Bible study info, motivating quotes I come across, prayer requests, and anything else related to me and my relationships. I also write down my personal goals and habits I want to change – it helps me to see them in writing.

Maybe these ideas will trigger some of your own. What are you constantly looking for throughout your day? Would it help you to have it in a master notebook, so that it’s quickly at your fingertips? I think the trick is to have your notebook complete enough for it to be useful, but not so crammed full or overcomplicated that it’s demotivating to use.

You want this to be a valuable tool for home management. Make it so it works for you! Don’t become enslaved by it. Enjoy having one.

• Next up in Home Management Notebooks: Concluding thoughts, downloadable files, resources for further motivation, and ideas to spark your interest!
Photo by gamookie

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Weekly Home Management, all at a glance

Tsh — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:00:44 +0000

To use my Daily Docket, I refer to my Weekly Checklist. It provides me with a master plan of what I usually need to get done in a typical week.

Photo by Buddy Stone

Here’s a thumbnail of my list (click to enlarge it):

I know it seems a bit intense, but it really works for me. It helps to not have to remember “on the fly” what needs cleaning – I can just check my master list. And it keeps me accountable for those weekly tasks that I too easily slide under the rug.

Unlike my Daily Docket, I just have one master checklist printed, and I keep it in a clear sleeve in my Home Management Notebook. Under the “other” category, I pencil in items as I remember them, and if I seem to refer to it often enough, it warrants my adding it permanently to the list.

I’d be happy to offer this as a free PDF, but it’s pretty customized to my lifestyle, which has a few quirks (cross-cultural, urban living). I could make a generic checklist of tasks familiar to most households, and include a lot of blank lines for personalization.

Or – you can just make one yourself. This isn’t a revolutionary idea, but it’s super helpful for me. It’s one more thing I include in my notebook!

• Next up in Home Management Notebooks: budgets and menus and calendars, oh my!

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4 Simple Ideas to Help you Clean a Messy House

Tsh — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:39:53 +0000

Our house is a disaster. There, I said it. We had company for almost a month, and my mother-in-law was such a help to me, I hardly did anything. Now I’m paying the price.

I most definitely prefer a regular habit of basic upkeep so that the home doesn’t get to the point of unrecognition (yes, I just made up that word). But it has, so I’ve called upon the troops and have declared a War on Mess.

Photo by Torri 479

Today and tomorrow, we will be overhauling the house, with the hopes that I can get some serious organizing done this weekend. We have guests coming over for dinner Friday night, so the goal is to have everything clean by then.

Lesson #1 – Have a very tangible, rapidly-approaching-yet-doable goal for your cleaning. Inviting friends over for dinner is a great one.

Staying true to my word, I’m not going to bite off more than I can chew and plan on doing more than I can. Today will be mostly damage repair, while tomorrow will be the actual cleaning (dusting, vacuuming, and the like).

Lesson #2 – Divide your cleaning goals into manageable chunks. That way, you can “check off” decluttering one day, then move on to scrubbing and dusting. You’ll feel more accomplished.

I also know my body ebbs and flows with energy highs and lows, so I’m going to tackle the tough stuff in the morning (my energy high) and the easy stuff in the afternoon (my energy low). I’m also going to take frequent breaks so that I don’t burn out. I’ll set a timer for 30 minutes of cleaning, 10 minutes of rest.

Lesson #3 – Know yourself and clean with your body’s rhythms, not against it.

Since we’re all involved in this, we’re going to make it fun. We’re talking a lot, we’re listening to music, and we’re still being silly as we work (tickle attacks, funny voice impressions… you know the drill). We’ll get discouraged, bored, and possibly bitter if we don’t.

Lesson #4 – Do what you need to stay in a good mood. Be cheerful. You are blessed to have a home to clean!

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My Brain – aka, my Home Management Notebook

Tsh — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:00:40 +0000

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” -William Morris

This is my favorite mantra for home management. I’m sort-of a minimalist by default, but it’s still not easy to keep a well-organized, efficient, peaceful home when you’ve got three-foot mess makers running around. Or six-foot mess makers, for that matter.

Sometimes, oftentimes, it can just get overwhelming.

Photo by jeffk42

This is when grace comes into play – giving heaps of it to yourself and your family members, remembering that the stage of littles at home is so short. If you believe relationships are more important than a perfect house, you really can cut yourself some slack.

But – you still need to keep up the house. Our life stage doesn’t give us a Get Out of Jail Free card when it comes to home management. In fact, I’m finding that this stage makes it all the more important to find a management system that works well. Kids are happier in a home where things have their place. Moms can hold on to a string of sanity when there’s at least a tangible goal towards house cleaning. And dads come home to an actual haven, not a chaotic zoo. Well, most of the times. It’s a good idea, anyway.

My Home Management Notebook is my lifeblood for giving me some direction, goals, and checklists for my job here at home, and I’ll be talking about its contents for the next few weeks. And in the end, I’ll be sharing some tools I’ve created for my own personal book – maybe they’ll come in handy for you, too.

Do you have a Home Management Notebook? Have you wanted to make one but wasn’t sure where to start? What works well for you? What doesn’t? I’m curious.

• Next up in Home Management Notebooks: What are your three most important tasks today?

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Toggl: a nifty time management tool for COOs of the Home

Tsh — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:57:23 +0000

I work at home as a part-time graphic designer, and I also manage a lot of my work as a stay-at-home mom on the computer. Combine that with using language learning software, writing two blogs, reading plenty more, and keeping up with friends and family far away, that can equal a lot of computer time.

If I’m not careful, I can end up spending all day on the computer. My kids could become Computer Orphans if I don’t make time management a priority.

I’ve recently found a tool that can really help a mom manage her computer time. Toggl is a free service that monitors your computer time. It’s nothing more than a time logger, but it watches the clock so you don’t have to.

Let me show you how it works for me.

When I log into my Toggl account, I click on “new project.”
I create a project name – something obvious like “Balance Checkbook.”
It requires that you have a client’s name attached to a project, so for this project I’d use “Family.”
I decide how many hours I WANT to spend on this task – let’s say 2.
Whenever I’m ready to start that task, I click the start button next to that project. It immediately starts tracking my alloted time.

I’ve attached a screenshot of what my Toggl page looks like:

You can see that Toggl is actually created for tracking billable hours, like for folks who are self-employed or who telecommute from home. It’d be nice if moms COULD bill their hours, but since we can’t, just ignore this feature. (Or you could give your kids an invoice on Friday, letting them you know can accept straight up cash or whine-free dinnertimes as forms of payment.)

Even though this obviously works best for your computer time, you can also use it for whatever project on your to-do list. If you need to sort through your kiddo’s outgrown clothes, you could add that, and just start the timer on the computer when you start. I can see it working well for getting ready for a garage sale, planning a birthday party, or tracking your child’s homework time. Anything on which you want to spend time wisely.

When you finish your project, you simply click on “task completed.” If you want to see how you’ve managed your time so far, click on “see report,” and it will itemize each task and your time spent on each.

This works very well for me. I’m a list maker, I’m task-oriented, and it helps when I have a reachable goal for my many unseen mom jobs – I’m working to beat the clock, in other words. I also need accountability sometimes! This provides me with a time card for my full-time job of Mom, COO of the Household. And it encourages me to get things done and stay on task.

Another feature that’s great for moms of preschoolers is that you can start and stop your Toggl timer all day. So when you sit down to reply to emails, get the “Dear Mom, Sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you” written, then have to stop to fish a Nemo toy out of the toilet, you can pause the timer at the click of a button. Then you can start it up again. And of course, stop it again when your baby’s diaper is now emitting its contents up his back.

At the end of the week – or month, or day, or whenever, I can look at my hours logged, and look at my time management technique square in the face. Did I mean to spend only three hours this week reading blogs, and ended up devoting eight? Did I stay on task for four hours this week writing blog posts, or researching money market accounts, or planning Suzy’s homeschool curriculum – or whatever you need that smidge of accountability for?

With Toggl, I can create my own timesheet. Mom’s the COO, but sometimes it helps to also be the boss.
Photo by Jana Christy

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Organizing Toys for Dummies (or at least preschoolers)

Tsh — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:58:58 +0000

I love for everything to have its place – my three-year-old, on the other hand, could care less. And I’m okay with that. I wasn’t organized until adulthood, and still manage to swim under clutter every now and then a lot more since the birth of our second. She doesn’t have a lot of toys, but the ones she does have tend somehow to get everywhere. And since we’ve recently switched from nap time to “quiet time,” she’s got a good chunk of time to herself to get into all sorts of mayhem.

Exhibit A:

We recently bought shelves and storage buckets at Ikea, which work great. However, when it comes to clean-up time, all the toys are tossed hither and yon into whatever bucket is closest (and you can believe me when I say it’s like fingernails down a blackboard for me when that happens – but I keep my mouth shut). I understand that she’s too young to sort well, and she can’t yet read. So.

Question: How can I label these identical buckets so she can sort-of put her toys away where they belong?

Answer: photos.

I took out a couple toys in each bucket and took a quick snapshot. Here is her pretend food:

I then printed the photo and taped it to the bucket.

Walla. A really high-tech, fancy label that will hopefully help my preschooler know what goes where.

After:

(Notice how one bucket is already turned upside-down as a makeshift dining table.)

And I’m not so delusional to think she will now put everything exactly the way I would want it. I know there will still be mayhem and some gnashing of teeth come clean-up time. But perhaps this will help a bit, and will inspire this independent, I-wanna-do-it-myself little girl to keep her room a smidge neater.

I’ll let you know how that goes.

This is my contribution for both Making Your Home a Haven Monday and Tackle It Tuesday. I’m kinda busy this week.

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