Organizing Life Part 3: Systematize

Now we are getting to the heart of "Organizing Life." It is creating a system that will work for you and helping keep track of all the things that need to be done in a day. If you have simplified the areas that you know aren't working, and come up with a strategy to get it done(see:Organizing Life Part 1 and Organizing Life Part 2), then you are ready to start systematizing. I am going to focus on some main areas of organization  and the ways  I run a household with a husband, children, housework, home schooling and meal planning.
For a system to work it needs to be user friendly and do-able. Often we can plan for failure by trying to plan too much and then end up frustrated and abandon the plan all-together.
September seems to do it in home schooling families more than the normal January start to a calendar year. There are marvelous plans made in the mind to be done for the home schooling year and then reality hits and things start to get in the way. Holidays creep up, family obligations, sickness, appointments, burn out,  and boredom. A system of success will plan in for the unexpected and allow for life's unending schedule changes.

Binder System: Home Management Binder: Free Basic Sheets for Creating A System

• This is where you put your brain on paper when you can't remember what needs to be done next. See: Organized Mom and Brain In A Binder Pages For Purchase
• Make it as simple or complex as you need. Remember you are unique and so will your schedule be.
• Make broad categories and then sub-catergorize as needed. (Ex: Housework-daily chores-monthly cleaning-semi annual-annual cleaning)
• I put my notebook pages in a large 3 ring D binder. I also use plastic page protectors   I found them from Sam's Club and only about 20.00 for 200, 8 1/2" X 11" pages. These are very helpful to guard against spills, and using them as wipe off page with dry erase markers. I also use them to protect recipes and music pages for our downloaded worship song pages.
• I also recommend tabs. These are very nice to find the section you need in a hurry for your Home Management Binder instead of flipping every page. I used Post-It Flags that I got from Dollar General for $1.00 each color. 3M has a great coupon deal right now until 11/30/2011 for $2.00 off a minimum of $4.00 in post-it flags. These tabs are great: they can be written on and removed whenever you want(with no marks). I use them in our books to mark pages, in teacher's manuals-to keep track of lessons, book mark Bible pages and as place holders for favorite recipes.
• Another popular smaller sized pre-made organizer is by Franklin Covey  where you can build your own system and add what you want and then reorder pages when you need it. Price is around $25.00 to get started with your own design. They come in binder style or spiral bound.

 Electronic Organization Systems  Top Apps for I Phone & Top Apps for Android 

• I must admit I haven't gotten into this area of organization and productivity. I only am listing ideas that others have used and found helpful for organizing their lives. I include it here because I know there are a lot of people switching their  life's schedules into an electronic virtual calendar of events. Personally, I prefer paper, because technology is constantly becoming outdated and failing. Imagine your entire life on a virtual device and one short circuit happens,  your whole organization schedules and personal info gone *poof* in an instant. Talk about frustration, I get frustrated when I can't find the car keys, I can't imagine everything I did gone when I lost my phone or dropped it in puddle.
• The top apps for smartphone users created just for moms.  It does sound intriguing as a back up, but for now I can't justify the $200 plus cost of a smartphone and the $30 month extra charge for using the internet on the phone to have all these wonderful tools and have them suck my time away.
• Since I know the apps are being used, after research I did find the saying true, that there is an app for everything. Here is one for housework, another for meal planning  , home scheduling, calendar and syncing of programs and grocery buying. Just need to find one that will do it all  for you now.
• I also am thinking about eliminating the need for so many books, which I love and have 1000s of them. I might actually break down and get a kindle or nook. It would be nice for traveling light and it allows you to download all pre-1923 books for free about(1.8million). Gotta love the classics! Probably will save up for it, who knows. Heard great reviews about them, but then again if it crashes there go all your books.

 How It All Fits Together

Put main categories first in your system, what takes the most time, and plan around it and for it. Don't forget to check out the spring planner pages  at Passionate Homemaking for ideas in your system.

http://momstoolbelt.com/

My Home Management Binder Includes:   

• Housework Daily Schedule Candy's schedule adapted from her e-book The Joyful Christian Homemaker pg. 70.  I also adapted a half sheet list for each day on my refrigerator of focal points so I don't need to constantly turn to my binder.
• Meal Planning/Grocery Lists Dinner Tool for meal planning All Recipes for more great recipe ideas and for Grocery Lists as well as coupons Grocery Wiz
• Home School Weekly Schedules   Unit Study Planner  Semester Planner
• Appointments/Events Upcoming field trips, Dr. appointments, planned trips, possible trips
• Ministry  events, places, ideas, appointments
• Budget pick one you like Printable Budgeting Worksheets
• Contacts business card info, websites to remember, links I love, home schooling groups, networking
• Organization Tips Get Organized For Homeschooling  and One Bite At A Time  and Fly Lady

The Home Management Binder is a work in progress, so it changes as our needs change. Anything not used gets thrown away and another item takes it place.

Let me know about your system and share any links or ideas that work for you! I am always eager to hear of new and better ideas.

Organizing Life! Part 1: Simplify

It's been a while since a post, I know, but it was all for good reasons.  I have been busy trying to reorganize our family's disorganized, erratic lives.

We have been trying to struggle somewhere between slight chaos to complete disorder. We have had many, many things that have gotten in the way of common sense and civility around the home. So, before another year of home schooling started I realized I had to reign some things in and simplify my life so that the whole house could be healthy and thriving again.
Hopefully our mistakes can be of some help to others and we can all learn from one another. I will probably break this down into a series so that each post won't be impossible to read through. Enjoy and happy organizing.

My Five Step Plan :     Simplify, Strategize, Systematize, Schedule, Smile!

SIM'PLIFY, v. t. [L. simplex, simple, and facio, to make.] To make simple; to reduce what is complex to greater simplicity; to make plain or easy. The collection of duties is drawn to a point, and so far simplified. It is important in scientific pursuits, to be cautious in simplifying our deductions. This is the true way to simplify the study of science.http://www.1828-dictionary.com/d/word/simplify

When everything around you is in disorder it's time to simplify.  Give a good look around at what could be made to be done easier, faster or more efficiently. Sometimes the most glaring things can be overlooked simply because we are so used to our habits, good or bad. It is helpful to have some fresh perspective of ideas from others that we may not have thought of in simplifying our lives. Originally I sought out help from two blogs that I follow. 

The first blog is Charlotte Siems a mother of 12: she has been an inspiration of getting me back into shape physically and has also had an impact on getting me in shape spiritually and mentally as well. A little healthy conviction goes a long way.  I was slightly overwhelmed with life in general. A bit like this:

Isa 1:5

¶

Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

That's when Charlotte sent me this post; But I Don't Like Housework. I swallowed the conviction that I wasn't enjoying much of anything I had to do in life and instead of throwing my hands up I searched her blog for something to do about it when I found:    How I Got Organized As A Young Mother. 

I bought the book online that she mentioned in the article for $3.50

 and started skimming through it on quick fixes to get life moving again (starting with me first.)

The organization sounded good but I was so overwhelmed I didn't even know where to start and then remembered my Home Management Binder. It was long forgotten, stored away and I looked for it but couldn't even find it! I did internet searches trying to remember key words from it with no luck and I will tell you more about that under Strategize Part 2.  

My search wasn't all  in vain, it did bring me to Simplemom and   she had sine free downloads for a home management binder. She also released an ebook that I bought in order to simplify my life and get reorganized from scratch. It is One Bite At A Tme: 52 Projects For Making Life Simpler.

To get the book

 It was just recently released and only $5.00  the perfect price for our budget minded family. It gave me the jump start I needed. I didn't feel like I needed to accomplish everything in one week and started with "eating my frog" and "decluttering my mind" in order to start purging. It suggests 52 weeks to simplfying life but there is no order to follow, nor is it constrained to getting things done in one year.

I started by decluttering life and throwing things away. Junk that was collected over years of storing it thinking "someday I or _______ could use that". It was liberating to just purge the stuff that was leaving me stagnant and not moving anywhere.  So, now that I was simplifying things such as clutter I moved on to a plan to organize my time and daily activities.

Simplification, the first step in organizing life. I will elaborate more on strategies to get moving next post. I will leave you with this quote on simplicity.

The best things in life are nearest:  Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you.  Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.  ~Robert Louis Stevenson

Boys Means Busy!

Let's face it. Having boys means being constantly busy. Having seven boys ranging from 5 months to 21 years old  means it can be super busy. It has been an interesting year so far. Trying to educate this age range of young men has been training me more than them. I am extremely thankful that our only daughter who is almost twenty is here helping alongside me.
So what kind of wonderful wisdom can I show you? As I state in this blog I am on a journey that is not finished yet.  I am looking for ideas from others who have foraged ahead in this area.  I will share some ideas that have helped with my boys so far and hope someone can contribute ideas as well.

Living With Boys Means:
1. Food: There seems that there is never quite enough food for everyone. Their appetites clean it up at every meal.  If there are leftovers, it means the meal didn't go over so well. It also means I have to get more creative with what I make with the leftovers.

2. Clothing: There are only hand me downs in the infant range to toddler.  Sometimes a pair of pants will make it to the next one in line or they are shorts for summer wearing. I am extremely thankful for thrift stores and family who hand us bags of clothes when we visit.  As far as cleaning them all, I think it would be easier to throw the boys clothes and all in the shower and conserve water, but for now good stain removers (we use spray n wash) and a good front loading washer help a lot.

3. Shelter: We have all helped in building our own home over the past three years and built beds for each of them. Somehow, however, they all end up huddled together on the floor with a blanket and a makeshift fort. :)

4. Health and Safety: Active boys that expound upon each others creative ideas make for a very busy prayer life. I watch them go out to play and just pray, pray, and pray some more.  Of course binding up the minor wounds and scrapes are part of the routine, thankfully nothing major has happened. The only "boy" who has had wounds beyond my repair techniques or needed multiple hospital visits has been my husband oddly enough. It is nice to have studied out natural health and eat healthy foods.The mission field has been a very useful tool to learn about staying healthy and preventing illness or infections before they start.  We use a balance of allopathic and natural medicines around here.

5. Education:  Life is education.  The big focus around here is reading-so they can learn the word of God, writing- so they can learn how to communicate effectively, and arithmetic-so they can participate and contribute to society in a profitable manner. They have learned through life about many aspects of history, science, geography and language that a government school education could never offer.

So for a busy life with boys, I think prayer sums up the focus we are using to get things done. It is my only sane guidance at times. My husband is the first line of defense for the rest of trying to focus our lives, if it weren't for his direction and guidance I could get off in so many directions that I (along with everyone else) would go crazy. He is my anchor that holds me down to reality, when I can tend to go off into creative land. Delegation comes in second.  We delegate responsibilities so that everything else can get done around the homestead. Without responsibility and accountability the chores would never end.
I am looking for creative ideas on what to do with the little free time we do have with the boys, so if anyone has some creative ideas please share them in the comment section.

Chore Charts That Motivate

Found a great chore chart website with an online personalized customizable chore chart maker. It is great because you can fit it to your individual family's unique chore needs. There are plain ones, ones that you can use your own pictures, or a list of hundreds of themes. Start here with this link http://www.dltk-cards.com/chart/. While there browse around, there are great projects and craft ideas. You might be a while, but don't forget what you went there for ;).  We founded our "Snack Shack" out of desperation.  We had no motivation to do chores and hated math work. It was a true family effort and has snuck in math, economics, shopping frugality (there is a 10 dollar budget to buy snack items) and work gets done faster than when we offered 5 or 10 dollars to do the hard jobs around the home.  We have a lot of acreage to keep up on our homestead, so the work is never done. These charts have been great motivators. So, here's the how to:

After you print out your charts slip them in a plastic page protector and grab a dry erase marker to mark off each chore. You now have a reuseable chore chart.

 Our family uses our coins (to learn money value and work ethics) for our bank. Each chore gets a different amount that it is worth( for example: brush teeth = 2 cents.) We placed baggies under the chart and appointed  a banker to place the coins in each person's bag when the chores are done.

 At the end of the day each person goes to the snack shack where there is an eager store keeper ready to trade coins for snacks.

 The children put prices on each item in the snack shack according to how common it was and how much it was wanted by everyone. (Example: crackers were 10 cents, but fruit roll ups were 40 cents.)

After the coins add up and there are a 100 coins earned the children can choose a family movie night, ice cream out on the town, or  a park play day. It has taught responsibility as well as accountability.  We hope it gives others a spark for their family chores. If you have any other improvements let us know.