Thursday, December 16, 2010

Organization

How was I ever an organized person?  Looking at my life now and looking at my life as a child and a teen, you would never know that I actually strive to be neat and organized.  You would never know that I was once a healthy weight and in shape.

Thinking back to my undergraduate days, I remember being extremely organized to the point of having multiple styles of calendars so that I knew what was happening on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.  When I work at one of my nursing home jobs, I was extremely organized to the point one of my co-workers always knew that I would have copies of required paperwork to give to her.  I also knew exactly where my social work CEU certificates were located and always knew how many I had and need to finish.  There was a time in my life that I had certain clothes in certain drawers.  I had to fold certain clothing items certain ways.  I even had to hang certain items certain ways and in certain places.

Now, if you looked at my life, you would say that I was a mess!  My bedroom looks as if it should be on the show Clean House.  Ok, it's not that bad, but it makes me feel that way.  Lately, I just get so overwhelmed with what I have to do, I just don't do it. 

I need a way of getting my life in order.  I was at Staples the other day, and given that it is almost a new year, I started looking at organizers.  I am trying to decide what kind of organization system is best for a mostly SAHM who works part time and needs a good stategy for getting household tasks completed.  I love the idea of a planner, but is that really all that useful not being in the professional work arena full time?  I did get a comment from a previous post that said to use outlook.  That's an awesome idea, except that I don't have a pc, I have a Mac.  Also, as much as I like technology, I still really like to write things.  Why, I don't know.  There is just somethign about the act of hand writing something that I really like.

My next task is to research planners for SAHM that will help me get organized in the different areas of my life.  I'd love to plan out household chores, weekly meal ideas, crafts that need to be made and completed, birthday cards that need to be sent, etc.  If anyone has ideas, I am more than interested.  Please pass them on.  I will also make sure that I post about any interesting ideas that I find, and what I ultimately plan choose.

Happy Holidays!

Amy

2 comments:

  1. Check out Real Simple for things like that. I subscribe to the magazine and LOVE IT! They sell tons of organizational things. Also, FLY Lady (flylady.net) has a shop and they sell planners more geared to the SAHM/Homemaker set.

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  2. I like paper, too, but I use google calendar and have different color calendars for each family member. My husband also uses google calendar. We share each others calendar and can edit each others calendars when necessary. We sync our calendars to our iPods so we always have the master schedule with us. Each month, I print the calendar in color and post it on our fridge as well so we can glance at it when needed and make quick notes to be added online later.

    I also have a weekly document with check off boxes for the daily household chores on one third. The day of the week chores, errands, meetings, etc. on one third and our weekly menu on the last third. My husband and I plan our menu on Sunday evening and I print out the weekly plan and I hang it on the fridge each Monday morning.

    I also like Toodledo for making to do lists. It's online but I can also sync to my iPod and share it with my husband. It's one of the few online todo management programs that has allows for repeating tasks.

    If you are into Flylady, she just teamed up with Cozi (a family oriented calendar/to do/menu planning site). If we didn't already have a working system, I'd definitely try it. It looks really good.

    I love paper lists and calendars, but it's so much more efficient to keep track of repeating events/tasks and share them with family members using online tools and printing things weekly and monthly as needed.

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