My biggest organizational struggle is paper clutter.
This week I’ve been busy getting ready for my yard sale tomorrow. I’m proud to say that my house is mostly decluttered, save for the huge pile of stuff in my family room, waiting to be sold. Unfortunately, because I’ve been spending too much time decluttering, I haven’t spent ANY time writing.
Since I don’t have a post ready to go, I’m bringing back a post from my archives. Originally written on August 28, 2007, I’ve updated some of the information. I thought organization was a timely subject this week.
Enjoy! Things should be back to normal tomorrow!
Most of the time I’m a fairly organized person. There are times, however, when organization goes out the window, and the clutter in my life begins to pile up. It’s at these times that frugality goes out the window.
An example of how disorganization cost me happened yesterday. We received a call from the YMCA on Friday reminding us that the deadline for soccer sign-ups was today. So yesterday I loaded up the kids and drove to the YMCA to sign them up for soccer. I knew soccer sign-ups were in August, but I never called to find out when they started.
Had I called, I would have known that the early sign-up deadline was August 21. Because I missed that deadline, I had to pay an extra $5 for each of my children. You may say it’s only $10, but $10 mistakes can add up quickly.
Other symptoms that disorganization is costing you are:
- eating out too often, because you don’t know what’s for dinner
- buying duplicate items, because you don’t know what you already have on hand
- washing one outfit at a time, because you need to wear a particular outfit tomorrow, but you forgot to throw it in the laundry with the rest of your clothes a few days ago
- paying a higher interest rate, because you forgot to pay your bill on time
- paying late fees, because you forgot to return a book or dvd to the library
What is the answer? Learn to be more organized. Yes, organization can be learned! Some resources for learning to be organized are:
Flylady.net. In simple steps, Flylady teaches you to organize your home little by little. I have had a lot of success using morning routines and weekly home blessings. When my home is organized, I don’t feel overwhelmed by clutter, and I am more productive.
Getting Things Done. I had heard great things about this book, but I didn’t know if it would apply to a stay at home mom like me. I read it, and I have found ways to apply it, especially when it comes to paper clutter! David Allen presents a pretty good system for filing and keeping track of all the papers and emails that make their way into our lives. I recommend this book for anyone who has trouble with paper clutter.
If Getting Things Done is too much for you, Leo Babauta of Zen Habits has written an e-book called Zen to Done. I’ve read about 2/3 of it so far, and its a great alternative to Getting Things Done! It simplifies the GTD system and helps turn the ideas from GTD into simple actions that anyone can do. As a stay at home mom, Zen to Done has been perfect for me!
HouseWorks is a great book if you really don’t know where to begin with the clutter in your house. Written by Cynthia Townley Ewer, the CEO of Organized Home, this book is a wealth of information from how to declutter your house to how to clean things. I wish this book would have been around when I first got married!
Having a tough time with meal planning? Try Saving Dinner by Leanne Ely. This book has 6 weeks worth of dinner menus for every season of the year, complete with grocery shopping lists. Copy the list, cook, and eat! It doesn’t get easier than that! The recipes are very healthy. The groceries cost me more than what I personally budget for a week, but it’s still less expensive than eating out. Leanne also has a website, where you can get menu plans emailed to you every week for a fee.
A free option is Menus4Moms. I love this website when I’m strapped for time, because I can get 5 dinner plans for the week plus a grocery list FREE! The grocery list also includes an estimate for the cost of the week’s groceries. I’ve found that it’s usually pretty accurate. The menus aren’t quite as healthy as the Saving Dinner menus, but they’re kid friendly, and still much healthier than eating a Big Mac.
You now you have some resources to help you get organized. No more excuses for unpaid bills and last minute trips to McDonald’s for dinner! Now excuse me while I do a 27 Fling Boogie!
If you have a favorite website or tip for getting organized, please share it in the comments!
Photo by stopnlook.
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Best wishes for your garage sale success! Have you also thought about printing out business cards that have your URL on them to give to visitors? By definition, garage salers are always looking for bargains, and your site teaches that and more.
Enjoy,
Barbara
I wholeheartedly agree, as you might have guessed. However, I’m not much of a Fly Lady fan – ironically, her website is way too disorganized! And I’ve subscribed to her e-mail updates before, and she sends out like 8 a day! Which is weird, because she talks a lot about decluttering your email inbox. Hmm.
I’m a much bigger fan of GTD and Zen Habits, and since my Notebook series recently, I think I’m going to start some sort of Fly Lady alternative soon.
I’ve long thought of going the paperless office route (scanning everything and storing it in my computer)… Problem is, I think I need a better computer to do this! It would be nice to get rid of all the paper, wouldn’t it?
@Barbara – I’ve thought about doing business cards before, but I haven’t been organized enough to actually print some up! LOL Good idea!
@Simple Mom – I would love it if you started a Flylady alternative! I used to be a huge fan of the Organized Home forums, but they don’t exist anymore. :(
@Nicole – The paperless office is my next goal. :)
I really like the Family Manager site. The woman who started the business, Kathy Peel, also has a book out called desperate households. It was a really easy read and covers every area of your home. It had a lot of simple ideas to organize your home, schedule, kids rooms, etc.
Good luck with your garage sale!
Good post. Well worth repeating! I haven’t checked out any of those organizational books yet, but I’m putting them on my Library list…. now where did I put that list?
Hey, you’re doing really good if you’ve decluttered your house in a week! It seems I’ve been trying to declutter for years. Really, I manage to send off a bag every now and then to a charity giveaway box, but not as often as I’d like.
Good suggestions for organizing. I’ve haven’t gotten the books yet, but I do enjoy the Flylady’s site. I know it’s not for everyone, but for me the testimonies and the encouragements help. I don’t incorporate all the emails, but do some things. And, by the way, they have a digest email so you can get one email with all of the messages. That saves on email clutter. (Now, if I could only refrain from subscribing to every feed and newsletter that catches my attention, I’d be doing good to get organized!)
What I hate is the clutter of organizing bills. If I were braver, I’d set them up to autopay, but I’m so worried about the bank making an error and such. Occasionally we have to pay late penalties. Boo. But we’re pretty much past that for now *crosses fingers* I have some reminder systems set up.
No problem with recycling an article from last August as I wasn’t signed up then :) Thanks!
About the library list….my local library belongs to the Coastal Network Library – meaning I can go online and order books from 4 counties – they arrive at my local library – I get an email saying I have a book on hold – I go in and pick them up… I just love the time savings I get with my online library ordering :) I’m in and out of that library in under 5 minutes with an armload of books, videos, DVD’s, audio books, etc. :) (I don’t have TV – so I have time for them) Plus it’s all free.
Good luck with the garage sale – trying to get ready for my own – still living in a construction zone….soon, soon!
Organization, such a lovely thing. ’sigh’
Too bad the computer room/spare bedroom looks like a total disaster right now! (The husband and I really need to organize every growing piles of papers!)
Have fun at your yard sale, and may it be a successful one. Congratulations on a de-cluttered house too. Feels good, doesn’t it? :)
Good luck with your yard sale! Organization does pay with those!!!!
I have been using the Heart Healthy Menu from http://www.savingdinner.com and have been having great success with my weight loss! 23 pounds already. I really like the menus… they are healthy, yummy, a wide variety of choices and save me TIME and MONEY each week at the grocery. :-)
Excellet post though… lots of other great resources.
Smiles,
~Nikki
I’m not much of a Fly Lady fan – ironically, her website is way too disorganized! And I’ve subscribed to her e-mail updates before, and she sends out like 8 a day! Which is weird, because she talks a lot about decluttering your email inbox. Hmm.