Time to Get Organized
So you’re making important plans for National Get Organized Week, right? At this moment you are eagerly anticipating the arrival of October 4-10 so you can spend every waking moment of that joyous week reorganizing jumbled closets and straightening those messy homeschooling materials. Oh, what a blissful week it is sure to be!
Okay, maybe not.
I have to tell you the truth, my dear fellow mamas: I didn’t even know National Get Organized Week existed until just a couple of weeks ago.
But, heaven help me, if ever there was an obscure holiday week that needed some observing around here, it’s THIS one!
Actually, I’m a chronic organizer by nature. In fact, sometimes I can accept things being dirty better than I can accept them being disorganized. (Don’t judge me.) I’m just happier and more at peace when I feel there is an order to the things about me.
But God has a delightful sense of humor, and He granted me a husband who is … well … let’s just say organization is not his strong point. (I love him dearly, mind you, lest you have any doubts about that, but it is what it is.) God then blessed me with four messy children whom He THEN compelled me to homeschool, and as a result I have been watching my organized little world, (when there are parts of it I actually manage to organize,) come unraveled before my eyes on a regular basis.
Now I can choose to allow myself daily nervous breakdowns over that, or I can learn to lighten up and deal with it. I’ve chosen to do the latter. After all, I CAN survive in less-than-ideally-organized circumstances.
But I still have those moments when I snap, like the other day when I opened a cabinet door and a few things fell out, (for like the 100th time,) and the Hulk-like “Crazy Organization Lady” inside me took over. And though it was the worst possible time to do it and though I knew I needed a better plan and maybe some containers to help in the process, I could find no rest until I had pulled everything out of that confounded cabinet and reorganized it. Right then.
Which didn’t help. Okay, maybe it helped a little, but not much. Because sometimes you really need a plan.
So if you’re thinking maybe you need to have a little National Get Organized Week celebration around your house, here are a few things to help you with your plan:
For Informational Organizing
If it’s your LIFE that needs organizing most, i.e. things like budgeting plans and tax information, notes and schedules, even school, insurance, and medical records, this post from Sharra about Getting Organized with Evernote might be exactly what you’re looking for. Digital organizational tools can make arranging and saving important information easy, and then make recalling and reproducing them even easier!
For Vehicle Organizing
I love some of these Tips for Organizing Your Car! If you’re in your vehicle very often, (and who isn’t?) a little organization of that tiny space can make a BIG difference and go a long way toward preventing your vehicle from becoming a disaster area, as they are SO prone to do when you have kids.
For Home Organizing
Clutter is generally one of the primary obstacles to good organization around the home. I wrote The Sane Woman’s Guide to Tackling Clutter, which can certainly get you started in the right direction with organization. The principles I mention here can be applied to organizing every area of the home, from closets to home offices to toy rooms.
On that note, I love some of these Clever Ways to Organize Kids’ Stuff.
For Homeschool Organization
I can organize, reorganize, and re-reorganize our homeschooling materials and supplies and STILL never be fully satisfied. It is forever a work in progress because the materials and supplies are changing regularly.
Finding homes for all the supplies you need for art and craft projects can be one of the greatest challenges. I LOVE Stephanie’s tips for How to Organize Homeschool Art Supplies.
Liz offers 10 Tips for Organizing Your Homeschool Room for Toddlers. Her ideas are both creative and practical, and most apply well no matter how old your children are.
For your further organizing pleasure, Danielle shares some Spring Homeschool Storage and Organization Gems. I always love getting ideas from others on creative ways to store and organize all our books and supplies.
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Call this your Get Organized Week primer and start planning now for a little “celebration” of your own. Identify your biggest trouble spots (we ALL have them), and begin your plan of attack. Whipping even one area of your life or home into a properly organized space can simplify your life and make you feel so good.
And then you should make a cake. Or maybe a big fat chocolate sundae. Because what’s a celebration without a little cake and ice cream, right?
Oh yeah. I’m looking forward to Get Organized Week already….
Have any great organizing tips you care to share? What’s the best piece of advice you can offer the organizationally-challenged?
My best organizational tip is simplifying! We’ve simplified calendars. We’ve simplified school stuff. We’ve simplified meals.
My philosophy is there is a place for everything, and everything has it’s place! These people I live with, ugh, misplace it all, lol! Getting rid of stuff we don’t need has helped. Thank you for all the great tips.
Shared on Facebook and Pinterest.
By organized, I think for us that means, get rid off crap. Our house feels so cluttered all the time. It makes me crazy. But also… kind of feeling lazy/can hardly keep up with everything else.
I was raised by “a place for everything, and everything in it’s place”. Days are much easier with organization. My dh however, appears to believe that things just magically get put away ?. He’s forever forgetting where he left something. We now have a “dad’s basket” where we put all the stuff he leaves lying around in.
I am looking for ideas on how to organize with a special needs child. I really loved this article. I really need the car organization tips! Thanks!
I am not the most organized person. I know I need to declutter mostly because I think that will help. Thanks for the info.
I am completely disorganized… but my chaos makes perfect sense to me… unfortunately raising these tiny people they have a great deal of need for organization… I struggle daily with myself because it does not come natural to me.
I used to be so organized… and want to be now! But for some reason I can’t seem to keep it all where it should be!
Love these practical solutions to the daily struggle that is organization!
This could’ve been written by me. I’m in the process of slowly purging my house ….. (Again) tis the season apparently ?
With 7 people in our house, if it is not put where it belongs you are in trouble. I allow one junk drawer in my kitchen. If I find something on my counter, table,etc; it goes in the drawer. They get to search the drawer, I call it leaving it out punishment. I have to have clean counters, tables.
We recently moved and I took the opportunity to get rid of a lot! I’ve found that now, staying organized hasn’t felt as overwhelming!
Organizing is not my strong point. I’m a recovering hoarder. And school supplies are my weakness. Same with books. But I hope to find time to organize with you all during the week and hopefully gain some more ground.