School Morning Mayhem
May 16, 2012 | 
Author Life doesn’t always go to plan…a pair of lost soccer socks and one forgetful teenager was enough to throw our apparently organised school morning routine off by 10 minutes and land us in the worst of Sydney traffic this morning!
No-one’s perfect, and many teenagers, just like most younger kids are often still learning and practicing the everyday skills to stay organised.
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Happy Mothers Day
Wishing all the lovely Mums a Happy Mothers Day today!
Email clutter
I wonder if you feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of emails entering your inbox every day? So many of us do. Our email inboxes are really no different to the in-trays on our desks, except instead they fill up with virtual paper. The thing about emails is that they can pile up very quickly, and before you know it, you’ve lost the really important messages amongst the clutter.
One strategy I use to keep my inbox under some sort of control is to clear out all of the marketing emails. You know when you buy something online, or you join a shopping loyalty program, the company uses your email address to send you marketing material and special offers. The problem is that these emails can be fairly frequent, and it’s very tempting to quickly check out the messages as you go, and before you know it, you’re wandering through the website and browsing the online store all over again! And the real problem is you’ve lost focus from the task at hand.
Remember, you can always check out the company website when you have time, when you actually need to shop. In the meantime, unsubscribe from the emails to clear the clutter from your inbox, and help reduce your distractions. After all the websites will still be there next time you feel like having a look!
Organised Meal Ideas
I am often asked for quick, family friendly meal ideas ideas when you don’t have much time for preparation. Here are a few ideas to get you started….
Spaghetti Bolognaise or Chilli Con Carne
Any pasta with sauce
Burritos or tacos
Stir fry vegetables with meat or tofu and rice
Quiche and salad
Here is my recipe for Impossible Quiche (a quick recipe that sorts itself out when baked)
Ingredients
1 small chopped onion
1/2 cup scone mix
1 cup milk
1 cup grated cheese
4 beaten eggs
1/2 cup chopped ham, mushrooms, capsicum or whatever you prefer
Parsley
Method
Mix all ingredients. Bake in a greased 10″ quiche or pie dish at 180 degrees C or 350 degrees Farenheit for approximately 40 – 50 minutes. Serve warm or sliced as finger food.
Checklists
Do you use checklists to help you stay organised and remember tasks?
They’re a great tool if you are a bit forgetful, often in a hurry or you need to take items from one place to another e.g. working between a home and work office. They really handy for tasks that you do less often, such as packing for your summer holidays or organising a big event. They are also helpful for kids of all ages, especially school age children who need prompts for getting ready for school or packing school bags.
Checklists can be as simple as a handwritten list, or a piece of paper stuck on a wall e.g. a reminder for kids to wash their face, brush teeth and make their beds in the morning; or you could try laminating a home made chart printed from your computer (if you have a whiteboard marker, kids love to tick off the tasks as they go).
I use checklists for all sorts of things….my holiday packing list is invaluable and saves me from forgetting items on holiday and my checklist inside my gym bag means I don’t forget my towel and water bottle when I head off to a gym class.
I’ve been using an afternoon routine checklist at home with my daughter lately, so that when she comes home from school, she remembers to hand me her school notes and lunchbox before they get lost at the bottom of the school bag!
What checklists do you use?
Your most organised year yet
Happy New Year!
Have you resolved to be more organised in 2012? If you could be more organised, what would that look like and how would it feel? What would you do differently? What gets in the way of becoming more organised and how might you overcome it?
The New Year is a great time to start afresh with renewed enthusiasm and motivation…write down your goals for this year and choose to take a small step towards achieving them this week. This could be your most organised year yet.
Organising your photos at Christmas time
Why not take the time this holiday season to organise some of your photographs so that you and your family can really enjoy them? Don’t forget that albums and photo books make perfect Christmas presents too.
First ask yourself some questions about your photos:
- What would you like to do with your photos?
- Who would you like to preserve your photo memories for?
- How would you like to display your photographs?
- What type of album would you prefer or would you like to make a photo book?
- Do you want to create gifts from your photographs?
Simple steps to organising your photos:
1) If you don’t already have one, create a folder on your computer and add all your digital photos to it. Create a new folder and name it ‘Photos to be printed’ or similar. Go through all your digital photos and add any that you want to include in your albums to the ‘Photos to be printed’ folder.
2) Shop around for photo printing deals, often there are some great specials available, especially if you are printing a large quantity at once.
3) Next, gather all of your printed photos together (printed digital photos, boxes, plastic bags, loose photos and envelopes of photos from under the bed) to see what you have.
4) Gather your supplies (choose photo safe quality) including boxes or containers, pens, notebook and albums.
5) Spread photographs out over a table or other large surface where you can see them easily.
6) Sort your photos by date using broad categories such as by year or by five years (fashions, hair styles and the ages of children are great hints as to when the photos were taken).
7) Either make piles of each year or category of photographs, or sort them directly into a photo sorting box. You can use sticky notes to identify categories or dividers and label them clearly. Make sure you save reminiscing for later and just focus on sorting at this stage!
8) Remove photos that are obviously not good enough to keep, for example where fingers obscure the lens, accidental shots or where photos are out of focus or marred by poor lighting. In some cases, photos may be saved with digital editing software if they are scanned, keep these photos aside in a labelled envelope for editing later. Duplicates can be put aside for friends and relatives.
9) Use shoe boxes or envelopes to keep the years together if you need to work on these another day and clearly label these temporary boxes.
10) Store your negatives and digital copies separately from your photographs in case of loss or emergency. It might be a good idea to send copies of precious digital photographs to another family member for safe keeping just in case something happens to your hard drive.
11) Once you have your photographs sorted and ready to place in an album, do a rough layout first before committing to the permanent arrangement, this will help ensure you have enough room and the order is to your liking.
12) Position your photographs in your album and make notes next to each photo so you or your children will remember who is pictured in years to come. Store your albums away from sunlight, extreme heat, cold, damp or humid atmospheres.
And finally, enjoy your photos!
Recycling old house keys
Do you have a bunch of old house keys lying around the house that you no longer need?
Did you know that you can recycle your old keys if your local council collects steel cans for recycling? Just pop them inside a steel can and squeeze the top closed so the keys don’t fall out, and place the steel can in your council recycling. Its a great way to let go of clutter and saves the metal from entering landfill.
Take a Picture
I was chatting with a client today and she told me that she had recently enjoyed reading Corinne Grant’s book “Lessons in Letting Go”. I wrote about it here a year ago as I was impressed by Corinne’s honesty and bravery in sharing her difficulties with hoarding.
One of the techniques that Corinne found helpful was to take a photograph of the item before letting it go, selling it or donating to charity. This tool can be especially useful if the item is really big, takes up a lot of space that you don’t have, and you know that you won’t use it again….yet somehow the memories and feelings it evokes seem to stop you from letting go of the item.
The photograph could be incorporated into a 3D frame with other small related items of memorabilia. If you put it on display, you will always be reminded of the person, a time in your life or the event and the memories from that time.
Here is a short review of the book…
“It took a year to drag myself out of the mess. A year in which I lost my dearest friend and then promptly lost my way. A year in which I ran away overseas, came back and then ran away again. A year in which I learnt to let go, learnt to forgive and learnt to grow up. It was a big year. It was a lot of work. And I head-butted two people. Accidentally.
Lessons in Letting Go is an honest, moving and often uproariously funny memoir of the year in which Corinne Grant decides to do something about her hoarding. From every scrunchie she’s ever owned, to every pencil case and magazine, it’s time for it all to go. Problem is, getting rid of the stuff turns out to be much harder than she initially thought.
This delightful memoir is about hoarding and about how the things we hold on to can end up dictating our lives. Warm, funny, candid and insightful, Lessons in Letting Go is about the pain – but also the necessity and the joy – in learning to let go.”
Choose the best planner for your personality
Spring is our favourite season here at Organise for Life. We love throwing open the windows of our homes and offices to the fresh air and sunshine and finding extra time to spend with our families and friends.
This is the perfect time of year to get more organised so you can spend less time on things you don’t enjoy, such as housework and paperwork, and more (guilt-free) time enjoying the people, places and activities you love.
Organisation always starts with planning. The must-have tool in your arsenal to fight disorganisation is a diary or a planner that you use every day. A planner can be used to keep track of contacts, appointments, to-do lists, shopping lists and notes and frees up valuable brain-space so you can focus on getting things done.
A good diary or planner does not need to cost a fortune, in fact you might find that your smart phone has all the functions that you need and is the perfect fit for you. If you prefer a paper-based diary or planner, new year stocks are now coming in to the shops so it is the perfect time to be thinking about what you need before you get distracted by the upcoming holiday season.
You have one life, so make sure you use one planner to manage all your contacts, activities and tasks. Keeping track of your work schedule, your personal and social events in one place is a must to avoid diary clashes and missed appointments. Choose a planner to suit your own personal taste, in a style you like, so you will be encouraged to use it and carry it with you.
Before you buy a planner, your first decision should be whether to choose a digital planner, such as a smart phone or computer-based calendar, or opt for a paper diary. There are advantages and disadvantages to each, however, people who argue that one method is better than the other are missing a vital point; a planner must suit your personality and style. If it’s a good fit you will use it, and if you use it well, you will wonder how you ever managed without it!
Subscribe to our new Spring newsletter for more ways to choose the perfect planner, and receive our inspiring updates each quarter.
