A big toy box makes it easy...

This is such a common complaint amongst many of my working mum clients – how can I get my kids to pick up after themselves so I don’t have to do it all the time?

This post from Unclutter gives 6 great tips on how you can do just that – and watch them grow up to be organising geniuses!

The following are a handful of suggestions for responsibilities that are appropriate for toddlers and some recommendations for teaching these skills:

• Hanging up her coat. Put a couple of hooks on the back of the coat closet door at a low enough height that your daughter can reach the hook but high enough so her coat won’t drag on the ground. When your daughter comes inside the house, let her be responsible for putting her coat on her hook.
• Wiping down the bathroom countertop. Get a small stool for your child to use in the bathroom when he is brushing his teeth, combing his hair, and washing his hands. Have a stack of wash cloths or hand towels within reach that he can use to wipe his face, dry his hands, and then wipe up any spilled and splashed water from the counter top.
• Making her bed each morning. Pulling up the sheet and pulling up the comforter are tasks that most kids can handle by two and a half.
• Putting dirty clothes in the hamper. Have a hamper that your child can easily put clothes into and see the clothes inside the basket. After you assist your child in getting out of his clothes and into his pajamas, hand him his clothes and ask him to put them in the hamper. As your child gets older and can dress himself, simply monitor him to ensure that he continues with this responsibility. (Hampers without lids are best, it doesn’t encourage leaving clothes on top).
• Setting the table. By age three, most children will be able to set a table with minimum supervision. Having placemats is a terrific way for helping children learn where cups, plates, silverware, and napkins typically go on a table.
• Returning toys to their storage locations. After playing with toys, toddlers should return them to their proper storage bins or shelves. As a result, storage shelves and bins need to be within your child’s reach. Label bins and shelves with pictures of what belongs in each space. Programs like Microsoft Word that include clip art are great for finding toy illustrations. It takes younger children significantly more time to pick up toys than older children, so be sure to leave time in your schedule for your child to pick up her toys before needing to move on to another activity.

Read the entire article here: http://unclutterer.com/2011/04/07/teaching-toddlers-about-organizing/

Caught! In the clutter...

Do you need help keeping on top of your kid’s toys?
Do you feel as if you’re constantly picking up toys?
Do you dread birthday parties because it means your kids will get more toys?
One client even confessed how she would like to throw away her kids’ toys while they sleep!

It doesn’t have to be so drastic. Instead of secretly throwing away your children’s toys you can involve them in the process of clearing out the clutter. Of course, this depends on your child’s age. Don’t expect a 2-year-old to agree to willingly part with any of his belongings.

Ask yourself: what toys do my children actually need? Do I have any rules in place to keep down the clutter? Or should I just resign myself to the fact that having children means being overwhelmed by toys?

Certainly, no matter how much they feel they must have the latest techno gadget, kids don’t actually need toys. As most of us have witnessed, children often have more fun playing with the box the present came in than the actual present.

Here are six top tips for reducing toy clutter:
http://domesticdownsizing.com/six%20top%20tips%20for%20reducing%20toy%20clutter

To fold or not to fold...

I was talking to a client with 3 young children on the phone yesterday and her biggest problem is she just can’t get on top of the washing – whether it is folding it, ironing it, putting it away – it just kept piling up all over the house. My advice to her was, will the world end if the washing isn’t folded? Her priorities have changed from when she was a single, care free, house proud woman to a sleep deprived mother of 3 and I suggested that she stop beating herself up and be more easier on herself. I think we can all take this advice when it comes to house work!

This morning I read a blog from Small Notebook that also touched on the same topic that I thought I would share:

If you’ve come upon a brick wall in your efforts to reduce and simplify, take heart.

I’m afraid we have the idea that if we can declutter enough, if we can reduce our possessions, if we can stop being concerned about having things, then our lives will become simple, and it simply isn’t true.

Owning fewer things definitely helps, but it doesn’t solve everything. The process of reducing doesn’t even end because there are always more papers or something to go through later.

But we do have a few other tricks to simplify and make things easier.

1.  At our house each family member gets one cup in the morning and uses it all day. (“You want a drink, child? Where is your cup?”) At the end of the day there are four cups to wash, not sixteen.

2. There is no possible way, no chance, that I could keep my family’s stuff picked up all by myself. Even though I have seriously decluttered, there is still too much mess for one person. Keeping it all picked up is something our family does together, five minutes at a time with a song playing, and we all help to pick up each other’s things, not just our own.

3. Organise your stuff, but know when to stop. Organising your stuff should save you time, not consume it.

4. Put hooks on the wall in the entry way so you have a place to hang coats and bags and keys. When your family comes home tired, it needs to be as easy as possible to put things where they should go.

5. Fake it. Move all the papers on your messy desk into a tote bag, or simply close the door to a disorderly closet. One day you’ll have to deal with them, but you don’t need to have everything simplified right this minute.

6. Don’t let the dishes pile up. I know all too well the feeling of “I can’t do the dishes because the sink is too full of dirty dishes.” It’s a downward spiral.

7. Keep your bag ready by the door so you have the essentials you need, without having to remember them every time.

8. Box up half of your child’s toys and rotate them every once in a while. You don’t need to get rid of them, but they don’t all need to be on display or on the floor. Better yet, let your child decide which toys he is done playing with for a while. Do the same with children’s books.

9. Declare toy-free areas. My kids can play with their toys in their bedroom and the living room, but my bedroom and the kitchen get to stay toy-free.

10. Give up. I have a quilt that goes on the couch, and I used to keep it nicely folded. I was folding this quilt four times a day because I was the only one who cared. Why?! Now I just throw it on the couch and it looks fine.

Read more here: http://smallnotebook.org/2011/03/01/10-ways-to-simplify-without-becoming-a-minimalist/

Box it up and send it on!

We all have this problem to some degree, but parents with children who have left home are the ones who suffer the most.

What do we do with other people’s stuff in our home? We feel guilty if we throw it out, we feel overwhelmed if it is left behind and eventually we may start to hold a grudge with the person who owns the stuff when they don’t collect it.

So what can you do?

Firstly, explain to the owner of the stuff how you are feeling, that you need your space back and could they come to collect it? Sounds obvious right?

If this doesn’t work, follow up by telling them that by a certain date if the stuff isn’t gone, you will start going through and sorting it for them. You will sell the more expensive and not-very-sentimental items and then use that money to ship what you believe to be the sentimental items to them. Sounds fair.

Hopefully, this will light a fire under them and they will come and collect it all. If not, you still have a way to remove all the clutter without any guilt whatsoever. You gave them a chance and the fact they didn’t come probably means it wasn’t really important to them anyway.

One way or another - you will have your house back!

1. 

   Let your fingers do the finding!

   Use an A-Z accordion file for storing instruction booklets and warranties for appliances and electronics. Staple the receipt to the inside of the booklet and then file it under the letter of the alphabet it fits (eg toaster goes under T). This system makes it possible for anyone in the household to find instruction booklets easily and quickly.

2. Store plastic shopping bags in an empty tissue box in the pantry – when it is full, take them to the supermarket for recycling. Don’t become a bag hoarder!
3. Organise clothes in your wardrobe by the four uses: formal, work, casual and sport. Keep all clothes for those different categories in different parts of the closet. From there, you can organise clothes by colour and style so that it’s easier to create outfits and think of different options.
4. Store out-of-season shoes in shoe boxes in the top of your wardrobe. Write a description of the summer shoe on one end of the box for storage during winter then use the same box for winter shoes and write the description on the other end.
5. Hang all clothes in your wardrobe with the coat hangers turned backwards. When you wear an item, turn the coat hanger the right way round. At the end of the season, those clothes still hanging backwards haven’t been worn so it is time to go!
6. Keep a bag or box handy in the laundry for clothes that need to go to the thrift store. When you are sorting the laundry toss in the clothes the kids have outgrown or that you no longer wear. When it’s full, put the box in the car to drop off next time you are out.
7. Use bottom drawers of chest of drawers for kids toys which are easy for them to reach Each drawer keeps like toys together so they know where a specific toy is, along with its accessories. It also helps to keep their bedrooms neat and makes cleanup easier for them and you.
8. Before the kids go to bed, have a 10-minute race to see who can pick up the most stuff. If you don’t have kids, make it a habit to do just 5 minutes yourself.
9. If you are still cluttered with VHS tapes get them converted into DVDs. There are computer programs that can help you with this, or there are many companies that can do it for you. Pop these DVDs into a CD album for easy storage without the jewel cases.
10. Instead of spending money on expensive home décor, personalise your home by displaying a collection of items you already have that tell a story about you. Search through your keepsakes for items you have stored away from your travels or that bring you happy memories that you love to look at.

Lastly, remember that if organising is too overwhelming for you, there are professional organisers who are always happy to help!

The perfect place for teddy & friends

Now that the kids are heading back to school, it is time to get organised with all their toys, especially all the new ones they may have received for Christmas that don’t have a proper place to be stored as yet.

Unclutterer.com had a question from a reader about how to store her grandchildren’s toys in her small house and came up with a few good tips on storing toys that could easily be used in most home:

• Find a small bookshelf that you can put in a closet or a low-traffic area of your home. The lower shelves can contain toys appropriate for young children and the higher shelves can hold toys for the older kids.
• Repurpose the lower shelf of a bookshelf you already have in your home. Label boxes with your grandchildren’s’ names, and then put the age-appropriate toys in the specific boxes. Your grandkids won’t ignore boxes with their names on them.
• Get a traditional toy box and put it at the foot of a bed or near your main entrance. When your grandkids aren’t visiting, it can be a place to sit to put on your shoes. When the grandkids are visiting, they’ll know exactly where to find the toys. Separate toys in the box into smaller boxes and bins, with the older toys in boxes that require more dexterity to open.
• Get another container that works with your home’s decor. Paint “Toys” or your grandchildren’s names on the container. Again, your grandkids will know exactly where to go to find the toys. You won’t have to remember a thing.

Check out some other great suggestions from the readers here: http://unclutterer.com/2011/01/21/ask-unclutterer-accessible-but-clutter-free-toy-storage/

Cheers to an organised 2011!

The presents have been unwrapped, turkey leftovers fill the refrigerator, and we’re back at our desks finishing year-end responsibilities. Whether at work or at home, there are tasks that we complete before December 31 that help to keep us organised in the new year.

Even though it’s difficult to get back to work after holidays, the last week of the year can often be extremely productive because so few people are in the office. There usually are fewer disruptions and it’s easier to work for longer blocks of time. If you’re taking time off from work, now is also a good time to focus on year-end responsibilities at home.

The following are tasks we complete at the end of the year, but you might tackle different tasks to wrap up 2010 and prepare for 2011.

• Reconcile financial accounts. Now is the time to get all of your financial paperwork for the year completed so you’re ready to file your taxes when your forms arrive.
• Year-end personal goal and resolution review. Review all you accomplished over the course of the year and create goals and resolutions for 2011.
• Back-up all digital data. Even if you do this daily, it’s good to take a final snapshot of the digital year.
• Review beneficiary information on all investments and policies. If your family has grown or changed in the last year, now is the time to make sure your beneficiary information is current. Additionally, it’s a good time to do a general review of these investments and policies.
• Review systems and routines. Are the systems and routines you follow meeting your family’s and home’s needs? If not, now is a good time to create new practices to implement in the new year.

Read more here on getting organised at work: http://unclutterer.com/2010/12/27/eight-year-end-tasks-to-keep-you-organized/

A rainbow of organising styles

Another handy post from unclutterer.com

If you’ve hit a stumbling block in your organizing process, you may have come up against one of the three common organizing mistakes:

1. Choosing form over function. It’s easy to fall in love with aesthetically appealing organizing products. However, unless the storage product is one that you’ll use consistently and exactly fits your needs, the storage product can end up being clutter and/or creating disorder. Avoid this pitfall by identifying your needs first, then seek out a storage product you’ll enjoy using (if you even need one).
2. Organizing for the sake of organizing. Clutter is defined as any distraction that gets in the way of the life you desire. Therefore, if you get caught up in organizing and lose sight of its purpose, you can start cluttering up your time organizing. Make things as organized as they need to be to pursue the life you want, and stop your organizing efforts there.
3. Believing you can’t be organized. Organizing is a skill, similar to swimming and riding a bike. Anyone of sound mind and body who wants to be organized can be organized, but you have to practice, try different methods, and be willing to learn from your mistakes. No one is “naturally” organized — some people might be more adept at learning these skills, but those people were not born with day planners in their hands. People like me (who seem naturally disorganized) can become organized, it just takes more work and focus.

To read more go to: http://unclutterer.com/2010/11/15/three-common-organizing-mistakes/

Off to school with a smile

If you have school-age children, you’re well aware that some mornings can be difficult. Even highly organized children have a few mornings each month where there is a melt down and things fall apart.

Here are a few tips to help get your children (and you) out the door on time:

Is your child getting enough sleep? When children go through growth spurts, they often need more sleep than at other times.

If their courses are more difficult this year than in the past, they might need more sleep to mentally process all that they’re learning. Talk with your child’s pediatrician to determine what is the best amount of sleep for your child.

Are parents ready before children? It’s easier to help your child in the morning if you’re already up and prepared for your day. The younger the child, the more important this is.

Have you planned for 15 extra minutes? No matter the day, you should always plan an extra 15 minutes into your morning schedule. Don’t have a super tight schedule, because if things go wrong your child will be late for school. When an emergency arises, it’s wonderful to have the additional time.

Are materials set the night before? Clothes, packed backpack, extra curricular sports or dance bag, lunch (in the refrigerator, but ready to go), and whatever materials your child needs for the next day should be prepared before your child goes to bed.

Do you have an “out-the-door” checklist? All children (and even adults) can benefit from a checklist for what to remember in the mornings. I recommend typing up the checklist and laminating it. Then, let your child use a dry erase marker or a wax pencil to check items off the list before heading out the door. You can also add special items to the list (Don’t forget your signed grade card!) when there are daily items your child needs to remember. Older children might not need to physically check items off the list, but they should stop and review it mentally.

Do you scream or sing in the morning? The Happiness Project author Gretchen Rubin recommends in “Tips for being a more light-hearted parent” to “Sing in the morning. It’s hard both to sing and to maintain a grouchy mood, and it sets a happy tone for everyone—particularly in my case, because I’m tone deaf and my audience finds my singing a source of great hilarity.” Keeping a light-hearted mood can help inspire your kids to also have positive outlooks — which can help set the morning tone.

Is everything okay at school? If you’ve tried every piece of advice for getting your child out the door on time and still can’t do it, you might want to talk to your child’s teacher or a trusted person at your child’s school. There might be a bigger issue you need to investigate (abuse, bullying, isolation, etc.).

Read more here: http://unclutterer.com/2010/09/13/getting-your-child-out-the-door-in-the-morning-on-time/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+unclutterer+(Unclutterer)

How do you get them OFF the computer?

This is a guest blog written by Chloe, the daughter of Leo Babauta from Zen Habits. She’s 17 and a junior in high school, and spent the day with her father on Take Your Daughter to Work Day.

With all the distractions we’re presented with from the Internet and other forms of media these days, it can be very difficult for teens to focus on schoolwork.

It is so convenient to tweet what you’re doing, text your friends, watch YouTube, or to do an infinite number of things when you’re supposed to be researching for an essay.

I’ll admit that just during the time it took to write this post, I’ve taken several breaks just to go on Facebook to see what everyone’s up to. Don’t worry – everyone will still be there after you’re done doing your work, so close Firefox/Chrome/Safari and get down to business.

Here are a few ways to increase your productivity and try to break away from distractions:

1. Turn off your wireless/Internet connection.

I know, it sounds crazy to deliberately cut off your connection to the outside world, but just do it. It eliminates your ability to easily open up your Internet browser and will help you to focus on what you really should be doing.

2. Set aside a specific time for using social networking/other recreational websites.

I’ve allotted myself some time to use the computer from 5:30-6:30 in the evening. I know that if I don’t give myself any limits, I’m capable of staying on Facebook and “becoming a fan” of fifty more pages instead of writing an essay or doing my math homework. I’m sure many people experience this problem too, so make sure to set aside about an hour (or whatever works for you) for leisure time.

3. Take short breaks.

After reading my American History book for too long, I tend to waste about half an hour by taking a nap. So to save myself from becoming insanely bored, I take little breaks by checking MySpace for a few minutes or getting a snack. I suggest that you do your homework or read for about ten to fifteen minutes at a time, then take a two to five minute break to maintain your sanity.

4. Do your work NOW rather than later.

I am a seasoned procrastinator. I’m guilty of wasting hours on end watching or making YouTube videos, chatting on instant messengers, or just daydreaming. I’ve learned the hard way that procrastination is not very rewarding and almost always results in bags under your eyes and B minuses (though there are several cases in which I’ve gotten exceptionally good grades for papers I had written at midnight). Do yourself a favor in advance, and start your work ahead of time.

5. Prioritise!

Ten years from now, do you want to look back at your life and realize that you spent a greater portion of your teen years sitting down in front of a laptop, rather than doing things that actually matter? Spend some time with your family or go outside and take a walk. Read a book, or do something with yourself that doesn’t involve a computer. (This is something I really need to work on too.)

6. Spend less time reading blogs about how to help yourself and get right to work! NOW!

The only way to really live productively is to go out and start actually living! After you’ve read up on how to become more productive, put your newly obtained knowledge to use.