I’m sending out a distress signal. If I don’t find a better way to organize my life, I might go insane.
In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that I am not one of those super women who is actually maintaining an immaculate home, but is too hard on herself. I don’t particularly enjoy homemaking, I’m overwhelmed by our organizational challenges and it shows.
My family is in desperate need of simple,affordable organizational ideas, chore divisions, and positive motivators. You might remember that we emptied our kid’s toy room before Christmas because they wouldn’t pick up their toys. That actually did make a difference, but now Mom and Dad need help with the rest of the house.
What I really need are organization tools that people really use – not fantasy shelves and time-consuming projects off of Pinterest (which I love, by the way). I’ve spent plenty of money on organization tools over the years and I’m loathe to continue investing in things that don’t work. I know that a big part of this is a change of attitude and effort on my family’s part.
So, here’s the situation:
– We are a family of five living in a 3 bedroom house, we have outgrown our home, but we need to make it work.
– Our two oldest children share a bedroom with bunkbeds and every inch of wall and closet space is basically covered by a bed, 3 dressers (including baby’s), and a book shelf.
– We converted the second bedroom to a toy room because we wanted a place to contain the toys and keep crayons, cars, and dolls from invading every room in our home.
– As a result, baby sleeps upstairs in an unused dining room off of our kitchen (making it tricky to clean dishes, etc. after he’s gone to bed).
– My husband works full-time, I am a SAHM, I own a Scentsy business, I’m a freelance writer, I am the author of this blog, and I (try to) manage our finances.
– We tackle our home together the best we can, but school, homework, swim lessons, family time, etc. make this a challenge for us during the week.
What I know:
– I’ll never change my kitchen challenges (no room to store food), so I am okay with the way it’s currently managed.
– I care more about function than fashion – I want things to look organized and cared for, but they don’t need to be fancy.
– I need organization ideas that are simple for kids 5 and under to grasp and help with.
– I need a simple family chore chart that doesn’t require a lot of money or time to create. Otherwise, I’ll spend all my time making a cool chore chart and not enough time actually organizing.
– My family will be happier if our house is organized and we are working together to keep it that way. We just need to feel like it’s possible and get motivated!
What I need:
– Concrete ideas.
– Help organizing mail, notes, coupons, bills. What do you do with the bills you’ve paid? Do you keep them for your records?
– Help with laundry. I need a good system for ensuring it doesn’t pile up and gets folded and put away the same day. Oh, and the socks. The evil socks. How do you keep track of socks for 5 people?
– Help organizing coats and shoes. We have a strange, long downstairs room that holds our desk, television, coaches, baby toys, and then shoes, coats, and bags. We have no mud room. I’ve come to realize that the kids and I want to have about 3 pairs of shoes handy near the door, rather than running to and from our rooms to grab them. We are in and out of the house a lot!
– Ideas for realistically maintaining the house – ie, wiping down bathrooms, sweeping, mopping, dusting, vacuuming, and picking up things – throughout the week that feels realistic and manageable. We tend to do the “deep cleaning” on Saturday, but this is a challenge when the house is in shambles by that time.
– Any other great, easy organizing tips you have for kid’s clothes, toys, recycling, and all that stuff families have!
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I will be digging out right now, trying to figure out what to tack first while the sick baby isn’t fussing.
We had an MR blog post the other day about a home organization binder, which was really helpful for me. http://modernrosies.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-to-home-management-binder.html
I have some of the same issues with you though, here in our house. My studio takes up our whole front room, so the boys are either playing in their rooms, or outside. In the winter, they play around the kitchen table, because that is where we have room. What I ended up doing was painting a wall of the kitchen with colored chalkboard paint, and using that as a “scheduler” for what needed to be done, and now my oldest has a square in HIS room of what needs to be done by HIM on a day-to-day basis. I have a daily/weekly list going, and when I am done with each item, I just move it down to the bottom of that list into a different colored chalk.
Hey Mindy- This is perfect timing because I’ve been in serious organization mode for a month or more. I just put up my new daily/weekly/monthly/yearly cleaning chart on my blog and I feel so empowered. Somehow having it written down makes it seem less overwhelming. Tips I’ve read/used recently: use unused baking dishes (8″ round cake pans, broiler pan, even bread pans) to store baking items so they’re grouped rather than scattered (olive oil, vanilla, maple flavoring, karo syrup, etc in one, baking powder, soda, salt, etc in another). I saw a picture of a wall with hooks stuck on it for coats, a bench below for shoes. You could also hang backpacks that way- a makeshift mudroom. I use all-a-dollar plastic baskets & cloth bins for under sink and linen closet storage. Also, big plastic crates turned on their side in the top of the coat closet as a shelf for games. It’s a bear to tackle it all but know that it plagues all of us. Good luck!!!
I think I’m in as much need of help as you, so I’ll definitely be watching the comments! 🙂 I do have a good book to recommend – it’s the “Fly Lady” book (her first one, I believe) called “Sink Reflections”. I read it through and am slowly trying to implement her routines. Her book is a quick, easy read and her tone is very friendly – not at all condescending or guilt-inducing. She has a very realistic view of housework and life in general and doesn’t want anyone to feel overwhelmed or feel like they have to spend hours and hours on their house. There’s plenty of humor in the book too, so it was a fun read.
I think my favorite piece of advice from her is this: Housework done “imperfectly” still blesses my family. ie, if I don’t have time to vacuum the “right way” (pick up all the toys and junk and move the furniture), I can still push the toys out of the way with the vacuum and at least get the majority of the carpet done. It sounds simple, but this was such a revelation to me, lol.
Anyway, I’m definitely still a work in progress w/ this, but at least that book has given me some hope! Check it out. 🙂
One thing that helps me is to just take one room at a time and organize it to my liking. Trying to take on too many locations at once just makes me even more scatterbrained and overwhelmed.
Another idea I read a few months ago(on the blog “So You Think You’re Crafty”, but couldn’t find the post–sory!) had to do with home maintenance. The basic idea is to take 15 minutes a day to clean a designated area of the home (i.e., bathroom, kitchen, etc.) I have yet to make my lists of what exactly needs to be done for each area in those 15 precious minutes (just going off lists in my head) but it does make a difference when I’m simply maintaining an area, versus always having to clean it. I’ve assigned a different area of the house to each day of the week, leaving Sunday as a day of rest. 🙂 Deep cleaning still needs to occur during the month in most of the areas, but if I’ve been maintaining it well then even the deep cleaning is easier!
Another idea is to visit your dollar store to pick up cheap baskets, buckets, etc. to organize. Gallon-size ziplock bags are also very useful. Much easier to organize when you have the tools to do it!
I try to keep my to-do list as the things I realistically need to do and can get done in the day. But if something doesn’t get done, then it gets carried over to the next day’s page. After a while I get so annoyed if the same thing keeps carrying over that I make sure to get it done.
You are not alone in your quest for organization–we have a home we have long outgrown too, and it is so tricky to make room for all of us and the things we need. I too am looking to others’ comments for new ideas to try!
I recently saw an idea for your sock issue! You get lingerie laundry bags (the mesh zip up kind) and hang them on each individuals door (or something close to the laundry basket). They put socks in it, you throw it in the wash, zipped so no socks are lost, and then it is more easy to pair them together!
I 2nd the Flylady!
We have to take our own recycling in, so we have 3 of the large plastic tote things that sit right outside the door from our house to our garage, and a flings bin that holds soda cans (which we turn in for $). Processing mail is one of the worst, Matt looks at it, opens stuff, and then leaves it, even if it’s trash. So I put a box or a paper bag by the fridge and the paper to be recycled goes there, and out to the garage when it is full, okay, okay overflowing and making a mess. I try and do the mail as soon as it comes in (before dinner gets started–and toss the TRUE junk into the bag). Once a week or so if i haven’t managed to get through it all (in other words, I notice that i have TWO weeks worth of newspapers), I sit and just skim them and save only what I need to DEAL WITH and leave it on the counter. Doesn’t matter if it’s this week or a party invite for next month, it stays in one pile. Bills go on my desk, and I have a hanging file for each current bill on an ‘open’ file caddy. Outdated/paid bills, insurance info, medical stuff, all is in a cheap filing cabinet. When we have company coming, I end up going through the ‘deal with’ pile and filing a lot of it. Bills are of course paid either online or by check and the loose papers go into the file folders. About every year we shred/recycle the bills (or if we change providers). A lot of our stuff is paid online, but we keep them in our email (they send a receipt), and i mark them with ‘to be paid’ in red in my inbox and then a green ‘paid online’ label in my gmail and archive them, so I can look back at any time. I also label online orders so I can find them quickly by selecting the tab and seeing exactly when the striped leggings and princess glitter sandals for the next 2 summers are going to arrive. hey they were on sale!
As for the mudroom, try using an image search for mudroom cubbies. We are going to build some in our laundry/mudroom/pantry, with a shelf over head, a bench with room for storage underneath, and of course, hooks on the walls. You could simplify that by just using 2 rows of hooks, the lower one being for the kids and their backpacks, and they are to hang up their stuff when they get home. That way it doesn’t go through the whole house, but stays at the door. Temporarily I would say get a couple of the ‘laundry’ baskets that have the faux wicker look and assign them to each person. Toss shoes, gloves, hats in there and put them right under the coats. Shoes go in the basket. Those things are like $3 apiece so if they get a little damp or something or the kids destroy them, you’re not out much, but they still look halfway decent. We end up with MUD, but still haven’t hurt ours yet.. Out of season stuff goes in closets behind closed doors. I put all our winter hats and gloves in a lingerie bag and hung it from a hanger in our coat closet. All my ‘non heavy’ jackets that are more for completing a look than super warmth (denim, faux corduroy, faux velvet) just go back in my room about once a week, because I forget to take them back and they pile up. Can’t wait for our cubbies!
I buy clothes a year in advance. I’ve only had a few things that didn’t fit or work pretty well, for which I’m thankful. All the outgrown stuff is in a plastic tub. Since B was born in a different season, we had to add to her wardrobe a bit. So now we’ve got a GIANT tub that although it’s organized, has all the newborn (clothes and diapers) through 6 months in it. I need to organize it, but at least it’s there. Before, I had all the clothes tucked in gallon bags and wrote on there what it was, what size/weight range. I think I will try and put them back as much as I can that way, with newborn and smallest diapers on top, bigger ones toward the bottom, and maybe pink on one side, gender neutral on the other. We have others that are currently holding the 18-24 months clothes as well, in our upstairs storage area, but the bottom or top of a closet out of the way would work just as well. All of the ‘yet to be worn’ clothes are either in a 3 drawer system in B’s room, so i can move them in easily, or in K’s dresser and in baskets folded in the top of her closet for this summer–they’re adorable fabric lined baskets that look so cute and fancy– but they hold discount 3t tank tops… When the seasons change, I’ll rotate her current stuff to the drawers she is using (we got her a BIG dresser) and rotate the other to another tub I suppose. I just found 2 overalls I’d been letting K wear last year as ‘capris’ that were 12 month size. Lol. i put them in B’s room this a.m. Anything that we aren’t going to use anymore I think is going to go to goodwill or rummage. What does a newborn need with 30 pair of socks? But we have tons of little bitty socks that never fit either girl’s feet very well at all. If you don’t have storage spots, under the bed boxes would work well, too. For a long time, we also packed off season clothes in suitcases and tucked them in the bottom of the closet. I have one bag that is my maternity clothes, still. Our pjs are in our nightstand drawers. I’m not sure what other people put in theirs, but that’s what is in ours! If the kids have closets you can do the ‘2nd level’ thing, too, if you don’t care how it looks? Grab some nylon rope and a piece of pvc or dowel rod and hang it from the upper closet rod. Kids can have 2 layers of clothes then, and use the whole space from rod to floor.
and this is an easy to use chore chart thing, it’s free to register and use, I just couldn’t figure out a way to list ‘bath’ on there, since it doesn’t give an ‘every other day’ option, and there are 7 days in a week, so we’d skip a day basically. may revisit later, but it WAS super simple and I would recommend. more for kids than anything.
my husband mentioned a chore list that would help get things done. Now, I SEE things that need done and either do them or not. he doesn’t see what needs done. not sure how to ‘fix’ that. maybe I’ll revisit this site.
http://mamadweeb.com/2012/01/making-a-pretty-chore-chart-online/
Here are a few things that have worked for us.
Socks – I have my kids match and fold the socks. They think it is a game to find the matching ones. I also have a little basket on the dryer for the unmatched socks so that way if one happend to miss the laundry, it might show up another time.
Cleaning – I do this at two different times in the day. One in the morning when the kids are just waking up. I give them some milk and let them watch a little tv whiel they wake up. I take advantage of that 15 minutes to empty the dishwasher or wipe down the bathroom. I also take advantage of bathtime. Either ryan or I will give the kids a bath while the other is cleaning, usually vaccuuming or wiping things down. It is only 15 minutes or so but that is enough. After bath, before the kids are allowed to have stories, they are to clean up their rooms. They love story time so it gets done most of the time. When they don’t do it, they don’t get books which is really hard for them.
Toys – we recently made pictures to put on the kids toy bins so they would know where to put everything. They are pictures of things like balls, cars, dolls, doll clothes. This helps my littlest one clean so she knows where everything goes.
I’m not help with the mail as our table is our dumping ground. I do hav a mini-file folder thingy that i got out of the Target dollar bin to organize my coupons. It is small enough to fit in my purse and each section holds different kinds of coupons, food, target stuff/household, restaurants, baby, etc.
Good luck! I also like the site http://www.orgjunkie.com. Cute ideas for organizing by category.
Sometimes I think you are a kindred spirit of mine. I had total breakdown last Monday over our lack of organization and storage. I too live in a tiny house with too much stuff. I have spent the better part of the last two days trying to figure out what to do with all our stuff and I think I might have some hoarding issues. I find a reason to keep everything.
I will be coming back to this post to see what everyone’s suggestions are.