As mothers, I'm sure we have all come to this conclusion.
At one point or another, one way or another we have realized that we need some sort of organization in order to avoid chaos.
As a teenager, I used to be organized. Extremely organized. And by extremely, I do mean, extremely. I have insomnia, and back then I used it to my advantage and when I couldn't sleep, I organized my room.
Everything was organized, from the tinniest paper clip to the thickest wool sweater, everything was color coordinated, separeted by size, use, style, form, shape etc. Everything had it's place, everything was always in place.But of course, that was back when I only had to worry about my room. I didn't have do my laundry or stocked up the toiled paper. It all just magically appeared.
Being organized brings harmony to a home. You don't have to be a neat freak about it, you don't have to color coordinate all your shirts or alphabetize your pantry. All you need to do is find your level of organization and find out what you need.
- Maybe you're the kind that is never behind on laundry, but toys all around, every where, all the time.
- Maybe you're the kind that has an impeccable pantry, but piles and piles of paper,bills, letters etc. on the kitchen table.
- Maybe you're the kind that always knows what to make for dinner, but whatever you do, don't open the hallway closet...
If it works for you. Then it's ok!
The keys is knowing that some sort of organization is important, and finding what it is that you need.
I like organization and like to have a place for everything and a time. After all, organization is not just about object placement, but also about schedules and routines, right?!
Now, I'm not the most organized person. In fact, if you were to see my house right now you would think I am the most DISorganized person in the world. Which right now, I really am. My house is mad chaos, everything is out of place, and because we're moving in less then a month, nothing really has a place.
There is an endless array of topics within this topic for which I'm WAY excited to talk about. After all, I am an Organizational Behaviorist (according to my diploma anyway...).
Most of what I know, I have learned from other moms. Some old, some new, some stay at home and others I only know through their published books.
But either way, let's start off by getting organized shall we?
What's your biggest organization pet-peeve?
What can you deal with and what can you not?
What do you wish you were better at?
My biggest pet-peeve is homeless things. Everything needs a place, a container, a drawer, something to be with his friends and not clutter other places. It's so much easier to find things when they have a home and are at their home!
I can deal with toys all around, it doesn't really bother me, but I hate being behind on the laundry (even though I usually am).
I wish I were better with keeping up with filing letters, bills and such, and not just letting them hang around for weeks in my kitchen counter...
13 comments:
What bothers me the most is when there are toys all over the house, not just in one place where they're supposed to stay (in the kids' playroom), but seriously everywhere, even in my room! And I can't keep up because I need to clean the kitchen, do the laudry...And by the time I'm half way through it I head the kids screaming or crying and sometimes I don't even have the time to wash my hands to go see what's the matter. By then, the house is a huge chaos with toys all over the place.
So that is exactly why yesterday I decided to grab all the miniature toys, eveything, and put it in a bad. We already have like, 5 bags of toys put away (because I can't stand too many toys) but it was time to do it again. This time though, I left what they play with the most, and only about half a dozen toys for each child, seriously. If they have too many toys then they'll never learn to focus on one thing, they'll just go and try every single toy for half a second, thus getting the house all messy. Sometimes I like to describe my place as if somebody had picked up my apartment, turned it upside down and shook it. Yep, that's exactly what it looks like, everyday at one point anyway.
I can deal with being a little behind in my laundry, and that's exactly something I need to get better at. I even like washing the clothes, but I hate folding them. And ironing. Actually I do like ironing, but when you have 1230980398 more important things to do in life, it's pretty hard to do so.
Anyway, I wrote too much!!!
What bugs me the most is to have mail on my kitchen table. I still don't have a specific spot for it, so I leave it there so that I can remember it and make payments, etc. However, I wish I had a specific spot for it. I also don't like to see toys all over the house. Throughout the day, I pick them up and take them to the play room (I do this a lot), I hate stepping on toys.
I can deal with my house being a little disorganized when my girls are playing. However, it only lasts so long. If they just threw all the pillows on the sectional on the carpet, as soon as they walk away, they are back in place. Same with just about everything.
I wish I was bettter to convince my little girls that it's not necessary to haul toys all over the house. That it's a whole lot more fun to play in their toy room, hehehe
I hate to have things all over the kitchen..and Brandon is the one for that. He cooks and has the salt grinder in one place..then the pepper grinder on theeee othherrrr side of the kitchen...then one spoon here, other there.. I can't stand this. And that's the ONLY thing we fight about..that's it!!! Why cant he just use something and put back in its place??
Other thing I can't stand is clothes all over the room or house. Brandon likes to come home and take his jacket off and put on the dinning table. I hate it!!! Why can't you just put in the coat closet, which is right next to the door you came in??? lol! I guess I am crazy.
Then, I have that I usually take too long to put Rachel's clothes in her closet after I washed them and fold them. I just put them on the daybed we have in her room and it will stay there until one day I decide putting in place. That's something I have to be better at.
I like the living room organized. When we moved to this apartment we are now, I told myself that we wouldnt let rachel bring toys to the living room, because she has a huge room for herself and there's no reason to bring toys to the living room. She can play in her room, right? WRONG!!! she still brings toys to the living room and we even put a little basket in one of the shelves on the book case so we could store her toys there. I AM CRAZY!!! but then I decided that we wont have more than those toys that already fit on that basket. If it gets to full, we'll take some toys back to her room. And that's what we've been doing lately.
Laundry, I do once a week...sometimes twice. Brandon washes his chef jackets whenever he is using his last one (he has 8) so I dont have to worry about it. I do Rachel's clothes, our clothes and garments, towels, kitchen rags, etc...
Our clothes take up to a week to go from the clean laundry basket to our closet. (I make Brandon put his clothes in place because I can't stand looking at his closet and finding something that I could organize a little better...so I just dont open it...lol). I take them out of the dryer and fold them...but I am lazy to put them in place..even knowing that it would be much better and easier if I do that right after.
so that's it...
I wrote too much!
I don't do well with my bills... I put everything in a basket when I get tired of looking at them on my kitchen table... Do you have any tips for that? I really don't know how to organize them!
Hahaha... Estou me divertindo lendo os comentários...
Realmente à vezes é muito difícil manter a casa organizada... Meu maior problema também são os brinquedos espalhados... e as roupas para passar, que eu também não gosto! rsrs...
Sobre as contas, eu tenho uma pastinha onde eu coloco todas as contas que chegam. Normalmente fazemos o pagamento no mesmo dia, mesmo as que ainda não venceram... Acho que fica mais fácil não esquecer de nenhuma... E depois coloco numa pasta arquivo separadas por tipo, por exemplo: gás, tv, celular, etc. Isso nos ajuda a encontrá-las rapidamente, se necessário...
Mila, eu coloco as bills na geladeira (a gente soh tem duas q chegam: eletricidade e comcast) e dai eu tiro do caminho de acordo com o q eu vou pagando (pagamento automatico para a Comcast e pagamento online para a Rocky Mtn Power). Depois, guardo na pasta de contas pagas e eh soh isso. Mas muitas vezes a gente junta papel de supermercado ou promocoes..ou coupons..dai sim meu countertop fica meio cheio.. Entao every other day eu dou uma olhada no q presta e o q nao vale mais.
Espero q ajude.
beijo
PS: minha mesa fica sempre cheia com meu computador, minah bolsa e algum novo projeto q to fazendo..hehe. No momento, ta cheio de pano e revista de crafts.
I think my biggest pet-peeve is when things are out of place. It drives me crazy to see things scattered all over, and lately that's been Tiffany's specialty! When I'm in the bathroom she plays with stuff there, then I go to the kitchen and she goes through all the drawers and cabinets and takes stuff out, put stuff in the wrong place and there it goes all over the house! I wish I could teach her how to put stuff back, but she mainly puts it wherever she wants.
I cannot deal with dirty dishes either. It used to not bother me so much, but now I'm constantly doing dishes... and I can deal with laundry (well, I kinda have to at the moment, but it's always been something I would do last!)
I'm working right now on keeping up with the house. At least once a week I need to get everything done one day or the other, I hate accumulating whatever it is that I have to get done and never do! Once I have the house clean and organized, then I can move on to projects and crafts, which I have been craving to do lately!
I have several pet-peeves, but the biggest is wrinkled clothes. I can't and I won't let my husband leave the house with a wrinkled shirt, even if he is late. And if that happens something is totally wrong with me. And my living room needs to be clean and organized at all times.
I can deal with my work/computer station not being perfectly organized, there are so many papers!!!!! but I try to keep it somewhat organized so I don't go crazy and embarassed when someone comes in.
I wish I was better keeping the "reading nook" in my bedroom organized. That is where I hide things from Thomas or keep things that doesn't have a place to go yet. And I have been kinda slow in the kitchen recently... Need to be better at that too.
Tendi nada deste tal de Pet-peeve hhahahahaha
Mas eu que sempre pareci desorganizada na adolescencia tenho serios problemas com desorganizacao na minha casa. Tudo tem que estar limpo e NAQUELE lugar, se tiver um centimetro pro lado, jah me enlouquece... Durmo menos hs por dia mas naum durmo se tiver bagunca. Brigo se alguem chegar em casa com peh sujo ou tirar alguma coisa do lugar, naum importa se eh tio, primo, vizinho, desconhecido.. Acho que passo ateh por chata.
Consigo lidar com a bagunca do armario, mas naum com bagunca a vista. Fecho a porta do armario, e um dia a gente conversa.
Queria conseguir juntar menos tralha.. Junto, junto, junto ateh o dia que decido dar um fim... Mas ateh lah, eh pra isso que os armarios existem!
Quanto as contas, tenho um pasta sanfonada com os dias, e deixo as contas pra pagar no dia do vencimento, e olho todo dia! Deixo ateh bilhetes do que tenho que fazer naquele dia, pra naum esquecer. E tenho uma sanfonada com os meses e vou arquivando por mes todas as contas e no fim do ano, um envelope com as contas do ano. E isso fica num pasta grande de documentos importantes. Aff, quanta tralha hehehehe
Camila, pet-peeve é tipo uma coisa que te enlouquece, que te irrita, que vc não aguenta, sabe? Tipo, um dos meus maiores pet peeves é pisar no molhado de meia. Aiiii como isso me enlouquece!!!!
My biggest pet peeve is a disorganized house. When I clean the house I can totally keep up with it...until my hubby starts messing it up,then I give up and it gets messy all over again. I figured that I like things to have their place(hidden usually) because clutter drives me nuts...
I can deal with being behind with my laundry. I really doesn't bother me. When we are running out of garments, we wash our clothes. So once or twice a week (when I'm being good)
Something that I wish I were better is planning meals and following thru so I wouldn't stress about it during the week. :)
Thanks for the tips Anna. I especially like how u sad that things need to be functional for ur style :)
I love reading your comments! Hope you don't mind an old mom leaving a comment.
This is what I've learned over the years:
1. Teach your children what a trash can looks like and how to use it.
2. Go through every room in your house and pick up EVERYTHING and ask yourself, "Do I really love this or do I really need this?" If the answer is "NO" then throw it away, give it away or sell it.
3. Assign EVERYTHING a place and when you take it out of it's place, when you're through with it, put it back in it's place. (Except I would wait until before bedtime and have the kids put their toys back in their place--otherwise all you will do all day is pick up toys.)
If you do this, even if your house is not spotlessly clean, it will look always clean because it's not cluttered.
Great tips! You should keep leaving comments on here, it's always good to learn from (not old) moms with more experience. ;)
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