Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God. Doctrine & Covenants 88:119 by Carolyn Cannon 1. Paper Work Don t let this completely overwhelm your life! a. Every Day pick up the mail and sort through it before you go to bed. I look at everything and determine what to do with each item. Throw away any junk mail immediately. For everything else I use a tray system. I have four stacking trays on my desk. The top one gets any bills or items that I will deal with later (but I look at them first so I know what has come in). For calendar items (such as wedding invitations) I write the information on my calendar and either tape the invitation to my fridge, or toss it into the top tray, but at least I know I won t miss the event because it is on my calendar. The second tray is for coupons or catalogs that I may or may not use down the road (but at least it has a place to go for now). The third tray is for reference information for my kids (sport schedules, school calendars, phone lists, beginning-of-the-year information from their teachers, etc.). The bottom tray is for longer-term reference materials that I may want to refer to later. You also need to have a place for any magazines you subscribe to. I have an end table in my living room which gets these magazines and then everyone in the family knows where they can go to find the magazines. Create trays which allow you to sort your mail and paperwork however works best for you. If you often get mail items for your husband that he needs to be aware of or deal with, then create a tray for him where you can throw things and he can walk by and grab it at his convenience, but you are not responsible for it any longer.
The key to this system is to quickly deal with paperwork/mail each day so it doesn t pile up and you don t miss important dates and/or deadlines or lose bills. It also sets you up for the next step in dealing with paperwork b. Every month (or two weeks) I pay bills once a month, so when that day rolls around, I grab everything from the top tray as well as my check book, calculator, calendar, etc. Sitting at the kitchen table, I sort again through the pile and make stacks according to how things need to be dealt with. I have a stack that is anything related to bills (bills, check stubs, bank statements, etc.), a stack that needs to be filed, a stack that will go back to the top tray, a stack for garbage, and a stack of random things that I need to do. I always balance my checkbook first. Then I pay my bills using a sheet that helps me keep track of what I need to pay. Once a bill is paid it goes into the pile that needs to be filed. When I am done paying bills, I put everything back where it needs to go. Some things will just go back into the top tray, but most items will now get filed. I have a filing drawer at my desk with a file folder for each company or bill that we have (AT&T for cell phone, credit card companies, utility companies, bank statements, mortgage/home, etc.) They are alphabetical in the drawer. I file everything in this drawer. My final step in this process is to track everything that I spent for the month on the computer and quickly analyze where our money went for the month and I consider how we can do better the next month. Then I am done for another month, other than writing expenditures in my checkbook as I spend money. Along with paying bills, I usually take time to create my menus for the month and write out a monthly grocery list as well as a household list. I try to go that week to do the grocery shopping and household shopping. If I wait too long, the money for those trips may get spent somewhere else. c. Every Year In January (or sometimes I wait until I have figured our taxes so I don t throw away something important), I go through all the files in the drawer to clean them out. Most paper bills just get thrown away after a year. However, I keep all bank statements for 7 years. So, I throw away, reorganize, and dejunk my files. When I am finished I take the bank statements and other items which will be stored long-term down to my basement to a filing cabinet in my craft room. I throw out bank statements which are older than 7 years and put in the most current ones. d. Occasionally Every couple of months I try to look through my coupon/catalog tray and throw away things that have expired, etc. 2. Children s School Paperwork This type of paperwork can REALLY overwhelm! What do you do when your children return from school with all those wonderful projects that they have done throughout the day? This can be tricky because you don t want them to see all their hard work going into the trash can, but you also don t need to keep everything. For Elementary children, the most important step as a mother is to sit down with your children every day after school. Look over their work, ask them about their day, and let them tell you all their stories and show you all their work. Find out what homework they have so you know what you need to do to help them. Treat any notes and forms from the teacher or school just like you would your mail
(throw away junk, put any dates on the calendar, and put the rest in one of your trays to be dealt with later). I am a scrapbooker, so any of their school work that I think I might want for later scrapbooking, I keep. The rest of their work I give back to them. They each had a special box in their closet which was pretty big. They can choose to keep any of their work they want to, but it must go in their box. If the box fills up, they must sort through it and throw away some things to make more room. For sure at the beginning of each new school year I would have them sort through and dejunk it to make room for a new year. Sometimes they just need a little time before they are ready to discard something. Some of their things would stand the test of time and eventually those were the things they retained from their childhood. Any school work I kept would go into a stack in my craft room for that year and at the end of each year I would look through and decide what to keep for the year and then scrapbook all pictures and school work for the entire school year at one time. Anything I didn t scrapbook would then be tossed. My goal was to scrapbook the previous year before the next school year started (didn t always happen, but it s a great goal). If you don t like to scrapbook, DON T SCRAPBOOK. It takes WAY too much effort to do it if you don t enjoy it. Just figure out some system for keeping and organizing those things you want to keep and stick with it. It s easier to keep up on something than let it pile up. For Junior High and High School children, just talk to them when they get home from school to see how their day went and what they might need from you for the evening. They are old enough to hopefully be responsible for their own homework so I didn t usually ask about every class individually or my brain would go into melt-down mode from trying to remember things for them. I still keep important things (certificates, dance pictures, etc.) throughout the year and scrapbook their year all together at the end.
Give your furniture a dual purpose. An old steamer trunk or chest, a stack of vintage suitcases, or baskets can serve as interesting and eye catching end tables or coffee tables; they can also double as additional storage for items like books, photos, magazines, toys or whatever else you have lying around. Organizing can be aesthetically pleasing as well as functional. Chalk board walls are totally in and can serve as a great tool in keeping the family organized when it comes to scheduling: appointments, meetings, extra curricular activities. They are also great for leaving memos or notes. If you don t have wall space to spare consider using an old picture frame instead. Simply spray the glass with chalk
board paint for an attractive and functional chalk/memo board. Or you can purchase a chalkboard decal for your wall instead, like the one pictured below. Bookshelves aren t just for books. Consider using items such as small baskets, or attractive bowls and containers to accessorize your bookshelves {in addition to books}. These little nooks are great for
organizing unsightly remotes and cords; they can also offer a safe haven for often misplaced items like cell phones or car keys. Large, glass apothecary jars {or any other attractive canister} are not only aesthetically pleasing, but they can serve as great storage anywhere. On a kitchen counter, they are great for containing fruit, bread, sugar or flour. In a bathroom, they are great for cotton balls, Q-tips, hair accessories, or other small toiletries. In the laundry room, they are perfect for detergent and other laundering needs. The possibilities are endless.
Dressers aren t just for the bedroom. Dressers are a great organizing strategy simply because they offer lots of unused space. An item like this is perfect for a kitchen nook where it can be used to house linens such as napkins, place mats and table cloths. They are also great for occasional items like holiday platters and dishes. Dressers are also functional for a family or living room where they can offer much needed space for magazines, DVD s, books, toys or anything else without a home.
One of the most important rules in organizing is giving everything a home. This rule is especially helpful for young kids. Hanging a couple of hooks in the entry way or laundry/mud room area to create a home for coats, jackets and backpacks is inexpensive and easy to do.