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Faithr
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| Posted: June 23 2010 at 6:46am | IP Logged
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I am a deeply disorganized person!! It is a major obstacle in my life. However, over the years I have settled into certain systems which maintain a basic ability to function. I mean I watch that show Clean House and think to myself, wow, I'm not THAT bad. However, I know I am just inches from the precipice!I have to work diligently to keep that little distance so I don't fall off the cliff!
I am always reading organization books/articles/gleaning ideas. 99% don't ever work for me. I spend money buying whatever organization tools I need because so and so recommended them and really most of the time it winds up not helping. But I have over the years carved out some things that keep me afloat.
For instance, somehow a while ago, I got into the habit of making my bed every morning. You probably laugh because it doesn't seem like a big thing. Often the rest of our room is completely covered in clutter and I have to fight my way to the bed. But at least the bed looks nice!
Another thing: I've found that if I dump the clean laundry on my husband's side of the bed, I'll put it away before he comes to bed. I could potentially never put clothes back in drawers. That is my natural tendency! They could just move from clean laundry basket to floor to dirty laundry basket to washer/dryer. BUT if I dump them on my husband's side of the bed, I'll put them away, more likely than not. There are times when I've cheated and just shoved them back into the laundry basket from whence they came because I've just been too tired, but mostly this system really works.
Or I've gotten into the habit (mostly) of putting the car keys on the mantle when I enter the house. So now I only lose my keys once every 4 months or so, instead of once or twice a week.
I don't lose my purse so much anymore because I either keep it in the van in the garage or I always hang it on the back of one particular chair in the family room.
I've never been good with planners for homeschooling. I've found everything needs to be posted up on a wall or fridge for me. So I have checklists that I put on our kitchen cabinets. I walk by them many times a day and can easily consult them to see what needs doing next.
I could go on and on (I already have!) but I'm just wondering if there is anyone else out there in homeschooling Catholicland as pathetically ADD as I am. What kind of little systems have you come up with to keep things moving in a forward direction? I would love to hear anecdotes. I'm in the middle of trying to organize things around the house. I need inspiration and encouragement!
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Paula in MN
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| Posted: June 23 2010 at 6:56am | IP Logged
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I don't think you're pathetic at all!
We all have little things we do, pegs if you will, that help us in our vocations as mothers and caregivers and wives and teachers and daughters and sisters and friends. When I come across items that belong to other people, or items others want to borrow, I place them on a bench next to my front door. The next time I leave the house I grab those items and place them in my van. Then I have them with me the next time I see those people.
I have the water jugs for the dogs in the laundry room tub. I go in that room every morning to deposit the kitchen towels, and then I fill the water jugs.
You are not alone!
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 Paula
A Catholic Harvest
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Chris V
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| Posted: June 23 2010 at 9:08am | IP Logged
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I agree with Paula! You are most certainly not pathetic; we all have little patterns within our homes that help us function throughout the day ~ they may be a little comical to the outsider, but highly valued to those of us in the trenches because it may be what works for us to keep our head afloat!
I have tried on countless occasions to implement the homemakers notebook in my life; getting the inspiration, of course, from the many blogs I peruse weekly, daily, some hourly  , it seems that for those amazing women, they are unbelievably organized, beautified, functional, and prove to be an instrumental tool in making their lives easier. Afterall, if you're going to embrace your vocation to the fullest, you need your notebook ,right? Well, after years of seeking and struggling to fall in love with the homemakers notebook, I've decided, rather, to embrace my true-self and end this inner maddness to be someone that I am not. I'm not a notebook gal, I'm a post-it gal. I've used post-its to organize my life since I was in college (a rather long, long time ago). Once I self-accepted this part of who I am, I felt the heavy stones lifted from my shoulders, took a deep breath of relief, smiled, and gave myself a hug. I still love all those fabulous notebooks and will always admire the creative-crafty women who put in all the effort and energy to create them, use them, and update them, but I must say, I my post-its!
Embrace yourself! Do what works for you!
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Chris
Happy Wife with my Happy Life
Mama to My Five Girls ('04~'07~'09~'11~'11)
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Faithr
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| Posted: June 24 2010 at 4:54am | IP Logged
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Thank you, ladies! I think I have a permanent inferiority complex about housekeeping and being organized. I have just struggled so much with them both for all my life!
I have to tell you a funny story about my household journal. I too was charmed by the idea of having a pretty homemaker notebook. I bought myself a nice binder. I got the pretty Catholic woman's Planner (very nice!) and I printed out pretty old fashioned paper to make my lists of routines on. I spent many blissful hours researching how to do this and then putting it together while the clutter and dishes piled up and the children sat neglected in front of the tube!
I used it for about a month (off and on, I kept losing among the clutter). Then it vanished. I couldn't find it anywhere! I looked and looked! I drove myself crazy! I mourned the loss of the thing that would have made me perfect. The thing that would have made me like one of the creative, tidy, beautiful women I so longed to be. But it was gone. Simply vanished.
A year later my dh got sick of the horrid condition of the garage and decided to do something about it. He rallied the troops and forced us all to pull everything out of the garage and into piles. And underneath some junk in a corner of the garage, I found my binder. I think what might have happened is for some reason I put it in the car. Maybe I wanted to work on it while some child was at a class or dance lesson or something. I must have left it in the car and then someone came along and cleared out the car for some other reason. To put bikes in maybe? I don't know. This is my working theory. I think that person (who will remain nameless LOL!) threw my binder down on the floor of the garage where it got covered with other clutters and kind of shoved to the side.
So I discovered that household binders simply are not practical when you live under the conditions I live under! Other people occupy pristine, logical universes, but, alas, I do not!
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: June 24 2010 at 10:20am | IP Logged
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I learned to keep the horizontal clutter magnets in my living room clear.. by simply dumping stuff from them onto my desk.. desk was already a disaster.. so why not.
I don't shut my car door without my keys being in my hand. Literally in my hand. Even if I know I just dropped them into my purse and my purse is on my shoulder.. I pull the keys back out and hold them in order to shut the car door. I learned to do that as the only way to not be calling for help for locking my keys in the vehicle way way too often.
In all your reading have you seen the book.. ADD-Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life?
I got it and I'm not running out and using every idea in there.. but what it's helped me do is figure out WHY some things work for me and others don't.
One of the big things for me is to do things so they work not because "everyone does it that way".
Like I spent way to many years with a semi-disaster in the kitchen because aren't we supposed to do all the dishes after dinner and leave a clean house for morning? Until I realized that I could and would get it clean once a day (just like the after dinner crowd) but by doing it after lunch. I found the time worked better for me and the motivation of having a clean kitchen to cook dinner in was much higher than having a clean kitchen before I went to bed. 
My laundry rule is... I can't get out another load until I've folded the last one. When there's as much laundry as there is with 10 people.. that's pretty motivating. And I fold on the table and the kids put away everything except mine and dh's clothes.
oh and instead of household binders or such.. I keep the computer on all the time and in my email draft folder.. I save lists. It's wonderful.. easy to change as needed, no pieces of paper to lose. Any and all lists.. a shopping list, a list for camping gear, a list for my first aid kit, a list of things to save money from tax returns for, a list of gift ideas, a list of what clothes which kids need.. etc etc. My newest list is scouting equipment and gifts.. my dh promised our oldest son a good leatherman knife when he gets to Eagle Scout (he just started boy scouts) so I made a list so I could remember that
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
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Michaela
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| Posted: June 24 2010 at 10:29am | IP Logged
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You must be my long lost sister. Seriously!
Sharing examples of my problem areas could go on forever.
My binder wouldn't be in the garage because I cleaned out my car, but because I grabbed it along with everything else on my counter when I cleared it off before company comes. (I have weird issues about anyone seeing my paperwork, bills, statements. I've had visitors compare what I pay for electric or trash vs. their bill.  )
Let me share something  revealing...all too often I'd end up paying bills late, not because we didn't have the money (we always did), but because I'd do one of my infamous clearing jobs before someone comes. Then the bill would be outta sight and I honestly forget about it (outta sight=outta mind)and I would have to pay a late fee. Obviously, I wasn't being a good steward with our money! Those $1-$5 fees add up to nothing but waste!! My husband works too hard for me not to have made the connection sooner.
The clothing issue was a MAJOR MAJOR problem. I'd wash, dump it on my bed, go back downstairs and forget about it (outta sight= outta mind). Dh, who goes to bed before me, either put it on the floor or would just get in the bed and end up knocking clothes to the floor in his sleep. (he works too hard after 12-16hr days, and was too tired to place it carefully somewhere until I see it (ding ding...oh yah, i forgot!)and get back to it. On floor = dog hair on clothes = wash again. This circle happened too often. Plus, our laundry room setup was awful. If anyone wanted to use the downstairs bathroom, they'd have to go through our laundry room. Our laundry shoot is in the tv room.  Once I pulled the dirty clothes out I certainly couldnt put them back up if I didn't finish all the wash. Climbing over piles of dirty clothes was frustrating. If someone was coming over, I had to kick the clothes into the garage. (the outta sight thing happened again!!) It was AWFUL!!
At the beginning of the year, along with several moms on this board, I prayed to know what my word for 2010 should be.
God let me know that my word, my focus for this year, is ORDER.
The two big changes I've made are 1) we bought a laundry organizer and parked it next to the dryer and tons of hangers. When clothes come out of the dryer, they are IMMEDIATELY put on hangers and on the rack.
My children know to take their clothes and hang them up. That even took time because in the beginning of our new system, I'd find their clothes (still on hangers!!!) on their floor or laying on the end of their bed. The organizer has a place for dirty clothes, too!
2) I put up a corkboard that I bought a year or two ago. I was going to put it inside my pantry, but I've shared, I have a problem when things are out of sight. Everything goes on that board! I see it and deal with it. Bills are ready to be mailed...meaning checks enclosed, stamped, and most important IN MY FACE on a kitchen wall. I have no "issues" with company seeing closed envelopes.
What I've changed has helped with my outta sight outta mind problems.
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Michaela
Momma to Nicholas 16, Nathan 13, Olivia 13, Teresa 6, & Anthony 3
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: June 24 2010 at 10:32am | IP Logged
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oh yes.. I use a bulletin board too.. and if someone's coming I don't want to see the bills.. I flip the top one upside down so that you can't see the amounts but I still see that the stack of bills is on the board
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: June 24 2010 at 10:40am | IP Logged
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oh! on the bills.. I also keep a list of which bills get paid with which paycheck during the month.. that way even if a bill goes missing.. I check my list and know either that I need to find it or just walk in and pay it or something.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
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Faithr
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| Posted: June 25 2010 at 8:39am | IP Logged
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Yes, I do have that book about ADD Organization. I read it a while ago. I remember liking it a lot but I can't remember a single thing it advised! I'll have to go thumb through it to refresh my memory.
I tried folding laundry on our table except then I always had to clear a table or wipe off the crumbs and sticky spills first! So that didn't work. And I wish I had room for a laundry organizer. My laundry room is off the garage and is very long and narrow. One side has w/d and the other has hooks for hanging coats. And you have just enough room to turn around between them.
For bills, my dh is actually pretty good at that stuff. For of all he consolidated the due dates so they fell due about the same time. Then one night during that period we'd sit down in front of the tv and watch a show or movie, we'd split a beer between us and we'd systematically go through the bills. It was kind of romantic, if you can believe it. Like a little date. He was just waxing nostalgic over it the other day. I guess though his practical side and love for all things techno won out over our 'bill' date because he started switching everything over to automatic withdrawal for bills. We still have a couple of bills that come in snail mail but they are pretty easy to remember to take care of because they are so few.
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Michaela
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| Posted: June 29 2010 at 8:18am | IP Logged
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Jodie, I'm going to put a hold on the book, right now there is a waiting list. I am so naive! I never knew adults could have ADD. I thought my problem was a combination of age and sleep deprivation.
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Michaela
Momma to Nicholas 16, Nathan 13, Olivia 13, Teresa 6, & Anthony 3
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Becky Parker
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| Posted: June 29 2010 at 9:21am | IP Logged
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I've had that book on my wishlist at Amazon for quite a while. I think it's time to splurge!
I haven't responded here because I was thinking I don't really have any systems that work but I guess I do. For one, I got into the habit of not taking anything out of the dryer that I can't fold and put away, right away. That has really helped us with our laundry problems.
I'm currently working on some systems with the kids. They've just got to help or everything is in a state of chaos and I get overwhelmed and therefore just sit there and stare at it all, instead of doing something about it!
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Becky
Wife to Wes, Mom to 6 wonderful kids on Earth and 4 in Heaven!
Academy Of The Good Shepherd
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Faithr
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| Posted: June 30 2010 at 5:17am | IP Logged
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I find it very hard to guide my kids into having systems because I am grappling so much with it myself. However, I do notice kids develop their own systems when there is a lack of order around them. At least some of my kids do. I think some of them are bothered more than others by messiness. My oldest dd came back from college a changed person! She had a neat roommate! And they lived in a teeny-tiny room and she's suddenly got this neat bug! It is fantastic! She's been working around the house this summer cleaning and organizing things for me. What a blessing. And whodathunk (as my dad would have said!)if you could have seen her room BEFORE she went away to college! You had to wade through the junk all over the floor!
I have one child who always had to put his shoes in a certain place in his room every night before he went to sleep. It was wonderful! The one child we didn't have to spend frantic minutes looking for shoes for as we attempted to head out the door! He also has his own cup that he has kept on the kitchen counter in a certain spot and no one is allowed to touch it but him. He always knows he's got a clean cup to drink from. Unlike everybody else in the family who just takes a new cup (myself included!) until the house is littered with 20+ cups all over the place and there are no more clean cups yet no one can remember which cup was theirs!
For my youngest, I just recently bought one of those sock drawer organizers. You know, it's got lots and lots of little sections and you lay it in your drawer and stuff socks/underwear in each section. Why did I never buy one of these miraculous things before? She now is so conscientious about putting her socks and underwear away! She loves just being able to open her drawer and get something without the frustration of having to rummage though a pile trying to find a pair of socks. Something so simple, yet so stress-reducing!
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4Real Forums : Planning and Ordering our Days
Topic: Settling on your own little systems
