Organization Part 1 | Your Morning Basket

I have been asked to share my methods of organization on my blog. I am a bit loathe to do this, because despite the fact that I seem really organized in “blog world” the reality is often very different than how things appear on the Internet. Case in point, I received the email request asking me to do this on June 13. I am just now getting around to doing it. Why, you might ask? I haven’t been using my Weekly Template because my free-trial subscription to Word had expired, and I had to make a decision to purchase the new version on install the old version on my new computer. After putting off the decision for weeks, I finally decided to save the money (for now). It took a few more days for me to install the old version of Word. I was finally forced to do it for Work. Now if this sounds like the kind of person you want to take organization tips from, then feel free to read on.
The basis of my organization and time management system is my Weekly Template. This brainchild is a combination of Flylady and my friend Emily. There are many parts of Flylady’s system that I love, but I find that much of it is just overkill and bogs me down. I did have a control journal for a long time and that is the method I was using when Emily asked me to send her copies of my files so she could create her own. What she did, though, was a stoke of genius. She took all of my control journal pages and compressed them into one clean, neat page. Once I saw it, I had her send me a copy of the file. I tweak it from time to time and it no longer looks like it did when she sent it back to me. I think a system has to live and breathe for it to work for you.
Here is what it looks like for this week: Pin
The first row is obviously day and date.
Row number 2 is my morning routine. My goal is to have all of these things done before we leave the house or officially start our day of activities here at home. I like having a list of even simple things to check off. Many of these things are habit, but I still like marking them out. “Swish & Swipe” is a Flylady bathroom cleaning technique. I spend about two minutes each morning swishing out the toilet and swiping some Windex on a paper towel across the mirror and sinks in my master bath. “Dinner” is just to remind me that I need to decide right then what we are having for dinner, lay something out to thaw if needed, and decide when I am going to need to begin preparing.
Row 3 are our morning activities. Items in blue require us to leave the house. Just a visual reminder to get dressed and ready in plenty of time.
Row 4 is a list of my daily chores. “Laundry” means to move clothes from washer to dryer. Items in red are regular daily chores. Other items are added as needed. I also use that row for afternoon activities as well.
Row 5 is the preschool row. There I list activities that I want to do with O for preschool time.
Row 6 is the evening routine row. These are the things I need to do to get ready for the next day. Most days I work on many of these before dinner is even started.
Row 7 is for evening activities like buying groceries, book club, website work, even some scrapbooking tasks.
I combine Saturday and Sunday because I usually get sidetracked and don’t mark things off the list on those days anyway since Matt is here.
The Home Blessing column includes all the weekly cleaning tasks that I strive to do including lines for a few extra (rarely ever used). These mostly get done on Thursday when the kids are at the sitters. I am hoping to change this some since I will need to use more of Thursdays for work. Hopefully I can sprinkle some of these throughout the week and mark them off as I go.
The Next Week space is to jot down anything I need to remember to type into next week’s chart.
Running Small List are smaller chores that need to be done. On mine right now is sort Olivia’s new hand me downs.
Running BIG List are larger chores that I should be chipping away at. Some of those have been in that space for a while, but then that list also used to be much longer so I should give myself credit.
Obviously everything I do and need to do is not on this list. But, I find if I do most things on this list most days, I stay pretty much caught up. I find when I get away from the chart things begin to spiral out of control (i.e. I get lazier and lazier.) pretty quickly. One thing that I don’t do, that I want to add is Flylady’s Zone Work, which is more of a deep clean. I would probably add those items to Row 4.
If you have any questions let me know. I would be happy to answer them. If you would like a copy of my word file, shoot me an email, and I will send it along.
More on this topic to come.

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Pam

Pam is the author of The Your Morning Basket Guide and Plan Your Year: Homeschool Planning for Purpose and Peace. She also is the host of three popular podcasts -- The Homeschool Snapshots Podcast, Your Morning Basket, and The Homeschool Solutions Show. She lives in the Deep South with her husband and three kids, where she is the go-to lady for great curriculum recommendations or a just a pep talk on a rough day.