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This SAHM's gettin' organized! Wanna join me? (support thread)

post #1 of 97
12/30/04 at 3:12pm
Thread Starter 
New Year or not, I have GOT to get better organized in order to save my sanity! I've been whining to all of you about what a difficult time I'm having adjusting to life with two, and I realize that I have got to approach my daily life as my *job*, with some real, concrete coping strategies built in. I need a PLAN for running my life. And I've always been one who does well with lists (and especially check boxes for tasks accomplished! ), but I could really use some e-pals to help me tackle this idea and work toward some goals.

Here's what I hope to implement:

1) a weekly "Lesson Plan" of activities for my 3 yo (not in preschool), complete with several back-up activities for days when playdates are sick or I just can't get us out of the house

2) a weekly meal plan, with simple dinners planned for each night, and the needed groceries *in the house* no later than Sunday night

3) a weekly or monthly plan for slowly-but- surely getting housework done, one chore at a time on a rotating basis

4) a plan for integrating some FUN into my life (and dh's), so I need to pick one or two things for ME (exercise, yoga, art, etc) and *schedule* them

I know this is a lot, and I have no illusions that I can do this all next week, but if some of you awesome mamas have similar goals (by no means do they have to be the same) and would like to support each other in taking them on, I would be so excited and so grateful. (BTW, if someone thinks this should be in the Personal Growth forum, we can move it . . . but it seems a little more utilitarian to me so I put it here.)

Anyone ready to try this with me?

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post #2 of 97
12/30/04 at 5:40pm
I'm with you! I use Flylady.net but I have really fallen off the organizational wagon lately and I'm going to kick my butt back in gear. I'm starting with decluttering. So far this week my DH and I have cleared out 4 kitchen trash can size bags of clothes (donated to goodwill) and 5 grocery bags of books (which I took to the friends of the library.) I feel better with less stuff.

Anyway, when I started Flylady I started a Control Notebook, which is a 3 ring binder to keep things like meal plan, weekly and monthly job list, family fun activities etc. Right now mine is a big mess and is pretty much unusable, but Im going to get it back into shape and start using it.
post #3 of 97
12/30/04 at 6:44pm
I'm with you.

I neeeeeeed heeeeelllllllp.

Can we start work on being able to use the bathroom without any screaming, fighting, bodily injury and household damage occuring when we step out of the room?
post #4 of 97
12/30/04 at 7:45pm
Okay, Okay! You women are dragging me back on the Flylady wagon. Good luck to us all!
post #5 of 97
12/30/04 at 8:24pm
With our move into a new apartment and hopefully more out of the house activities for me and MJ, I too need to come up with a plan....I normally use a monthly cooking plan.....(freezer cooking) but now am going to have to go to cooking weekly or bi weekly due to a smaller freezer (I have really fallen off the wagon for cooking). I also use my corck pot a lot, I have a zillion "easy" recipes if anyone wants them. I also need to get a shcedule set for keeping the house in order, our new place is smaller than our old and so clutter and non cleanlienss are not an option, put a couple of things on the floor and it looks like a disaster area. We can't unpack everything until we can afford more shelves (gotta look into freecycle here) sigh....I need to start writing out lists and things....
post #6 of 97
12/30/04 at 9:54pm
i'm in. i just cannot get organized and it makes me so irritable.

my goals are:
1) a weekly schedule (working on this)
2) a night-time schedule (flexible to some extent)
3) weekly dinner menu and shopping done by monday night.
4) exercise at least 3 times a week
5) some sort of cleaning schedule (need to look into flylady)
post #7 of 97
12/30/04 at 9:59pm
I am soooooooooo disorganized that I don't even have specific goals to meet yet!

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm............................I will have to think about it. If something doesn't change, I will lose my mind..................and probably my marriage!
post #8 of 97
12/30/04 at 10:11pm
I'm in. I want to get back on the FlyLady wagon. My biggest offense these days is too much time spent (wasted) at the computer! With the new baby coming next summer, I'd like to get into a better routine.
post #9 of 97
12/30/04 at 10:37pm
Thread Starter 
I'm so excited! I was thinking of sharing ideas about how to set goals, but also about sharing very specific ideas for activities for our little ones, simple meals, and ideas about how to accomplish household chores. And if people are comfortable sharing email addresses, I even thought we could email attachments to each other if we come up with really cool and usable checklists . . . I have several on my computer that I have developed over the years but have simply collected e-dust since I became a mom! But if you like to check little boxes, you might like to use some of these and format them to fit your needs.

I see that many of you are Flyladies . . . I must admit that I could never make her system work for me . . . it didn't seem to fit well with the life of a family with very young children (for instance, dropping whatever you're doing to declutter a particular space . . . just couldn't do it!). But some of us can use that technique and others a different one.

Specifically, I was thinking of listing 14 chores that go beyond the daily cleanup (kitchen, laundry, vacuuming the main living space), and then writing one chore on my calendar each day. After 2 weeks of doing one chore a day, my house should be pretty clean, and then I can start over. (I must admit that this is prob inspired by Flylady -- think I thought of this after I had perused her web site.) You could also do a 7 or 21 day rotation, or even just one chore every other day (which might be more realistic for someone like me with a new baby!)

Anyway, I'm probably getting too specific for the planning stage . . . let's give people some more time to join us, then let's introduce ourselves and set some goals for the "group" (meaning, those who'd like to chime in once a week or so for support, ideas, and encouragement).

Looking forward to getting to "know" you all better very soon!
post #10 of 97
12/30/04 at 10:46pm
sounds great. i have 1 good, easy, healthy recipe to share when we get to that stage. it's called mediterranean pasta. i had to type that so i don't forget by the time we get to it. :LOL
post #11 of 97
12/31/04 at 12:13am
Quote:
Originally Posted by chrissy
i'm in. i just cannot get organized and it makes me so irritable.

my goals are:
1) a weekly schedule (working on this)
2) a night-time schedule (flexible to some extent)
3) weekly dinner menu and shopping done by monday night.
4) exercise at least 3 times a week
5) some sort of cleaning schedule (need to look into flylady)
This is a great list. I used to be organized and a night time routine was really the key to the whole thing. I've just been really down lately and haven't felt like doing the things I know I need to do I feel down, so I don't do my little jobs, so things start falling apart, so I feel worse and it is just a nasty little cycle.

Since the last time I was on-line, I decluttered my control notebook. It had been collecting all sorts of paper (i.e. trash) that made it unusable. Now I'm going to work on updating our morning and evening routines for the ages my kids are now and posting their routines on the fridge. What works well for me is to put my evening and morning routines in sheet protectors and then I can use a white board marker to mark through the things as I do them.

Do we want to talk about specific routines or is that more detail than we want in this thread at this time?

Flylady really worked well for me when I was actually doing it, but I know that nothing works for everybody. Ideally, we will be able to learn from each other and pick and choose what makes sense for our own situations. It is very different to try to do ANYTHING when you have a baby and a toddler.
post #12 of 97
12/31/04 at 12:20am
Me too! I'm not just a SAHM but also a WAHM and yet many days can't find my keys (using the spares right now) or even my debit card (discovered in a pocket yesterday). I've tried so many books, plans, strategies and am in awe when I walk into someone's house and see several happy children, often several who are being babysat, a reasonably organized house, and a sane, relaxed mama! I want to be those women!
post #13 of 97
12/31/04 at 12:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Linda KS
Do we want to talk about specific routines or is that more detail than we want in this thread at this time?
I think it'd be helpful for me to read about others' specific routines.
post #14 of 97
12/31/04 at 1:16am
I am SO in on this! I feel like my life and house are collapsing around me. I'm having a baby in 5 weeks or so and I can't live like this with 4 kids!!! My main goals:

1. Have a weekly menu & grocery plan.
2. Have a routine in place for daily chores.
3. Make sure that I have homeschooling stuff planned out each week so we don't start on Monday with "What are we supposed to be doing today, Mom?"

Those are more than enough for me to start with! I'm kind of doing the Flylady thing; it's worked for me in the past, I just can't seem to come up with enough energy to get started again. I wish my nesting instinct would kick in!
post #15 of 97
12/31/04 at 1:22am
I'm in! I need to spend more time at home period. That's a start....

subscribing!
post #16 of 97
12/31/04 at 6:22pm
I'm in! I need help. I tried Flylady this summer and it actually worked (when I did it!) and I did manage to get rid of a good amount of clutter but somehow its back! I can't tell you the last time I did my routines, but its been on my mind alot lately... I unsubbed since all that email was cluttering up my box, lol! But I miss the motivation, so I hope to get that here

I just had my fourth baby right before Thanksgiving, then we went right into all the busy-ness of the holidays (even with having a real low key Christmas), but now I am feeling well and things are calmer so I am looking forward to the kids going back to school next week so I can get back to a "new normal"

How will it work? What's the first step? Everyone posts their plans?
post #17 of 97
12/31/04 at 6:56pm
I made a meal plan for the week, sent my Dh to the store with it, and cleaned out the fridge while he was gone I feel so much better already.

Our fridge was gross, BTW. Worse than I thought. : I ended up tossing a bunch of icky things and wiping it out a bit.

I like to make my meal plan on a small piece of paper (4x6 index card is perfect) and then put in on the side of the fridge with a magnet. As the week goes along I make a note on the back of it of anything I notice we that we are out of (or about to be out of). If you are new to meal plans, save them when the week is up and you can use the same one again in a couple of weeks.

As far as routines, I used to have really long ones but since I have stopped doing them, I am going to stick with something really simple for awhile. Here they are:

Evening
10 minute pick up (all family members help)
load and start dishwasher
make sure any laundry started that day is folded and put away (it should be done before then)
get things out of freezer for dinner
put kids to bed
get self ready for bed

Morning
Empty dishwasher
start laundry
get self ready for the day
feed kids and get them ready for day
have kids feed pets
post #18 of 97
12/31/04 at 9:43pm
i'm not sure i'm ready to commit, but i'd like to lurk . do y'all mind? i have quite a bit of ODD :LOL so checklists/flylady/etc don't really work very well for me. i get all resentful at having a "list of chores" and say things in my head like "i don't have to do that if i don't want to. so there." not a good motivational tool for me. HOWEVER, my house is always a wreck. dh and i are both packrats, though of different sorts -- he with computer/electronics/automotive and me with possible art projects (broken plates -- they could be a mosaic, really), childhood and just 5 yrs ago STUFF, and PAPERS -- oh i hate the papers. AAAuuuuuggghh! we've actually been doing a little bit better lately, especially me. our couch and futon are fairly cleaned off and there's not too much stuff on the floor. don't go in the kitchen, though. no. stop. turn around. don't look at that counter. :.

breathe, don't know if you're looking for more out of the house activities with your boys, but we did a lot of mommy and me type classes this fall and that went really well with us. we started with one last yr when my two were about at your two's current ages. i found it helps me as much as anything. get me out of the house and i'm a much happier mommy. probably because i don't have to look at all this clutter!

i'll lurk and see if i can glean some good ideas from y'all w/o having to do too much set in stone stuff like weekly menus. would drive me nuts , but please don't take that as a dis. i wish i could do it, but i feel all icky and rebellious and it's like a bad diet where you resent it and sneak ice cream for midnight snacks. i need inner motivation which i think i am slowly finding, slowly slowly slowly...
post #19 of 97
1/1/05 at 1:11pm
Thread Starter 
beanma, You always make me laugh! Of course you can lurk, as long as you promise to throw in your witty perspective from time to time!

Wow, it sounds like some of you have so much more practice at this than I do! Are you sure you need help?!?

Since it's the weekend (and a New Year!), let's go ahead and get started . . .

How about if everyone briefly introduces themself and then jots down their goals (if you haven't already). I would suggest putting your goals in order of priority and maybe starring the one or two (or more, if you're closer to be organized tham I am!) that you want to try to implement this week. I'll go first:

My RL name is Eleanor, and I'm a SAHM to Maxwell (3 yrs 3 mos) and Henry (3 mos). I have had a REALLY difficult adjustment to life with 2 -- see all my whining threads! -- and am trying to convert some of my anxious energy into action. (use my powers for good!) I should also add that I have the BEST dh so I can never claim to be doing this on my own (which would def send me over the edge). Since the baby was born, he has been getting up in the middle of the night (after falling asleep with the 3 yr old) to clean the house and wash diapers so we'll be ready for the next day. He is a godsend!

I was a teacher early in my career (pre-K, K, & 2), which probably explains why I love checklists , and was working on my PhD when I got pg the 1st time, so that also gave me good practice at HAVING to be organized. It has frustrated me to no end that my prior organizational skills have flown out the window with motherhood!

My goals again:
*1) weekly lesson plans for ds1 (with back-up, since it's cold and flu season)
*2) weekly meal plan
3) one "extra" household chore each day
4) exercise for me (and dh) at least every other day

I'm intrigued by the morning and evening routines Linda posted, and I would LOVE to work toward that, but right now I think the new baby prevents me from really having much routine . . . I don't seem to be able to COUNT on anything!

I will say, however, that dh and I have an agreement that I will be showered and dressed (with my hair dried!) BEFORE he leaves each morning. This will become more and more difficult as spring arrives bc dh begins his busy season at work and will be leaving earlier and earlier. (Yikes! I will need LOTS of support as the year progresses!)

At some point today I will try to map out my lesson plan AND a grocery/meal list (LOVED the idea of saving them, thanks!). Anyone else have a 3 yr old at home? Maybe we could share activity ideas?

Who wants to go next?
Eleanor
post #20 of 97
1/1/05 at 3:04pm
Oooo...oooo....I'm in!

I'm Erin...SAHM to Lily (6 1/2 mos). I have been totally disorganized for as long as I can remember. I really, really want to be organized and I have been chipping away at organizing my house since I've been home but I find it REALLY hard to get anything done with a velcro baby on me most of the day.

Goals:

1. Clean out my car so I don't have to say "hold on...just a minute...one more sec" as I heave stuff into the back seat (or from the back seat into the trunk) when I give someone a ride.

2. Get my house to a place where I am comfortable having people over. Right now I am TOTALLY EMBARASSED if anyone stops by and I have yet to host playgroup because I don't want the other mamas to see my house.

3. Plan weekly meals/grocery shopping so I actually have the ingredients I need in my house when I try to cook.

4. Tame the laundry beast in my basement!!

I'm sure there's more but DH wants to go take a walk and is waiting for me to stop

~Erin
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Mothering › Mothering Discussion Forums › Natural Family Living › The Mindful Home › Decluttering, Organizing, & Simplifying › This SAHM's gettin' organized! Wanna join me? (support thread)