Long post warning! I have a goal of getting organized step by step. Since one of the initial reasons I started this blog is getting my act together, I’m sharing it with you. It’s also full of links (some are affiliates) because I want to shre what I have found helpful.
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A start of a new year automatically makes me want to get organized. I feel a jolt of energy with the thought of creating order in my home and my life. The key is to act on it! Sometimes I get so many ideas, I get carried away and end up in more chaos than ever before. But with the start of 2017, I get to try once again to get. As I look forward to everything I want to do, I know I need to keep pushing forward. I need to keep working at getting myself organized. Here are the steps I’m taking to get our active family organized.
Functional Beauty
That’s really my goal for my new house. Finding a home for everything that needs to be in our house. Eliminating the clutter we don’t need. And making everything look beautiful.
I know, it’s a lot for a naturally unorganized person to aim for. But I’m trying. And, as long as I keep moving forward, I know I’ll get there eventually.
The making it pretty part is what helps me the most. When I view something as a craft or DIY project, I’m able to look at the function necessary and work out the rest.
I have always found it useful to set some goals. Sharing them helps me continue to work towards them. So, in the spirit of New Years Resolutions, I’m going to share them here.
Meal Planning
It never fails, we get into a big project like our Farmhouse Mudroom Makeover, and meals go by the wayside. We still eat, but it becomes take out or processed foods. Not good.
I have a future goal of renovating our kitchen. In order for that to happen, I have to have the funds. Which means not spending so much money eating out and putting more into savings! It also means having a plan in action to keep us fed when we do the construction. But, that’s a ways down the road.
In the meantime, I will be re-doing my Kitchen Command Center. It only partially came with us into the new house. I put everything on the wall but didn’t actively use it (that’s the partial part). We recently made some changes to the kitchen, to try to make it flow a bit better for now. I already have a good idea of what the design will be. Using that knowledge, I plan on re-doing my kitchen command center. I’ll focus on keeping up with our family calendar and weekly meal planning.
The other part of meal planning is getting back to freezer cooking. You can see how I usually do this in these posts:
Time For Change
This has worked for me well in the past. I’m pretty consistent in my grocery budget, but I’m looking forward to utilizing a few new tools to take the pressure and time involved in planning off of me.
- Grocery Budget Makeover – Enrollment is going on now for this course.
- MyFreezEasy – There is so much I love about this. I can select the recipes I know my family will enjoy, increase to 6 servings (because that feeds all 5 of us better now than a serving of 4… darn kids keep getting bigger) and I have everything I need in seconds! Shopping list, instructions, and printable labels! Plus, the new app launched so I can even make my choices before I walk into the grocery store.
- Using my new instant pot – since I didn’t win the lottery and have everything I need to redo my kitchen now, at least I have a great new tool to help me save time and prepare healthy meals for my family. Keep an eye out, I’ll be sharing info on an upcoming course I’ll be taking on getting the most out of my instant pot. We can do this together!
One Space At A Time
I’m aiming to start small. It doesn’t matter the size of space, just that I keep plugging forward. Our new house has more rooms and closets. Which is great… except I’m still not utilizing all the closets to the best of their potential. The bathroom cabinets also aren’t living up to their potential either. It’s time to change that.
I made a list in Evernote of all the spaces I want to organize, big and little. Next to each I estimated how long it will take me to do the work. I have also noted what I want to be kept in the space and anything I might need to get or do in order to successfully reorganize the space. My goal is to check off at least one space per week.
One Thing Leads to Another
Here is the first space I reorganized. It all happened unexpectedly. What started as a simple changing out our dishwasher project (yep, compared to a few of our projects, IronFish and I were expecting this to be simple) turned into a near disastrous plumbing makeover. We cleared out under the kitchen sink to shut off the dishwasher supply line.
It was leaking.
We decided we should change the shut-off valves.
Wait, the kitchen sink is fed with quarter inch freezer supply lines?
Well, that explains the lack of water pressure.
Let’s just change the faucet while we replace all the valves and supply lines.
Um, is that a chunk of drain pipe?
And the dishwasher was installed illegally.
Between the leak and the illegally wired dishwasher, we are actually really lucky it didn’t short out or worse. (Note, If I had a legal department I’m sure they would want me to tell you to consult a licensed plumber or electrician before tackling your own projects or something that could be potentially dangerous. Consider yourself warned, lol)
So, about 36 hours later, we had completed what we planned on taking us only 2 hours. But, we found some problems before they became major ones. IronFish and I are happy enough with that. During our runs back and forth to the plumbing and home improvement store, I picked up a few things to make under the kitchen sink function better and look nicer. For less than $6, the space now holds more and isn’t a mess of stuff shoved under there.
Quick Update
Using peel and stick floor tiles, I gave the bottom of the cabinet a new surface. They are so easy to cut. Had I been more patient at the time, I could have easily not overlapped any of them. But I was over the whole issue and ready to put everything back quickly. The overlapping in the center doesn’t bother me. Besides, I’m just waiting to remodel the whole kitchen!
Use a utility knife to score where you want to cut, then bend it back. The tile easily snaps along your score line.
Then peel the backing off and stick the tile where you want it.
With a few dishpans, I corralled everything we keep under the sink together.
Using My Time Better
A few months ago I started using SaneBox to organize my email. I was amazed at how much time I had been wasting deleting or scrolling through email I didn’t need. Once that was gone, I started to really look at how I use my time.
I think a set schedule and a regular to-do list will do wonders for me. Over the years I’ve tried planners galore. This fall I committed to going back to pen and paper and a simple calendar. Our crazy schedule has come together much better. My stress level has gone down and I’ve accomplished more.
There is something to be said about writing it down. Once I write it down, I don’t have to constantly try to remember all the little things. I only have to remember to check my journal!
Bullet Journal
Which is why, even though a simple calendar works for my main dates, I need a bit more. Have you been seeing all these great pins on bullet journals? Funny thing is, I used to basically plan my days with a journal and I got crazy amounts done (we’re talking pre-blog). Then I began the search for the perfect planner so I wasn’t doodling every night…. fast forward to last fall… I never found it and I became less and less productive.
So, I’m going back to bullet journaling, on a nightly basis. I’m not super fancy, but I enjoy writing and doodling. I’m sure I’ll get fancier some days than others. To me, there is one major advantage to planning every night. I know what I accomplished today, what needs to get done tomorrow, and can make a realistic plan.
I’m starting small with this goal too. Simple but colorful because I know that helps me. My favorite Sharpie pens are starting to dry out. I just ordered new Micro-Line pens, so I have more color choices. If you’re interested in bullet journals, I found this post from the Creative Savings Blog. She has some great advice.
Change won’t happen overnight, but I’m determined. What are your organizational goals and plans for 2017? Want to join me?
Getting Organized, Step by Step
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On a side note. If you’re following my Blog Along with Me series, this post is the perfect example of continuing to edit. I had a lot on my mind and it took me several tries to get out what I wanted to say. For this post, I wanted to share a bit of a plan for what you can expect in future weeks. Making it all flow together took several more edits than some of my posts. I’m still not sure I’m making total sense. However, if you sit down and talk with me, this is pretty much how a conversation with me goes! I can be all over the place some days! Plus, some of the links to old posts, well, they’ve been edited, but could really stand to be edited again (or better pictures, but moving forward is more of a priority for me!)
