One Thing That Makes Togetherness Easier (Getting Organized)
There's one little thing that makes togetherness easier...
And easier sure would be nice right now, wouldn't it?
If only I could take a break from everything to get it all organized! If you're anything like me, you've said this to yourself more times than you can count. But it never stops, does it? The laundry, the meals, schoolwork, cleaning, hobbies, work, and everything else. So, as a result, that chance to get caught up rarely comes, and getting organized stays on the backburner.
And the toys, the dust bunnies, and all of that junk mail just keeps staring us down. I've been talking to some mama friends about this lately -
About how good it feels when we're organized, how easy it is to focus on family togetherness when everything is clean and tidy, and about how the opposite is true too.
Everything feels harder when chaos, clutter, and overstuffing exists in every corner of our homes and our lives.
I actually tend to be one of those annoyingly organized "everything has a place or else it goes in the garbage" kind of people. My desktop files are tidy on all of my computers, my purse has only a few things in it, and my home stays clutter-free most of the time. (It kind of comes with the territory when you live in a 200-square-foot home and travel a lot like my family - for survival and for sanity.)
I feel like I'm always cleaning something, always putting something away, and always apologizing to someone in my family for moving something where they can't find it or giving something the boot a bit too early.
But there's been quite a bit of chaos lately -
Broken routines, way too much time indoors, way too many meals to plan, and for my family specifically, a lot of packing up everything we own and moving it to a new part of the country without our home (4 times in 6 months to be exact - yeah, it's been real).
As a result, I don't know where my favorite pen is right now, I can't wrap my head around meal planning past what we'll eat for breakfast this morning, and there's a good chance I may not be able to find my shoes when I finally get to hike again. (Not to mention everything I own is stored in plastic tubs inside a U-haul at the moment, but that's another story.)
As a result, my brain feels scrambled right now and family togetherness feels harder than it should with everyone gravitating toward their devices rather than toward each other.
But I've got a plan.
Maybe you'll see something in this little plan of mine that will make togetherness for your family a little easier too.
#1 - I'm making better use of buckets, bins, and drawers.
This week, one of my friends told me about how she uses buckets, bins, drawers, and small containers to set limits for her family on the amount of stuff they're allowed to keep.
Everyone has a bin for art supplies, and if it doesn't fit, it gets donated. Everyone has a bucket for stuffed animals, and if it doesn't fit, it gets stored for later or sent to Goodwill. Every spice has to fit in the spice drawer or else it gets purged. Every piece of clothing fits in the closet neatly or it gets donated. Every receipt gets placed in the proper file folder immediately or it goes in the trash. I like this idea a lot - I'm trying it.
#2 - I'm getting serious about my personal to-do's.
I love taking notes (so many notes!) and writing down to-do's (so many to-do's!), so I've been using a tool called Evernote at work to keep track of my to-do's, goals, and daily time management tracking for years now, and it has taken my productivity to a whole new level. Meanwhile, I've been shoving my personal to-do's into a paper planner and only getting about half of them done.
So I'm going to remedy that by throwing my personal to-do's into Evernote and see what happens. A few months ago, I did something similar and started using Evernote for my writing goals and to-do's, and the result was a HUGE breakthrough that propelled me forward in getting that book published for you this summer. (Happy dances all around for that one!) So why haven't I thought about using it for all of those personal to-do's rambling around in my brain before? I have no idea, but now is the time. Personal to-do's, get ready; you're about to get organized!
#3 - I'm using a bullet journal for my thoughts.
I've had countless false starts with bullet journaling, but I think I've finally figured out how to make it work for me. I think bullet journals are for lists that aren't time-sensitive - lists I can make pretty and keep coming back to as a reminder, a touchpoint, an accountability measure only I can see. I think bullet journaling, for me at least, is about organizing my thoughts on paper rather than letting them take up so much space in my brain.
A few weeks ago, I got sick of my chaotic notebook and decided to buy this cute leather journal from a small business on Etsy. When it came in, I started making lists and doing bullet journal things without even planning to, and I've already seen some things come out of my brain I had no idea were in there - like a stellar book list and the start to a plan for my kids' last 7 years at home before college. Thoughts, beware; you're about to be wrangled onto paper and stop distracting me from more important things!
#4 - I'm making cleaning a family affair.
You may already know that I'm terrible at asking for help from my family when it comes to cleaning, but I keep reading about how good it is for kids to help out with the cleaning chores at home, and every time I try it, our cleaning chores get done ten times faster than I could ever do them myself, so I'm committing to making it our regular thing. I hope you're better at this than I am, but in case you're not, here's the trick I use to make it happen: I call chores a "cleaning party" and put on music while we all dance around scrubbing things, and before I know it, it's finished. No more putting off floor scrubbing for weeks on end; I'm making it a cleaning party and getting it done!
#5 - I'm getting some help from other mamas to help me organize things I never seem to get to (like my digital photos):
How to be Amazing at Home Management (from Alicia Hutchinson)
6 Insanely Easy Ways to Keep Your Home Cleaner (from Alicia Hutchinson)
How I Totally Changed My Life to Finally Get Organized (from Good Housekeeping)
And if we succeed at even a few of these things, maybe family togetherness will feel a lot easier for all of us.
This weekend, I hope you're able to find some grace for yourself and the people you love. (We all need so much grace right now.) I hope you're finding your at-home groove with your people and maybe even enjoying the forced family fun for flattening the coronavirus curve. These are still such strange times, but if I know anything about you, mama, I know you've got this too.
I'm so happy to tell you that after a grueling 20-hour drive across 12 states yesterday, my little family will be settling back into our little Airstream home in Maine this weekend, unpacking all of our tubs, and getting a chance to get a little more organized, a lot more in touch with nature (right in Acadia National Park's backdoor waiting for her to reopen), and hopefully a lot more in touch with each other too.
How do you get organized after a chaotic season in your house?
Hop into the email group and let me know - I love chatting with you more than I can say!