Organizing for Couples

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couples organizing

 

 

We never marry our organizing soul mate.  It’s like opposites attract for organizing. One partner is all about minimalism and one is about consumerism.  One partner has ODC and one partner has ADHD.  One partner loves getting organized and one is cluttered with paper.  Clutter causes a LOT of stress in relationships and about one third of us avoid going home to our clutter.  It can cause the end of relationships too.  Organizing as a couple makes a difference in your every day life and your relationship with your partner.  Organizing for couples can make each day happier.

 

It’s all about respect.

  • Refer to your partner’s belongings with a respectful tone and with respect to the stuff.
  • We all have something that is special to us.  Every one of us has prize possessions.
  • Respect is the bottom line for all relationships that work.

 

Being organized looks like many many different things to many different people. But we can come together when we recognize how important it is to respect each other.

  • Talk through difference in organizing by coaching each other.
  • Use a respectful tone referring to each other’s belongings.
  • Acknowledge the different backgrounds we all come from to create order in our lives.

 

Collaborate about your goals about organizing, timeliness and paper management.

  • Take time each week to talk about being organized.  Start with baby steps.
  • Support each other in creating order in your home by partnering on tasks and responsibilities.
  • Set standards and create charts that help everyone stay connected about their goals.

 

Make action happen

  • Be specific about work habits. Specify what tasks will be done when and what “done” looks like.
  • Work together each day on getting items back to where they belong. Have time together to get this done.
  • Acknowledge successes.  Successes create bigger successes.
  • Start with your own organizing. Start with your closet, timeliness or other spaces. Help you partner enjoy less stress by seeing your stress being less.

 

It’s not easy but couples working together for organizing success create happy relationships.  Be the model for your partner by starting first with your clutter, then helping them.  Organizing for couples is hard, but yields great reward.

 

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Your Most Organized Year Ever

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most organized year ever

Each year as we start the new year, we think of ways to make a change and improve our lives.  Did you know that organizing is one of the top three goals each year?  Throughout the month of January, I will be offering 31 tips to help you have Your Most Organized Year Ever.  Implement just one of these tips, tools, techniques or tweaks this year. 

 

 

No one should be left alone in the kitchen after dinner to clean up.

 

It’s not just Mom or Dad’s job to pick up the house.

 

Does it seem easier to do all the work around house rather than ask for help?

 

The first step for working as a family team is to coordinate your efforts.  Start by partnering up with your family, assigning two people to work together to get things done.  It can be during dinner time when two people cook and two people clean up.  It can be a mass effort when everyone picks up for 5 minutes after dinner to get the house straightened up.  Think about how quickly a task can be done when there are lots of people getting it done.

 

How do you get your family on board? Does your family know they are a team?  What does a team do to work together?  It’s all in the conversations you have with your family to share expectations.  When you are modeling how to work as a team is when it has the most impact.  Above all acknowledge and generously praise each person’s contribution in the team.  It definitely takes more effort to bring your team together, but it is worth the effort.   Make this Your Most Organized Year Ever by working as a family team.

 

 

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Your Most Organized Year Ever

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Most Organized Year Ever

Each year as we start the new year, we think of ways to make a change and improve our lives.  Did you know that organizing is one of the top three goals each year?  Throughout the month of January, I will be offering 31 tips to help you have Your Most Organized Year Ever.  Implement just one of these tips, tools, techniques or tweaks this year. 

Families have a lot going on! There are dates for school, dates for church and dates for volunteering.  It’s too much to keep in our heads.  How do we track all this information?

 

Your family calendar creates communication, coordination and cohesiveness.    It’s one place you see all the information together.  Your family works as a team to be sure you are arriving on time as well as prioritizing which activities you are attending.  It gives everyone a starting point to communicate about priorities.

 

Is it wise to keep two calendars, your own and your family calendar?  Coordination is required.  For the parents, it’s important to have all the dates in one place. For the kids, it’s important for them to track and see their own responsibilities.  This redundancy can help remind everyone about upcoming activities and be sure your schedule runs smoothly.  Make this Your Most Organized Year Ever with your family calendar.

 

More ideas on family communication stations here!

 

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Your Most Organized Year Ever

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Your Most Organized Year Ever

 

 

Each year as we start the new year, we think of ways to make a change and improve our lives.  Did you know that organizing is one of the top three goals each year?  Throughout the month of January, I will be offering 31 tips to help you have Your Most Organized Year Ever.  Implement just one of these tips, tools, techniques or tweaks this year. 

So many papers! So many dates! So much to coordinate!

 

Your family meeting is the key to cooperation, communication and organization.  Each week host your meeting to share what’s coming up this week, gather information on what’s needed and coordinate schedules.  Everyone should bring their own planner to fill in.  There should be a family calendar to complete too. Display that in the kitchen where everyone sees it.  Your family calendar can be a google calendar printed out or a big month at a glance paper calendar.  It’s in seeing your monthly events that everyone stays on track.

 

There are three tricks to success for your meeting. Set your meeting at a time that is good for your family.  Keep it short so everyone stays on track.  End it with fun activity. That can include making ice cream sundaes, going on a bike ride, or watching a family movie.  Make this Your Most Organized Year Ever with your family meeting.

 

Check out more family manager ideas here on Pinterest.

 

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Your Most Organized Year Ever

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your most organized year ever

Each year as we start the new year, we think of ways to make a change and improve our lives.  Did you know that organizing is one of the top three goals each year?  Throughout the month of January, I will be offering 31 tips to help you have Your Most Organized Year Ever.  Implement just one of these tips, tools, techniques or tweaks this year. 

 

Everyone in your family may have a different idea of how to do a job at home.  You think laundry is complete when all the clothes are put away. Your family thinks the laundry is done when everything is out of the dryer.  You think the kitchen cleanup is done when all the crumbs have been swept up. Your family thinks the kitchen is clean when all the dishes are removed to the sink.

 

Having standards for organizing helps everyone.  It keeps communication positive. It eliminates frustration.  Everyone is on the same page and working toward the same goals.

 

Not all chores require setting standards, but it’s easy to know which ones will.

 

Be sure to assign chores too.  When everyone knows their responsibilities and it is tracked on a chart, chores are more likely to be completed reliably.  Switch things up regularly so everyone can have a chance to do chores they hate and chores they hate less.

 

Make this Your Most Organized Year Ever with family standards.

 

Check out more ideas for family managing on my pinterest board.

 

Your Most Organized Year Ever

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Most Organized Year Ever

 

Each year as we start the new year, we think of ways to make a change and improve our lives.  Did you know that organizing is one of the top three goals each year?  Throughout the month of January, I will be offering 31 tips to help you have Your Most Organized Year Ever.  Implement just one of these tips, tools, techniques or tweaks this year. 

 

It’s hard to put away clothes when the drawers and closet are jammed full.

 

It’s hard to be organized when you have no extra space for craft supplies or games.

 

It’s hard to be organized when there is just too much stuff!

 

Help your kids be organized by setting aside two times a year to declutter.  These two times must coincide with your child’s birthday and the holidays (especially if these are both in December.)  When you work together on organizing, you are teaching a skill that needs practice.  You are creating a baseline and setting limits.  It’s getting a fresh start for organizing.   Make this Your Most Organized Year Ever with your kids.

 

Check out all the tips for Your Most Organized Year Ever on pinterest.

 

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Your Most Organized Year Ever

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Your Most Organized Year Ever

Each year as we start the new year, we think of ways to make a change and improve our lives.  Did you know that organizing is one of the top three goals each year?  Throughout the month of January, I will be offering 31 tips to help you have Your Most Organized Year Ever.  Implement just one of these tips, tools, techniques or tweaks this year. 

 

Do you have the same “conversation” with your kids about organizing their rooms each week?

 

A peek in your kids rooms shows clothes on the floor and trash everywhere?

 

Your kids may be overwhelmed and confused by your asking them to organize their room. They may not know where to start or what’s most important.  Organizing is a skill that requires prioritizing and decision making.  Just like in school or sports, organizing skills take practice and repetition for success.  Help your kids learn these skills by helping decide on what is a treasure.  Keep these items in a box, drawer or bin.  Acknowledging the treasures first puts organizing decision making in a new perspective.  By coaching your kids through their organizing you are connecting with them too. Make this Your Most Organized Year Ever by helping your kids distinguish trash and treasures.

 

Need ideas to organize your kids’ rooms?  Look here! 

 

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4 Tips for Family Organizing

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family organizing tips

 

Each fall families get back to the business of running their families.  School and activities start, family’s get back into routines and there’s lots of information to keep together.  It can be overwhelming with lots of information in different formats and different locations.  There are many ways to pull this information together for communication and cohesiveness.  Check out these 4 tips for family organizing.

Family meetings and Family calendar

The Family meeting, with everyone sitting together with their calendars and the monthly family calendar, makes for great communication.  It’s a once a week get together where everyone shares.

  • One of my family clients has two extra large dry erase peel and stick boards on a big wall adjacent to the kitchen.  Everyone adds information all the time. Each person has a different color.  It’s the one thing this family consistently keeps up to date. These calendars make up one piece of a command center.
  • Another family client has a very large paper calendar and all dates are written in pencil.
  • Google calendar is a great option for families on the go! It helps you color code, consolidate and keep everyone up to date all the time.

 

dry erase peel and stick calendar

 

month at a glance

Family dinner

I recently saw a parody of the family dinner.  It had been so long since the family ate together at the dinner table that there was no seat for the third child!  If that’s true at your home, you might be interested in The Family Dinner project. Family dinner is an important time for laughter, chatter and fun.  Spending time together this way nurtures us all.  We know time can be a troubling challenge for dinner prep.  It can be a little bumpy getting everyone on the same time line.  But even if dinner together is just once a week, that is a great first step.

  • Plan on big breakfast, big lunch or early dinner on a Sunday to get everyone together. There may be fewer activities going on.
  • Create a dinner grid with your family. It’s easy meals that family member’s can partner to prepare.   No one should be left in the kitchen alone. Everyone shares getting dishes done and lunches ready in the evening.
  • Share the responsibility of grocery shopping. Write the list on a pad on the refrigerator, snap a picture with your smart phone and text it to whoever is driving home from work.

Family homework and activity grid

It’s hard to consolidate all the information about your kids’ homework and activities.  A client shared her solution with me ~ the family homework and activity grid.  She visited all the online sites for her kids’ teachers and activities and created a grid with kids’ and parents’ names on top and days of the week on the side.  In each square are listed school and after school related activities. Ongoing homework, such as daily reading, weekly vocabulary and online quizzes, is listed in the appropriate day.  Posting this chart will help her family keep up on all that teacher’s require.   family homework and activity grid

Family technology

There’s are so many new tech ideas that help us as families!

  • Cozi  helps you manage the chaos of family life with a shared calendar, shopping lists, to do lists and more. Cozi keeps track of everything from school schedules and sports activities to grocery lists, meals and chores — all in one place the whole family can access anytime, anywhere.
  • Google calendar and Google docs are great online ways to keep up to date in real time. Google docs is a shareable document space.
  • 30Boxes has a family calendar and interactive to do list.
  • Fircle allows you to share an online calendar with your spouse at work, print shopping lists that will remind you when you’re running low on specific groceries, manage your children’s allowance and household chores and much more.
  • HomeZada is a home management software.  It doesn’t have a family calendar component, but it does have home management, home maintenance, home finances and a home inventory.

 

Have a strategy that works well for your family organizing? Share it here and help us all get better organized!

 

Family organizing tips are just part of the information shared each month on my newsletter.  Join here!

 

 

Back To School Beyond the Basics Seminar

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Back to School

Back to School 

Beyond the Basics

It’s Time for a Fresh Start to a New School Year!

 

 Go beyond basics… learn different approaches, using innovative tools and apps,
all designed to help your student succeed.

 

Sunday, August 24, 2014

OR

Thursday, September 23, 2014



$19.95

 

Register here!

 

 

Quick Start Back to School Routines

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back to school routines

Your kids just got out of school and it is already time for Back To School.  It’s hard to get started, so I have created this series Quick Start Back to School to get everyone going!   The next post is about Back To School routines.

 

For many families the thought of Back to School routines strikes a negative chord.  For some families, they welcome back the thought of getting back into the structure of the school year.

 

Adding just a few times for routines makes a difference for all families.

 

Bedtime routines

 

Starting a week before school starts, inch back bedtime to just 3o minutes before school time bedtime.  Creating a consistent bedtime helps everyone get a better night’s sleep.  Start extra early to allow for conversation.  It may not be dark yet, so adding a soothing sound can help too.

 

Once school starts, have a routine that includes bath, reading and bed.  Eliminate all blue light devices at least an hour before bedtime.

 

Parents need a bedtime too during the school year. Be realistic about the amount of sleep you need.  Sleep procrastination for parents can be a real problem!

 

Homework routines

 

Homework should have a start and finish time.  Once your kids hit the door, have a snack and start by 4pm.  The early start means homework ends before dinner.  Use a timer to get your kids started and work in 15 or 20 minute intervals, with 5 minute breaks (known as the Pomodoro Technique) for best focus.

 

Homework ends when everything is tucked back in the backpack and by the landing strip.  This spot can be at the entry where you head to the car.  Your purse, laptop and any other items should be ready to go in the morning too.

 

Other family routines

 

Family meeting time is an important communication and team building time. It’s when everyone posts to the family calendar, talks about upcoming events and shares time together.  Be sure to decide when you will meet and you will truly be amazed at the benefits.

 

Grocery shopping makes it easier to prepare family meals, healthy snacks and lunches for school.  Set a weekly time to shop and decide on how you will create your list. A magnetic list is great and so is the app GroceryIQ.

 

If your family is struggling, create a check list on a dry erase board to help them keep on top of their responsibilities and routines.

 

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