Now that school is back in session, most parents I know are relieved to have the routine of school back in their lives. However, along with the routine come loads of activities that can make most already-busy parents feel overwhelmed and overburdened. If you find yourself constantly on the go and struggling to stay on top of things, the following tips can help you regain control of the hectic school year:
- Create a family calendar – paper or electronic – and have everyone note all of their activities on it. You can use something like a medical appointment book or a teacher’s lesson plan book to create a separate column for each person, or a regular monthly calendar and use separate colors for each person.
- Have weekly family meetings to review schedules, to make sure everyone is on top of what’s going on that week, and to make sure everyone has transportation to their various activities. Sundays might be a good day for this – before the chaos of work and school kicks in for that week.
- Create an out-the-door checklist for each child using words and/or pictures of everything they need to do in the morning to get out the door without too much hassle. Include such things as “brush teeth”, “lunch in backpack”, “bring band instrument”, etc. My APPLES Resource Guide includes just such a checklist.
- Create a family information binder that contains all pertinent information for managing the kids’ activities: sports schedules, team directories, emergency contact information, school contact information, etc. Keep the binder in an easy-to-reach spot where all family members can find it.
- Consider limiting each child to 1 extra-curricular activity at a time. For example, if they want to play football, they can’t also play hockey in the fall. Not only will this make life less hectic for you, but it will allow your kids to have some unstructured time in what is typically an overscheduled life.
What techniques have you found helpful to keep your student and self organized for school?
Best wishes to you and your student(s) for a successful, organized school year,
Ready or not, here it comes – for those of us in the Northern hemisphere, the first day of fall will be here in three weeks. What did you plan to do this summer that you haven’t done yet? Go to the beach? Hold a garage sale? Clean out the gutters? It’s not too late to get those unfinished warm-weather tasks and activities accomplished; it just takes a bit of planning to turn your intentions into commitments. Pull out your calendar or planner (you do have one, don’t you?) and schedule when you’re going to do the things you’ve been meaning to do all summer.
I’ve had the opportunity to be part of several organizing makeover shows (as the organizer, not the client, mind you) and really enjoy seeing the client’s excitement as they view their transformed space for the first time. While you may be hoping there’s a television crew about to knock on your door to announce that you’ve won an organizing makeover, odds are that’s not about to happen. So here are some quick tips to help you jump start your own home organizing makeover:
A few years ago I entered the produce section of my newly remodeled grocery store to purchase some tomatoes, only to discover that it was going to take quite an effort to fulfill my mission. The new and “improved” produce department was at least double the size of the old one, and it took me 5 minutes of intense searching to discover where the tomatoes were located. There were dozens of tables displaying bin after bin of all types of fruits and vegetables, and I became increasingly annoyed at each bin that didn’t reveal the object of my quest. While some of you may have enjoyed such a hunt, it nearly brought me to tears – so many choices and so much floor space to navigate left me feeling overwhelmed and frustrated.
I recently encountered a situation with my client, whom I’ll call “Ann”, which exemplifies how some people think neatening is the same thing as organizing, and how detrimental that can be. Ann has several chronic medical conditions that generate lots of paperwork, leaving her buried in piles and overwhelmed. She also tends to be an over-shopper, buying things because they’re fun or pretty, not because she’ll necessarily use them, although she says she intends to give them as gifts someday. In addition, she has emotional attachments to gift boxes, greeting cards, stickers, ribbon, and other gift-giving supplies. Ann also envisions herself as being a great cook some day, so she stockpiles recipes and cooking supplies. I’ve worked with Ann on and off for several years to set up systems for her paperwork and create space for the emotion-evoking things that fill her small condo.
As I did around this time last year, I just saw a Disney-Pixar film that offers some great organizing lessons. This year it was Toy Story 3 that lured me from the comfort of my couch. The premise of the story is that Andy, who we met as a young boy in the first movie of the series, is getting ready to go to college and must decide what to do with his toys. This story tugged at my heart not only because I have son named Andy who’s in college, but also because I see many of my clients face the same struggles as Andy while they move towards creating a new, better life for themselves. Here are my observations:
When life gets busy (and when doesn’t it?) we often feel that we have to put our head down and plow full steam ahead to get as much done as possible. While it may seem counterintuitive, taking a break can actually help you accomplish more, and make life more enjoyable at the same time. Giving your mind (and body) a chance to rest can help refocus your attention and boost your energy as well as help relieve stress and sharpen your cognitive ability.
Did you ever notice that clutter seems to attract clutter? When you plop something “here for now” does that one item seem to multiply? Often a few out-of-place items seem to give us permission to continue adding to the jumble. We drop the bag of items from the store by the door because we don’t feel like putting them away right now. We set the mail on the counter “for now” because we don’t have time to deal with it. We dump the laundry from the dryer onto the couch because we don’t have time to fold it just yet. Pretty soon our home looks like a chaotic mess because our habits have allowed the clutter to creep up on us.
My favorite sports team, the 
A recent client of mine (I’ll call her Donna) struggled mightily with getting her clean laundry put away rather than strewing it across the living room couch. As we worked to understand the causes of her challenge, we discovered that she didn’t view putting the laundry away as being at all related to other steps in the laundry process. Instead, she viewed each step (sort clothes, load washer, run washer, empty washer, load dryer, empty dryer, fold clothes, put clothes away) as separate from and unrelated to any other step in the process. In her view, sorting and washing the clothes without having time to do any of the subsequent steps was better than having a mile high stack of dirty clothes. However, operating in this fashion sometimes (ok, often) caused Donna to have to rewash wrinkled clothes that sat in the dryer for several day, or even moldy clothes that sat wet in the washer for a few days.
