Five Steps To Getting It Together For The School Year

The school year has started fast and furiously. If you feel like you’ve been hit by a whirlwind and are already behind, there are five steps that you can take to gain control.

Develop a nighttime routine. Everyone needs a set bedtime - adults and kids. After a few days of adhering to a set bedtime you brain will be trained to get ready for sleep. Sleep is essential to our health and wellbeing. Don’t believe me? Check out this article on the psychological effects of sleep deprivation. The bottom line is a sleep-deprived brain doesn’t work.  Once you establish your bedtime, work backwards to give yourself a few minutes to prepare for the next day and have 15 to 30 minutes of quiet non-technical, non-screen activity. Establishing a routine helps you tackle repetitive and important tasks without a whole lot of energy and effort. Prepare by checking the next day’s calendar and picking out outfits and accessories. Set bags and anything else that needs to leave with your family by the door. To slow down before heading off to bed try reading, writing, meditating, a warm bath, coloring, knitting, or some other quiet activity.

Develop a morning routine. Having a set wakeup time will, over a short period of time, make it easier to wake up on time. To encourage the habit of getting out of bed, set up something to look forward to – like a cup of coffee that was scheduled to be ready with the delay brew function on your coffee maker. Record a motivating phrase and use it as the alarm sound on your cell phone. Need more motivation? Try the Sonic Boom alarm clock. Allow enough time in the morning to have breakfast and review the day’s activities with your family. By breakfast, I mean something with nutrition rather than a fast fix of sugar. Hard-boiled eggs, cheese sticks, and peanut butter on whole grain bread are fast and portable if your appetite doesn’t spring to life first thing in the morning. A benefit from reviewing the day’s events with your family is that everyone starts off with the same information and everyone is more likely to successfully remember. Waking up 15 minutes before your children do provides some time to tend to a few chores. Tasks like emptying the dishwasher and folding a load of clothes are essential to running the household as smoothly as possible and tackling them first thing in the morning starts the day on a positive note.

After school, children need some outside time and a nutritious snack. Play is serious business. Actually adults need outside play time too. Unstructured time outside helps promote movement, curiosity, imagination, creativity, and a host of other benefits. Nature has healing properties; so say a number of studies. Plan periods of unstructured time so they happen. Nutritious snacks are important to sustaining blood sugar and focus. Plan ahead and create a snack drawer in the fridge so folks can help themselves when they are peckish.

Set up a productive homework environment. What works depends on your child’s age and nature. Generally speaking, younger children often work well at the kitchen table and older children often prefer the solitude of their own rooms. Talk with your child to see if she has a preference. If she doesn’t, experiment.  Regardless of where your child works, make sure that supplies are organized and handy. If your child works at the kitchen table, try putting the needed supplies in a caddy so it’s easy to set up and clean up the homework spot. Keep in mind that most students need a few supplies. Stockpiling supplies creates storage and access problems plus it makes it harder to keep things in order. Keep the work area as uncluttered as possible. Store completed units of study in a desktop file so that the student’s binder holds only the current topics. Storing the completed work makes for a lighter backpack. The desktop filebox helps keep students focused on the current subjects while keeping material available for comprehensive exams.

While we’re on the subject of completed work, let’s cover the work that becomes memorabilia for the parents: the art project, the A+ paper, the worksheet with the glowing teacher’s feedback, etc. Have a special place to show off these items, but keep the display fresh. After a short period of time either recycle the work or store it as memorabilia. Only keep items that really show off your child’s personality, nature and creativity. A worksheet will not do that; however, an essay might. Take pictures of 3-D projects like sculptures because the picture is easier to store than the object itself. Be careful how much you store. Consider if you stored just 10 things for each grade, including kindergarten, you will have 130 pages by high school graduation.

Two important tools every student needs are a planner and a clock. Planners help students keep track of homework assignments and also help them develop their time management skills. Time management is an essential life skill, and a clock is critical to developing it. However, one of the tools students often lack is a clock that is easily visible from where they work. The best clock for helping students develop an internal sense of time is the analog clock. The analog clock displays time passing. There is a sense of the amount of time that has passed as well as the amount of time remaining. Digital clocks display the present moment.

While tools are important to a student’s success, creating a comfortable, uncluttered environment for your child is very important. Clutter is not only unsightly it’s distracting. Help your child succeed by minimizing distractions.

Distractions can be internal too. Despite our best efforts at optimizing our environment and health, focus can be challenging. It may seem paradoxical, but fidgeting may help increase focus. Sitting on an exercise ball instead of a chair provides minute movements that may engage focus and – bonus - strengthen core muscles. Creating and listening to a playlist of music that the student likes but does not get to engrossed in, is another useful strategy.

A strategy that will save parents a lot of last minute changes of plans is to update the family calendar right away with the school and sports calendars. Make time to do this. Knowing what is happening in your child’s life gives you the ability to be proactive and supportive. If you use an electronic calendar, you may be able to important your school’s calendar into your calendar. Importing a calendar saves you lots of time from entering events individually – that is one of the strong points of an electronic calendar. If you are getting started with an electronic calendar, Cozi and Google calendars are easy to understand. If you prefer paper calendars but loathe entering recurring events, the WeekDate calendar is for you. The unique design of the WeekDate calendar means recurring events only have to be entered once (plus they are darn cute calendars). If possible, find out when important school projects are due and when tests are scheduled. This knowledge can help you support your child’s academic efforts. Inquiries about the status of your child’s homework can be supportive if the phrasing is neutral and upbeat. Saying something like “I notice you have an exam coming up. How do you plan on preparing for it?” is more supportive than saying “Have you studied for that test yet?” The former is more likely to get an honest answer than the latter, which may be met with a silent eye roll.

Keeping things together for the school year means developing some structure, routines and acting proactively. The strategies laid out here will help you not only survive the school year, but thrive. You’ll be developing healthy habits for yourself and your family. Organization is a great tool for living the life you want to live. If organization has been elusive for you, consider hiring a professional organizer to help you develop systems that will work for you and the support needed to implement them.

Six Steps To Wrap Up The School Year

The last bell of the school year – is there a sweeter sound for any child? Thoughts of staying up late, swimming, adventures with friends, ice cream cones and cleaning out the school backpack beckon. Well, maybe cleaning out the backpack is not high on the list of fun things to do during the summer. But it is important and done with the right attitude it can be fun for both you and you child.  

Five Clutter Creating Things To Eliminate

Simplify the task of getting organized by minimizing what needs to be managed and organized. Eliminate these five things and you’ll significantly decrease the input of stuff into your life. 

Five Steps To Organize Your Tax Preparation

According to H&R Block, 20 – 25% of Americans wait until the last two weeks before the April 15 deadline to do their taxes. If you’re part of the last-minute crowd, let’s talk about how you can organize your tax preparation to minimize your stress and get the job done. 

Five Guidelines When Your Significant Other Is Disorganized

If you're struggling with your partner's disorganization, it might be tempting to jump in and throw out the clutter and organize his or her stuff. Your partner will see what organization looks like and will be inspired to maintain it plus you will reap the benefits of having a tidy space - except it doesn't work that way. Your partner will be angry because you threw something that was important (you didn't think so, but it was her/his stuff and therefore her/his call), your partner may very well feel devalued by your efforts, and that new organizing system may be confusing and difficult to maintain because your partner did not participate in it's creation. In short: don't go there. If your partner's disorganization is an issue, then it's important to address it in a respectful way. 

Five Steps To A More Organized Desk - Step Three

Steps one and two focused on evaluating your current organizing systems and setting up an action system for handling the paper that is currently coming across the desk. I like to implement an organizing system as early as possible. If we started going through the stacks of paper before setting up a new organizing system, the new paperwork will end up in a stack as well - further delaying a vision of a clean desk. Now that the action system is in place it's time to hit the stacks.

Step 3: Gather your tools and sort! Now we’re going to dig into those stacks and drawers.

Organize Your Storm Safety Plan

This has been a rough week, starting with the F5 tornado in Oklahoma. Dangerous weather can affect anyone, anywhere. Please take a few minutes this weekend to invest in your safety. Organize a plan to stay safe in a storm.

Think about where you can go in dangerous weather. The safest place is underground but your home or office may not have a basement. In that case look for a windowless, interior room or closet on the lowest level of the structure. Regardless of where you shelter - basement or interior closet - make sure that there isn't something large and heavy on the floors above you. Only in cartoons do people survive having a piano land on top of them.

Put babies in their car seats. Put your pets in their carriers or on a leash when you take them into the shelter. A frightened pet can be unpredictable. 

Keep a battery operated weather band radio with spare batteries handy.  When the weather gets nasty make sure it is on. Do not rely on the storm sirens to alert you. I have been in more than one tornado when the storm sirens did not go on. Weather band radios are readily available in grocery and hardware stores. Silent Call has alert systems for the deaf.

Smart phone owners can download the free Red Cross app. I downloaded it when it first became available, and I have been very pleased with it. The app provides storm alerts and has an amazing amount of information about storm safety. You can find the app at the Red Cross' website page on tornado safety.

Keep at least one flashlight with spare batteries handy. Do not rely on candles for light because they can start a fire.

Create a communication plan. After the storm who will you contact to let them know if you are safe? Who will contact you? What will you do if there is no communication?

Organize a first aid kit. If you haven't done this, now is a good time to put one together. If you have a first aid kit, now is a good time to check its contents to ensure everything you need is fresh and packed. The Red Cross has helpful information about creating a kit.

Be safe. Organize your plan today. Just a few minutes spent in preparation might save your life. If you have some sage advice on storm safety - please share!

Organize To Be Prepared

As a Scout Leader the whole idea of a National Preparedness Month resonates with me. Being prepared can mean the difference between life and death – which may seem so scary that it’s offsetting. But here’s the good news: you don’t have to worry about being perfectly prepared. You just need to start and use the momentum to carry you step-by-step forward.

There are a few easy steps that you can take that will get your preparations started.  Notice that I haven’t numbered these steps. Start with any of these steps and don’t worry about what to do first – just start.

•   Find a place to take shelter in your home that is away from windows and preferably in the basement. 
• Keep your shelter and the path to it clutter-free. When you’re rushing to safety you will not have time to clear or jump clutter-hurdles.
• Keep a flashlight in every room so you don’t have to go somewhere and look for one in the dark. Test the flashlights periodically to make sure they work. Look for a way to remember to test the flashlights such as setting up a reminder in your electronic calendar.
• Have a first aid kit with your prescription medicines handy. A lot of stores have pre-made kits on sale this month.  Keep the first aid kit in use and restock it as needed so its contents remain fresh.
• Build a binder with essential information page by page. Start with creating a plan for where to meet family in an emergency and who to contact out of town. Add information about each family member. Then add other important information like your insurance policies. Visit www.ready.gov/make-a-plan for a form you can download. Or consider getting the Securita PortaVault, which provides a system for indentifying, organizing and transporting the information you need during a disaster.
• Keep some bottled water and shelf-stable snacks in your shelter spot. FEMA and the Red Cross suggest setting up three days worth of supplies. But even if you start with one bottle of water, that’s one more than you had a day ago.
• Have a battery-operated weather band radio - preferably one that has an automatic dangerous weather alarm and an electric adapter so you don’t run your batteries down during good weather.  By the way, NOAA tests the signal every Wednesday about noon. During one such test, my neighbor heard my radio’s alarm but he didn’t know it was from the radio. Concerned that he was hearing the fire alarm he contacted my husband and then entered the house to investigate. The moral of this story is make friends with your neighbors.

Friendship is a lifeboat during a disaster. Friends help by pitching in what they have for the good of the group. You might have the bandage your neighbor needs and he might have the granola bar you need. Friends provide the camaraderie that is needed to get through a disaster emotionally. Because of friends, the burden of perfect preparation is lifted.

All you have to do is start your preparations, then do one small thing on a regular basis to bring you step-by step in the direction of safety and survival. For more information I encourage you to take a look at the www.ready.gov website.  And be safe out there!

SOS! Organize Under The Kitchen Sink

"I can not open the cabinet under my kitchen sink without being embarrassed and frustrated. How do people fit their cleaning supplies and plastic bags in that small cabinet?"

The trick to dealing with the small, dark and damp cabinet under the sink is to limit what is stored there. Think about what you are usually doing when you are at your sink. Washing dishes springs to my mind, so dish washing supplies are kept handy under the sink.  One of the rules of organizing is to locate items where they are used. Free-standing baskets or mounted, slid-out baskets bring the supplies to you so you don't have to dig around in the cabinet. The basket unifies the appearance of the supplies for an uncluttered look. As far as the other cleaning supplies go, keep them in a different location - like the broom closet.

When it's time to clean the house it's nice to grab the vacuum and the furniture polish at the same time. Keeping cleaning supplies in the broom closet is pretty handy. Door-mounted baskets efficiently hold all of your supplies and preserve the closet shelves for other uses. Contrary to what most people think, you do not need a huge collection of cleaning supplies to keep you home clean. Use multipurpose items as much as possible so you have fewer items to store. You'll probably save money and have less environmental impact as well. Less is more!

I have posted two pictures from my home. Under my kitchen sink I keep the garbage can so it's away from my dog's curious snoot. The can plus the garbage disposal severely limit amount of space in the cabinet. But the cabinet is a very convenient place to keep the can. The basket holds only the things needed to do the dishes and a can of scouring powder. The bag on the left door collects are recyclables. On the right door is a cork tile which has the county recycling guide on it for handy reference.

The second picture is of my broom closet door where I keep most of my cleaning supplies. You can probably tell from the narrow width of the door that my closet is tiny. But the door-mounted baskets provide me with plenty of storage. Plastic grocery bags are kept in a tote bag that hangs from a hook in a closet. When the tote bag is full, it comes with me to the grocery store so I can recycle the bags.

Keep the area under the sink organized by following three guidelines:

•  limit what is stored there to only the items that you need when you are working at the sink,
•  use baskets to provide easy accessibility as well as neatening the appearance,
•  use the space on the doors for extra storage. 

Thank you Teresa for your question and the nomination of Backstoppers for the charitable drawing at the end of the year.

Don't forget we're giving away tickets to the home show. See the last past for the rules of entry, and good luck!