Prior Preparation and Planning

Now that Boxing Day is upon us and the festivities of Christmas are mostly over, we can start planning and gathering our tools for being organised.

Disclaimer: I have not been paid to advertise any products in this post. All products used are by my experience only. I give full credit to FlyLady.net and The Organised Housewife for their products.

Planning

We need to plan time, tools, goals and reward. In the beginning, just seeing a clean room may seem like reward enough to some, but for others of you, you may need a tanigble reward for completing a task. I know for me, it was as simple as have sticks of Chai Latte in the cupboard. When I had completed a challenge, I would reward myself with a Chai Latte. Over time the challenge became less of a "Chore" and more of a routine(and yes it is ok to fall down and pick yourself back up, I did this many times and sometimes still have to).

For me, the most important time of the day to get organised is the evening. After dinner, my 30 minutes of organisation begins. 

• Dishes get done, benches, table and stove are cleaned (15 min)
• Washing is collected and tomorrow's load is put in the machine. The detergent is added to the dispenser and the machine is set and ready for Hubby to hit the start button in the morning. (5 min)
• I then plan tomorrow and lay out my clothes as appropriate for the day ahead. (10 min)

These few tasks make the morning run smoothly. I can get dressed while still half asleep, the kitchen is tidy and makes me smile when I come in to make breakfast for the family. The washing load is then ready for hanging, as soon as I arrive home from school drop off/ work. Having my day planned, means that I can see what NEEDS to be done and what can be FLEXIBLE, should something come up that needs my attention.

Gathering our tools

In order to get organised and on track for peace in our home, we need to have a few inexpensive tools.

• 3 containers for our organising missions. (Give away, Put away and Throw away)
• A container to hold our cleaning equipment ( I got this cute one at Kmart for $9)
• Micro-fibre Cleaning Cloths approximately 3-5 will be enough. I personally like the FLYLADY ones.
• All Purpose cleaner. I have recently Changed over to making my own as we have skin irritation issues in our family. You can find the recipe for it here on The Organised Housewife website.
• Glass Cleaner.
• A non abrasive scourer.
• Gumption or Marble Paste.
• A toothbrush and a Dish brush.
• Furniture Polish. (Optional) 
• A working Vacuum cleaner and a broom/cobweb broom.
• A timer. THIS WILL BE YOUR BEST FRIEND

Tomorrow I will introduce a simple plan for keeping on track with our Goals at home.
Stay tuned and God Bless

Rivkah

My Get Organised Challenge Introduction

Over the next month or two, I am going to be co ordinating a challenge for a few friends via my blog. I know I haven't been very busy on here for quite some time and so I have decided to rename and reorganise it at the same time.

The very first thing we need to look at is WHY?
This can be for any number of reasons, but the main one is that we feel as though we are drowning in the day to day. We do well for a while, but then we crash and burn. The main reason for this is that we try to do too much too soon. Routines can take between 21 and 30 days to form into habit. Just think about that cup of Coffee you have every morning. I bet you have it at the same time every day after you have been through your little morning "routine". This is a habit that you have formed over many months and years, going right back to when you were a child with your morning milk or Milo.

HOW? is our next question. By taking one small step and one little bite at the apple each day. I am not going to overload you with routines. I am however going to recommend 3 tasks that need to be done every day to help form these new routines. Everything else will fall in line as we go.

Those three tasks are:

1. Make your bed everyday
2. Clear your sink every night before you go to bed.
3. Wash, dry fold and put away a load of washing everyday for families and every 2nd day for singles and couples.

These 3 routines will help establish order and calm in our homes as well as a feeling of achievement.

Each week, I will aim to set tasks in this way
Monday: Declutter
Tuesday: Clean
Wednesday: organise
Thursday: Plan/pay bills/filing.
Friday: Pamper Mission
Saturday/Sunday: Challenge.

Each task during the week will take only 15 minutes. We may not finish the task each day, BUT that is ok. The challenge is to improve, not to burn out. On the weekends I will set a task that may take up to an hour.

The best part about this is that the rest of your day is yours.From your entire day, there should only be 1 hour taken up by your new routine. We are all going to be in this together. I am going to be doing it with you so that I can photograph each challenge.

I hope you can all join me from January 1st, 2014 to take on this challenge and reclaim time and joy in our lives, One day at a time.

God Bless

Rivkah

MIA??? Where has the year gone already

So I haven't been blogging quite as much as I would have liked this year. I can't believe that it is already May. I have been busy with a few projects and I am hoping to get them posted this weekend. The first is my purple happiness quilt. It is a nice little lap quilt. I have also been working on a quilt based on one called roads to springtime. I have just also come back from a stamp camp this weekend just gone, so I have lots of lovely cards to show off too:)
The renovations here at home are on a go slow, as I have been battling with tennis elbow. I have suffered a great deal of pain with it sadly. But there are still things that I can show off.
On the home organisation side of things, I have recently completed a 28 day challenge for shining my sink. As well as laying out my clothes every night. My current challenge is removing the paper clutter from the office. This is my biggest challenge. I hate this one with a passion and always seem to find a reason to procrastinate. So now I have to deal with it.

Looking forward to letting you all in on the progress very soon

God bless

Rivkah

27 Super Fling Boogie

I noticed yesterday over on Flylady that she has launched the 1st super fling boogie for the year. What a great opportunity to get rid of more stuff. Here is the main rule: If you don't love it, don't need it, or if you have another... then fling it!
So this is where I started. Seeing as this week we are in zone 3, (the Bathroom, laundry and kids bedrooms are all part of zone 3 in my house) I tackled the linen cupboard first. 
I gathered the decluttering tools: 2 wash baskets,1 Rubbish Bag,1 Digital Timer

My timer.
Keeps me on track to do only
15 minutes at a time

Add caption

I opened my linen cupboard, which hasn't been sorted properly since we moved into this house 3 months ago. Everything was just shoved in and it was a case of hope for the best!




My goal was to strip the cupboard and re organise. I set my timer for 15 minutes and got to it :)




At the end of the 15 minutes, my cupboard looked like this. You will notice that there are no kids sheets or main bedroom sheets. This is because I store the current season's sheets in the wardrobes in their appropriate room. It makes for a much easier time when doing my weekly home blessing. ( But I will talk about that another time)








My give away basket was emptied into my weekly donation bag, and the put away basket had all of it's items put into their correct homes.The throw away bag was then filled with any other rubbish for the day and disposed of.




I now have a nice, neat and organised linen cupboard that will be able to have the rest of the towels put away neatly this evening :)

BLAH!!!! The heat took my inspiration!

I was fully intent on finishing 2 dresses and making a dent in some of the ironing.... until the temperature here in Perth was well over 35degrees and the humidity just sapped every last ounce of energy from my body.
The kids have been grumpy. Thankfully TJ had a nap this arvo for an extended time. Archer on the other hand, just flat out refused to rest, even though he really needs to.
So I have managed to get some washing done and decluttered my linen cupboard. With a little luck I will have the energy to do it after the kids go to bed tonight.

Hair ties are now under control and easy to find

 The only other thing I have felt like doing is blog hop. So when I was reading over at The Organised Housewife, she had a great post on back to school hair styles. However, it wasn't the styles that grabbed me, but the way she organised her daughters' hair ties. So here is my version. It is a Decor container with 4 compartments that can be removed. Not bad for $7.00 at Coles.

WOYWW 137

 Cross Stitch, Cards, sewing and the 1st reno complete

So I like to keep busy!! I couldn't decide which part of my desk to show you today, so you got the lot lol!!
I have been busy sorting through my craft stash and clearing out some stuff that I just don't love. In the process, I found some little kits that I can stitch up fairly quickly and make into a card.

I went to a Team Training Day with a friend's Kaszazz Team on Sunday and these beauties just don't want to leave my desk just yet.

I have 2 more dresses on the go at the moment. the floral is getting button holes and the hem done today and with little luck (kids you are going to have a nap today!) I will get the doggy print dress done too.

Renovation of the old Bar and Lounge room (stage 1) are done! The feature walls are a beautiful shade of Perfect Plum (for the Stampin Up fans) and the main walls are Dulux Hog Bristle. Hubby found the slightly abstract paintings for a bargain at $20 ea.

Reading Books and Zone Cleaning

Ok so this might sound like a strange mix of things to do. I challenged myself to finish to books as part of my zone cleaning this month. I read my novels a week at a time, as I get bored easily and feel the need to jump from one to another. The only problem with this, is that I had six books in various stages of being read, let alone my bible. I thought I would share with you the book I have been reading and maybe it will give you some inspiration to start a book marathon of your own ;)

The first book that I have finally finished is "Sidetracked Home Executives" by Pam Young and Peggy Jones.

The are the original FLY Girls. It has been really inspiring to read their story and see how the Fly Lady routine came about in later years.

The Other book is "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time". This is an inspiring story that really allows you to get inside the head of a teenage boy with aspergers. He runs away from home after discovering through his diligent detective work that his own father murdered the neighbours dog.

I have found for myself that tying a book to my cleaning zones has given me focus, and I am now finding that books are being read instead of being dust collectors. Now that is something a declutterer like myself loves to see, books leaving the bedside, because they are finished, not because I didnt get around to reading them.