Goal Setting

Where do you want to be in a day, week, month, 6 months or a year?

This is probably one of the most daunting questions for an disorganised person. Why? Because they have to take stock of where they are and where they want to be.

For me, my initial goal was to never move house with 5, 90L containers of paper clutter EVER AGAIN! When I first realised my life was out of control and that I had no idea of what I owned or what we owed, I was a mental wreck. Friends wouldn't visit me, I didn't want to be home to face the mess and my 2 very young children really needed a safe environment to grow up in. 

So I set myself the goal of finding a system that would teach me how to get organised and learn to love myself and Love my family through my actions. For 2 years off and on, I used the FLYLADY method. It was a great starting point, BUT I felt like I could get overwhelmed quite easily and that I was always working on "cleaning house". Needless to say I did improve my ways and my family were the ones most surprised. When they would come to visit, they used to dread what they would find, until I set goals and stuck to them. Today they love to visit and see I am more relaxed.

Ok time to set goals, from the longest to the shortest.

A Year

Where do you want to be from a year from now? My guess is that because you are reading my blog, you want to get organised, have less stress and feel comfortable having people over, because you know the toilet is clean, the kitchen is tidy and Mt Washmore isn't taking over the house. Well those were my goals. I wanted to be able to buy a home and know that our finances were in order and could feel comfortable to invite someone over at the drop of a hat.

6 Months

By the 6 month mark, having good regular routines in place and getting the right amount of rest were my goals. I knew that if my routines were in place and the house was decluttered, that I could feel more rested, plan, make and eat better and more regular meals and even know what I was going to be wearing tomorrow.

A Month

By the end of a month, our goal is to see a change in our homes and our own attitudes. Others may start to notice a shift in you by the 1 month mark. Routines will be starting to fall in place. Even if it is just a small one, like taking the dirty laundry to be sorted every night. Each month we can extend ourselves a little further. The common theory is that it takes 21 days to form a habit. Disorganised people tend to take 28 to 31 days, continuous effort in a habit to keep it for a lifetime. This is where I am going to tell you one thing. DON'T BEAT YOURSELF UP IF YOU FAIL THE FIRST TIME. It took me 3 or 4 go's on some routines to make them a habit. Others I am still working on.

A Week

What do you want to see happen by the end of the week? In my first week, I discovered my sink could be shiny and stay clean. By doing the dishes every night and clearing and wiping the bench, we started to win the battle against some yucky household pests (German Cockroaches). My kitchen was my very first goal. I cleaned it from top to bottom. Although it did take me 2 weeks to completely clean it. I did it with one constant thing, my timer. I worked on my kitchen for 15 minutes twice a day. Once my kitchen was clean, the Cleaning bug got me. Each week I wrote a to do list and set about ticking off each item as I achieved it. P.S. I LOVE TO DO LISTS!

1 Day

This may be the most important goal. You see, very can have all the long term vision we like, but if we don't plan to succeed, one day at a time, we won't succeed. This is the reason my blog is called One Day at a time. Planning to keep it simple and set manageable goals, one day at a time, we don't bur out and fall back into our old ways. Trust me, I have learned from experience.

Conclusion

So now that you have seen how I break down goals, I challenge you to sit down with a piece of paper, a cuppa and set your goals. Remember that we are starting our challenge on January 1st. A good diary or daily planner will help you heaps with planning and goal setting. I have tried many different types over the years and have now settled on one that works for me. GO on have fun with it and don't over set goals. Keep them simple and remember to be nice to yourself in the process.

Til next time,

God Bless

Rivkah

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.