Using Time Wisely

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Swim Bag: Getting Out the Door Quickly

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Getting out the door quickly

Prepacked to save time and energy

Spending many days at the water park, I found that keeping our swim bag packed saves time and energy. I designated a bag for the water park. This bag was received via a coupon at Staples early in the back-to-school season. The items kept within include:

  • 5 Towels
  • 2 Swim diapers
  • Container of wipes
  • 2 diapers or slip-on/pull ups
  • Sunscreen in a pump
  • Bath toys for toddler in wading pool
  • Bag of goldfish or other non-chocolate snack
  • Water park mug, resulting in $2 refills

Then on the day we venture out to the water park, I will add the following items to our bag:

By having our water park bag packed and ready to go, I can quickly prepare for a day of fun in the sun. When we return, I wash our items and repack our bag for the next visit.

For often-visited attractions where you need to take the same items on each visit, consider packing a special bag designated for those visits. Our water park bag saves time and energy since all the items are kept in one place. Keep enjoying your summer, and happy organizing!

Question: Do you keep often-used items together? 

Organizing: Children’s Clothing – Part 2 of 5

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Going to the closet in the morning only to find clothing that is too small, too short, or in the wrong season does not help in using time wisely. Instead of getting my daughter dressed, I am taking time to sort through her clothes searching for something in the right season that will fit.

After finally recovering the last clean suitable outfit, I get her dressed and sent down to breakfast. When I arrive downstairs, I find that spilled milk soaked her top and bottom, and I am back to finding another outfit. Been there? I have more than once. Staying a step ahead of my children’s growths spurts is an ongoing battle, but a great use of my time.

Though I cannot control their growth spurts, I can plan to change their clothing at least twice a year. I prefer spring and fall before the heat and cold arrive. With fall upon us, I am in the process of organizing my children’s clothing. Last week, I shared STEP ONE of my 5-step process. Today, I will take you along as I purge my youngest daughter’s clothes.

STEP TWO: Purge

In my daughter’s nursery, her clothes are housed in the closet and dresser. There are also items in the coat closet, diaper bag, and car. In switching out her clothing, I began with the largest supply found in her closet.

Closet

As I checked each label for the size, I took out any 12-18 month clothing and most of the summer items. As I went item by item, I folded the clothing and set them in piles by size and type (winter or summer).

If I never dressed my daughter in an item of clothing, then I placed it in a donation pile. I would rather someone use the item than to save it for the off chance that I might use it someday.

After purging one rack and placing those items in piles, I went to the next. When the closet was complete, I moved to the dresser.

Dresser

In checking these labels, I kept her 18 month bottoms since my daughter has just outgrown her 12-month pants. As I pulled out items too small for her, I rearranged the piles of clothing in the drawers to allow more room for larger sizes.

Each out-grown item was folded and added to the correct sized clothing pile. Going drawer by drawer, I quickly purged the entire dresser. Then I searched the rest of the house for her clothes.

Coat Closet

In the coat closet, I purged the winter hats, mittens, and coats. These items were added to the appropriate piles in her room.

Diaper Bag

Since I keep a change of clothing in her diaper bag, I needed to take out the smaller size and replace it with a larger size when I get to STEP FOUR. For now, I just removed the smaller sized items.

Car

The last place I checked for her clothing was in the car. My children have a tendency to get dirty, so I keep a spare set of clothing in the car. These items were now too small for my daughter, so I added those items to the piles in her room.

Whew! With lots of clothing piles waiting to be packed away in STEP THREE, I am left with a bare closet and a semi-empty dresser. Though my process is still underway, the progress is moving forward. In using time wisely, I will soon have the correct sized clothing in place making the morning routine less eventful. Happy organizing!

Question: Do you consign your clothing or give it away? Please add your answer to the comments.

Growing Pains of an Organizational System

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Do you have an organizational system in place that is practical but has some flaws? I do. I am finding that just because an organizational system once worked does not mean that it will continue to work with my growing family.

In learning to recognize problem areas from my family’s reactions, I can better fix the problem. Consider the growing pains of my organizational system for our beach balls.

The Need for Beach Balls

My children love to play with balls. At the age of 6 months, my son took a Weeble and tossed it across the room nailing my husband. Yes, it hurt! After that incident, we substituted a beach ball for the Weebles, who were put away until our son learned not to throw them.

The beach balls have offered many hours of fun without pain or broken items. All three of our children have enjoyed rolling, kicking, tossing, hitting, serving, and bouncing these balls around our house. I love the variety of games we can play with the beach balls, but what I don’t like is how big they are to store.

The Problem with Beach Balls

In the entryway of our home, we keep all the toy balls in a large tote. However, the 3 large beach balls (one for each child) continue to roll off the pile of balls into the hallway.

Besides the frustration of having them out of place, the beach balls have become a hazard when they come to rest at the bottom of the stairs. In coming downstairs in the dark one night, my husband tripped over a beach ball. Though he did not get hurt, I had to find another solution for storing these balls.

The New Solution for Beach Balls

With limited space due to all the other toys our family has accumulated, I needed to work within the boundaries of the ball tote. Since the problem is keeping them in the tote, I have chosen to deflate 2 of the 3 beach balls.

When all of my children need their ball, I can easily blow up the other 2 balls. After play, I can deflate 2 of them and place them in the ball box. There is room for one inflated beach ball, and now all the toy balls fit in the tote.

As I identify frustrating systems that are in place, I am learning to find another solution. What worked last year with two active children and an infant is not necessarily working this year with three very active children.

While on my motherhood journey, I am becoming more aware of my family’s preferences and working through the growing pains of the current organizational system to another organized system that works for us all. Whether it is reorganizing plastic food storage containers or beach balls, I hope to keep my home a clean, organized haven for lots of fun and laughter.

Question: What organizational system in your household has become a frustration rather than a help? Please click the Leave your Comment button to add your answer.

Personal: Other Certificates

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Photograph Credit: Microsoft Images

As we complete the fourth file slot in our first accordion-style filing system, I hope you are getting energized. Organizing your personal documents will save you money, energy, and time when accessing those documents.

In this fourth slot, I have our birth certificates, driver’s licenses, passports, marriage license, voter’s registration cards, and our other certifications: child abuse history clearance and CPR cards and copies.

CHILD ABUSE HISTORY CLEARANCE: When Paul and I lived in Pennsylvania, Paul taught elementary through high school, and I occasionally substitute taught. As part of the school’s requirements for each teacher and substitute teacher, we filled out paperwork to obtain our clearance to teach. When we received our official clearance, I kept the originals and have placed them in this file.

HEARTSAVER CPR: During our first pregnancy, Paul and I took advantage of all the prenatal classes offered through the hospital systems in our area. The CPR class resulted in our certifications. Even though these certifications are now expired, I still keep our certification documents for the date we decide to renew.  In additional to the certification cards, I keep a copy of the cards in this file. When we renew, I will have copies of our prior certification to submit with our registration.

This concludes the items I have in the fourth file slot under the second category of Personal Important Documents. If you have completed organizing these documents, then celebrate! You are doing a great job getting these piles of paperwork sorted and organized for easy retrieval later. Next week, I’ll reveal what is housed in the fifth file slot under the Personal Important Documents category. Congratulations on staying organized!

10 Steps to Organizing a Bookshelf

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Do you have a tendency to start a project without finishing it? Is it because the project became too big? If you find that you have a lot of projects begun but none finished, then start small. I mean really small. Let’s start with a shelf on a bookcase. You can take 5 minutes to organize one bookshelf. Are you ready? Here we go:

10 Steps to Organizing a Bookshelf

1.       Take everything off the one shelf and place it on the floor.

2.       Dust, clean, and polish the shelf.

3.       With the items on the floor, throw away any trash.

4.       Create piles: items to donate, items to sell, and items to keep.

5.       Take the items to keep and group into similar items: books, notebooks, videos, games, CDs, etc.

6.       Decide how much space is needed for each pile and designate a place for the items on the shelf.

7.       Place the items back on the shelf.

8.       Take items to donate and place in your vehicle.

9.    Place items to sell in a designated spot for EBay, Craig’s List, garage sale, etc.

10.     Relax and admire your clean and organized bookshelf.

Congratulations! You can complete an organization project from start to finish! Just take your organization one step at a time, little by little, and in short amounts of time. You will see progress as you finish manageable tasks and use your time wisely in finishing those projects. Happy organizing!