Keep a plastic bag in your car so that rubbish doesn't have a chance to build up. Putting it in a handy place so that you can easily reach it will ensure that you'll actually use it. Make sure you take it with you when you get out of the car once in a while and dispose of it in your wheelie bin before you even enter your house.
This tip is especially useful for longer journeys when rubbish usually tends to pile up.
Do you often find yourself leaving the house with an important item missing? I'm talking about moments like arriving at your daughter's piano lesson without having the piano book on you, or the towel is not in the swimming bag, etc. As you can probably tell, there is some personal experience in those words.
But I've come up with a little system that makes all those items you need to take with you on a regular basis a whole lot easier to remember. Near the exit door put up a piece of paper (again, laminated if you like, or in a plastic sleeve) that clearly marks what is needed on what day and to what purpose. It could look something like this:
You can even colour code for each family member so that everyone knows what needs to be taken when by whom. Only mark on what needs to be taken regularly every week. You can leave some space at the bottom where you can handwrite with a dry erase marker anything that is applicable only for the current week if you need to.
I'm not saying you will never forget anything ever again, but you will be making your life a whole lot easier for yourself and everybody living with you.
(for technical reasons this week published on Wednesday)
The garage is a good temporary holding place for items you want to declutter and get rid of. The key word here is TEMPORARY!!!
Once you have boxed or bagged up the items you want to either take to the tip or to the charity shops "park" them in the garage. This way they are out of the house and one step closer to being out of your life. Once a week, maybe on a Saturday morning, put everything into your car and drive it to its final destination.
Meal planning can be a real chore, with the eternal question "What shall I cook today?". There are everybody's taste buds to consider and you don't want to make the same thing every day either. If you're very busy and basically haven't got the time to plan it all out you usually end up rehashing the same recipes over and over again. Here is an idea that involves the whole family in the process.
When you're all together one time, maybe after a meal have a piece of paper and a pencil ready and let everyone in the family name their favourite meals. Write them down. Everything is allowed including take aways, eating out, but also make sure to include family favourites that you like to cook and you know everybody likes to eat. Depending on the number of people in your family you might want to limit the list to 5 or 10 items per person. In my family there are 4 members, so everyone, including myself, chose 10 meals. Some of my choices were "something new from a cookbook" because I like to experiment and "cold" meaning bread with ham, cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. to make life easy once in a while.
Once your list is complete make sure you scramble it all up so that they are in no particular order of person or preference and then write up the list properly, either on the computer or let the children have some fun with making a handwritten list look good with lots of colours. If you have the facility, laminate the list, if not simply slip it into a plastic pocket. Hang it up in the kitchen, maybe on the fridge. Now you will never run out of ideas again. If a meal has been chosen cross it off with a dry erase marker and it can't be chosen again until all the other meals have been crossed off. For our family this means that meals come around about once a month.
There is only one rule to this game. No complaints from anyone. Everybody's favourites are on there and they will get chosen, so no whining is allowed when someone else's favourite is picked and we're not so keen on that one.
Garages clutter up so fast it's almost unbelievable. But you can do a few simple things to tame that clutter monster in your garage. Here are two useful tips.
This week I would like to introduce you to the email service from the US American lifestyle guru Martha Stewart. Her website is filled with thousands of tips and tricks for making your household run smoother and more effective and for adding those extra little touches that make a home extra special. You can find recipes, craft ideas, organisational wisdom and much more.
There are several email services you can sign up for, such as weekly newsletters or workshops, my favourite one is the "Organizing Tip of the Day". Every day you get an email with a good idea or technique to make being organised a bit easier or just more fun. If you think the tip is for you, you can actually bookmark it with personalised labels right there on a free account on Martha's website.
Simply set up a free account and start receiving lots of good information.
PS: I don't get any income from promoting Martha's website, I just think it's a really good service.
Now and again we find ourselves waiting. Waiting for the kettle to boil, being on hold on the phone, standing in a queue or waiting for the computer to boot up. You can use those time pockets to get small jobs done. There are dozens of little mini jobs that always need doing, such as wiping up a spill, emptying/filling the dishwasher, putting a few items away, filing a couple of papers, deleting some emails that clutter up your inbox, etc., etc. Keeping on top of those little jobs using your time pockets will save you a lot of time in the long run.
