The Organizing Pro

Summer usually means time for family vacations.  Keep an updated packing list on your PC for different places you travel to, such as the beach, mountains or grandparent’s house.  When it’s time to pack for your trip, just print your packing list for your destination. It saves so much time!

Our homes are overwhelmed with stuff and our lives littered with the empty promises that the stuff didn’t fulfill.  In buying what we want, we hope to acquire the life we desire.  Chasing the life you want by accumulating more stuff is a dead-end street.”  – Peter Walsh

Do you enjoy baking with your kids?  Make it easy by putting all of your baking ingredients in a basket within arms reach for your little ones!  You can leave it on a low shelf in your pantry or cabinet for your kids to grab.  Fill it with flour, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, salt, baking soda, baking powder and baking chips.  If you use Crisco, include that too.  You can also put your box cake mix or brownie desserts in the basket.  Don’t forget cookie cutouts. Enjoy!

Now is the perfect time of year to go through your kid’s closets and purge clothes, toys and games that are not being used or they’ve outgrown!  Start by sorting them in piles to donate, sell or simply throw away.  If you chose to sell, many churches have their consignment sales early spring , so now is a good time to register to be a part of the sale.  Craigslist and eBay are also great outlets.  A good rule of thumb is: if your child’s toys have dust bunnies on them and haven’t been touched in a year OR are broken, it’s time to get rid of them!

1.  Go through mail daily- do not delay decisions!

2.  Sort into five categories:

          1. Junk Mail/Trash

          2. Bills To Pay

          3. To Do

          4.  To Read

          5.  To File

3.  Toss anything that you can- flyers, inserts, credit card applications, etc.

4.  Take each category to it’s “home”.  (If you don’t have a “home” create one.)

5.  Make sure you schedule a routine time (weekly or bi-weekly) to go through each of these categories and perform the action item on them.  Meaning: file papers that need to be filed, pay the bills, read the magazines, etc.