Life can quickly become messy, especially when changes happen. When you start a new job, move to a new home or have another change in your life, it may be difficult to keep track of important information. Well, let’s be honest, even without big changes in our lives, sometimes we find everything out of control – staying organized for routine tasks, even meal planning, after school activities and home repair can be overwhelming.
A great way to get most of the thing under control is to stay organized! It’s easier said than done you say, yes, we know it, but with these simple steps staying organized is not such a huge task.
Meal Planning
First of all, I want to say that I’m really bad at meal planning. I do it for a couple of weeks and then I get frustrated and leave it at that. So usually just before heading home, I’ll chat with my husband and we’ll decide what we eat. It means that most of the days one of us has to stop by the grocery store on our way home and it also means that we eat lunch around 15.00/15:30. It’s a real disaster! We usually have some veggies, fruit, and chicken at home, so if we don’t want to go shopping, our lunch will be a huge salad, but in the end, eating a salad every day gets boring.
If you are trying to eat a balanced diet, then meal planning is essential. Planning meals ahead of time will prevent you from giving in to the temptation to eat fast food and it also keeps you from feeling stressed about cooking and not having needed ingredients at hand. If you are struggling with recipes, know, that there are a lot of great food blogs that give you tons of ideas and help you out with meal planning.
Try to organize the recipes so that you can find them quickly before you go grocery shopping and be sure to make a shopping list! This saves both time and money!
Use Correct Tools
I find it impossible to stay organized without proper tools. It does not matter if you use a pen and a paper or any digital tools, just use the ones you are comfortable with and make them work for you. I can’t do without my planner, my husband prefers Evernote for making his list and we have a shared Google Calendar for appointments and other important dates and events.
Storing online information like those amazing recipes you saw somewhere and house cleaning tips you want to try out some day might be easy, but finding them afterward can be a real nightmare. How many times have you tried to find something you pinned on Pinterest and can’t find it anywhere when needed? It has happened to me a lot! So, for storing online information, use tools like Clipix Organizational Tool, that let you organize information easily – meal plan ideas, decorating tips, job searches, real estate info or even birthday party ideas can effectively be organized and really easily found afterward.
Have a Weekly Cleaning Schedule
I have a “Can’t Have Anyone Over syndrome”! Ask my husband! Every time he mentions we will have somebody company I start freaking out and cleaning. I feel that my house is never clean enough. So I have worked out a weekly cleaning schedule for us. I find it easier to do several small tasks during the day than spending a whole day on cleaning. We’ll try to tackle a couple of 15-20-minute tasks every day and that way I hope we’ll have a presentable house whenever any unexpected visitors appear.
My daughter is enjoying helping me out, so I have found a couple of simple tasks for her (folding tea towels, putting laundry on a line, folding her clothes, dusting, etc.,). As she helps me out she’ll learn new things and that way understands that keeping our house clean is a task everyone in our family has to do.
Another thing we like to do is to declutter once a month. Keeping your home decluttered helps to get rid of unnecessary items and also keep your house organized. Check out these fun ideas to keep your things organized.
How do you keep your home organized?
*The unedited watercolor image is designed by Freepik.