Tip of the Day: Spring Cleaning with your Husband

     Hello organizers! I know I haven't been around for about a month now so I thought I would share a quick update and a tip with you all today!

    So first, the update! Things have been super crazy around our house lately! Both my husband and I have been looking for new jobs recently. My husband has been looking really hard and will hear back on Monday to see if he got a sales job that he thinks he nailed the interview for! And as for me, I think I found my dream job. Cue the drum roll *insert drum roll here* I am a nanny!!! I just finished my second full week as a nanny for an incredibly intelligent and adorable two year old girl and a super cute and lovable 14 week old boy! I'm already completely in love with these kids! So much fun to be with and care for, I'm so lucky! I'll try to share some ideas relating to kids on the blog now when I can. My schedule is super packed now and the only reason that I am blogging today is because I will have Fridays off through June and then my job will be Monday through Friday. But maybe I will try to blog every Friday for a little while. Sorry to ramble on but as you can tell I'm super excited about all this! Okay, so now to the tip of the day!

     Today's tip of the day is actually something that I am going to be practicing today! Maybe its the fact that its spring, maybe it is the new super busy schedule and wanting to be organized or maybe I am just ready to purge but its true, you really can spring clean with our husband! Now maybe the husbands aren't always the first to jump at the idea of spring cleaning but they can be a huge help! Maybe they may clean and organize the garage for you but they can also help you with things you may not think of right away, like going through your clothes! (Wait, what? Did she just say my husband can help me with my clothes? Is she crazy?) Okay, well maybe I am a little crazy but its true! If you are anything like me, you will look at your wardrobe and you are embarrassed to admit that you see things you haven't worn for years, clothes that have a stain but are still okay if you were them with the right thing that covers it or there is that piece of clothing that needs resown "someday" but you've never done it. It's time for that to change! Now maybe you aren't as lucky as me to have a husband who loves fashion and who you can trust to make fashion decisions for you but you may have a husband who wants some more room in your closet (I'm totally guilty with owning 3/4 of ours!) or maybe he secretly wants to tell you that a certain outfit isn't the most flattering without hurting your feelings or he wants to tell you that he just simply doesn't like something in your closet. So like I said, I'm ready for a change and I'm ready to finally get rid of things, so today is the day! Graham is going to help me go through all of my clothes and I am going to try my hardest to listen! Just because I bought or was given something and "might" wear it "someday" (I'm realizing that never happens) doesn't mean I have to keep it! So now that I know my husband is going to help me and I have told you about it... lets do this! Let's get OrganizedForReal!

Tip of The Day: Cleaning With Friends

     Do you ever know that you need to clean but you have no desire? Do you ever feel like if you just had someone to help you that you could get motivated? I think we have all been there haven't we?I've been meaning to write this post for a while but time has just escaped me. This happened to me one day while we were still at our old house. There was so much to do but I had zero motivation.I was texting one of my girlfriends, Brittney, and she was having the same problem. So I suddenly got the idea, "Why don't we just clean together?" Well, the problem with that is that we live a state apart so that was out of the question but then I thought, "Why don't we just clean our own houses at the same time?" That way we would know that we weren't the only ones doing it.     
    So I told Brittney my idea. The rules were:
1.) For 1 hour, we have to clean as much as we can as fast as we can!
2.) No sitting down!
3.) No texting each other until the hour was over!
     She thought that it was a great idea so off we went! I was amazed at how much I got done! I got all the laundry ready to wash, started a load, did all the dishes, and picked up the whole house! It was great! 
     Then we texted for a little bit and I said that we should do a second hour. I decided that for the second hour we had to do something that we had been putting off. For Brittney it was folding the huge pile of laundry. For me, it was writing a card and wrapping a gift for my brother-in-laws graduation party that day! So off we went again! And we both accomplished our goal after that hour!
     So next time that you are not feeling motivated but know that you need to get something done, text one of your girlfriends and set a time limit to get as much done as you can! You'll be amazed at how much you will get done! And maybe after that you can have a girls night to celebrate!
Try this and your house will be clean and OrganizedForReal!!!

Shout Out: Speed Dial

So this weekend a friend of mine showed me a really cool app for Google Chrome. Google Chrome is my favorite web browser and I don't like to use anything else. He showed me an awesome app called Speed Dial. (link here) This app allows you to make your browser page look like this!

You get to totally customize how this looks.

The options page looks like this. 

     The top two drop down menu's allow you to choose the number of rows and columns that you want. The bar below that allows you to choose distance between buttons. Then you can choose the background image or background color. It was so much fun to set up!

     To set a button simple click on it and it will bring up a set dial menu like this. 

The "Title" allows you to put a title above each picture but I choose not to do this in order to make it look cleaner. The "URL" is where you put the website that you want to link to. Then you can find a picture online to set as the image for the button. Choose something that will make it obvious as to what that button is. For example, use a logo for the website like I did with Hulu and YouTube. 

I absolutely love using this. It makes my web surfing so much easier. I never forget any of the things that I regularly check and it is so much easier than using the bookmarks. Give this a try and your internet will be OrganizedForReal!

Tip of the Day: Running Errands

     Sometimes you feel like there are too many places that you need to run and not nearly enough time to do it all right? Well the best thing you can do is group all of your errands together and run them all at one time. 
     You may need to go to the bank, get groceries, run to the post office, fill the car with gas, wash the car, pick up meds at the pharmacy and the list goes on and on. Some of these you may need to take care of once a month, others once or twice a week.
     But why not make a list of your errands and set a specific time to run them all? This way it will not only save you gas by making an efficient route to accomplish them all but it will save your valuable time as well. 
     For myself, I have really benefited by doing this because I can run all of my errands on Monday morning and then forget about them for the rest of the week! Try it out and tell me what you think. Then you can Organize RunYourErrandsForReal!

Tip of the Day: Labeling Cords and Chargers

     Today we live in the age of technology. For every gizmo and gadget we have two or three cords. We have a charger for the house, a charger for the car, headphones and a cord to hook up to our computer. None of them seem to be the same as another either.
     So how can you organize the chaos? Label, label, label!!!
     I have seen many labeling techniques when it comes to cords. I have seen people write a label on bread bag ties using a permanent marker. I have also seen labels from a label maker wrapped around them. This is some that I have yet to do but need to!
     Don't forget to label the cords for your computer or entertainment center as well. This way when you go to the power strip you can easily unplug the exact cord that you want. If all the cords are labeled this also makes it easy to move your computer or entertainment center to a different location. Do this and you'll be OrganizedForReal!

Tip of The Day: Weekly Meal Plan

    Is the term "weekly meal plan" an inspiration or does it make you cring? I'll admit, at first,I thought it would be a daunting task but now I don't know how I lived without it! I found myself in the rut of not knowing what to cook so it was just easier to go out or order in. But I noticed that I was not feeling very good because I was not eating well and I wanted to have better meals for my husband. So I decided I would try making a meal plan for the week and see how it worked and like I said, now I don't know how I did without it.
     The first week was the hardest, I didn't know what I wanted to make. So I decided to start a list of meals that I make. I also looked though some cookbooks and online to find new recipes I wanted to try. Here is what week one looked like...

Monday-

Lunch- Stromboli

Supper- Chinese

Tuesday-

Lunch- Red Beans and Rice

Supper- Turkey and Ham Wraps

Queso and Chips

Wednesday-

Lunch- Red Beans and Rice

Supper- Capresse chicken and pasta

Thursday-

Lunch- Leftover Capresse Chicken and pasta

Supper- Vernicelli with sausage and spinach

Friday-

Lunch- Leftover vernicelli with sausage and spinach

Supper- Cedar Rapids

Saturday-

Lunch- With Nieces Out

Supper- Make with Nieces

Sunday-

Lunch- Eat out

Supper- Leftovers

     For the lunches I only have to figure out what I would eat as my husband has to eat out for lunch. I normally eat leftovers, which I love for lunch. Then for supper I looked at my days activities to see how much time and energy I would have to cook. On days where I am gone until 5, I want something that will either be ready when I get home or take very little effort to prepare. 

     I also have to figure in meals to use leftovers. If there are more leftovers beyond this. I freeze them and plan them into next weeks meal plan. I also make sure I include when we will be eating out on the meal plan. 

     When I am making the meal plan, I try to make sure that I plan for a wide variety of foods. I make sure that I don't have the same meat too many times in one week or too many pasta or rice dishes etc.
     When I am trying to think of meals to make, I rally try to look at what I will have a partial package of and try to use it in another meal. For instance, I made a beef roast one night and then used the leftover beef in beef stroganoff the next night. I also froze the beef broth for later use. This way I make sure that I don't have wasted food and thus wasted money.
     As you have noticed, now I am going to post my new meal plan every Sunday or Monday. Monday Meal Plan- genius!
     Because I have my weekly meal plan and use my Master Grocery List I can get groceries once a week on my errand day! This way I can be OrganizedForReal!!!

Tip of the Day: Master Grocery List

     You're in the grocery store and you go from aisle 1 to 2 to 5 to 6 and back to 2, then back to 5. You are jumping all around the store, you're frustrated and you just want to go home. Sound familiar? What if you could go straight through the store with no back tracking? Sound good? Well guess what? You can! How? By having a master grocery list! 
     This takes just a little bit of time to put together but will save you so much time every time you go to the store! If you can picture a mental outline of your grocery store, go ahead. If not, the next time you are in your grocery store, make note of the different sections. You will list produce, canned goods, dry goods, desserts, ethnic, pasta, dairy, meat, frozen, etc. You can be as specific as you want. On your computer, create a document that has about 3 columns. Through these column, list the sections in the order of the store. 
     Now when you fill in the groceries that you need to get, put them in the correct section. You can either fill the sections in on your computer or just print the list with the section titles and fill it out as you need. If there are certain items you purchase weekly, feel free to type them into the appropriate section. This will make your weekly grocery shopping even easier.
     I have also found it helpful to have an area at the top of the list to list the food you are making for the week so that you can reference it while shopping. This way you can be OrganizedAtTheGroceryStoreForReal!

Tip of The Day: Organizing Spices

     Do you ever open your spice cabinet or look at your spice rack and it takes forever to find what you are looking for? A lot of people have this problem, just keep it the way it is, and deal with it. But why deal with it when you can take a little bit of time and organize them once and for all? Well, I'll admit, I'm guilty of this, I haven't done it yet but I am hoping to this week. (Look for that post soon!)
     People have many different ways of keeping their spices but everyone can employ a few simple methods to keep them all organized. You may have a cabinet you keep them in, a stationary rack, a rotating rack or even perhaps a pull out drawer or rack. I currently have both a cabinet and a rotating rack. The rack sits on the counter underneath the cabinet where there are more spices. 
     One tip is to make sure that your bottles are well labeled. If you use the bottle from the store they are normally well labeled but if you are using a spice rack with special containers, be sure that put a label on them. Eventually I am going to get rid of some of the spices that I don't use and fill them with spices that I do and relabel the containers. 
     Another tip I have is to organize all of your spices in alphabetical order. This way you will always know where to find the spices that you are looking for. Just be sure to put them back where they go!
     My last tip is to put a small round sticker on the bottom of the container and mark the date it was opened. This way you will always know the freshness of your spices and know when you need to replace them. By doing this you will be OrganizedForReal in the kitchen!

Tip of the Day: Is It Possible to Organize on A Small Budget?

     Today's tip of the day comes in response to a comment from my good friend Brittney. She ask me if I have any tips for organizing on a SMALL budget. 
     That is a big misconception that people get about organizing. "You have to send lots of money on containers and organizing tools!" Well, let's get real, people don't have a lot of extra money to spend on organizing. We just need to have a practical way to keep our life in order. Organizing isn't all about a container for this, a folder for that, a label on this, a sticker on that. It is about things having a place and having a system in plan and keeping it that way. 
     Granted, sometimes you may find that you need a binder or a container for a specific reason normally for the areas where you are having a lot of congestion. But you don't have to spend a lot of money on them. In our town, we have a dollar store and a Dollar General. The dollar store is great because everything is one dollar! They have binders, folders and plastic containers. Their inventory is always changing because they get different things in all the time. So try going to a place like that every so often. I haven't been for a while, I should go soon too!
     But the majority of organizing is making sure everything has a place and grouping like things together and then putting things back where they go. Have a place where you keep your books, movies, paperwork, cleaning supplies, shoes, etc. Have things organized so that when you are looking for something you know exactly where to look thus saving you time and frustration. Then you will be OrganizedForReal!

Tip of the Day: Your Attitude

     Today's tip of the day has to do with your attitude toward organizing, you have to have the right mental disposition before you decide to organize your life. 
     Don't think along the lines of just getting organized but think of staying organized. In order to create some order in your life, you not only have to set in place systems to get you organized, but you have to take the time to keep them organized. Now don't get me wrong, you don't have to spend a lot of time because life is crazy! But everyday you must take some time to keep the systems you have created in place. 
     But think about it, would you rather spend 30 minutes a day keeping your home clean and organized or would you rather spend 30 minutes a day looking for your keys, trying to find that receipt for the return you want to make and trying to figure out what is for supper only to realize that you have to go to the store? Would you rather spend 30 minutes a day to maintain systems or just keep letting your life get more disorganized, have things pile up, think about taking a lot of time to declutter and organize and never commit to it? Thirty minutes a day, that's all it takes. If you can devote more time, thats great! But if thirty minutes is all you have, you can be on your way to being OrganizedForReal!