to ask how you become organised and together? Seriously how??

[inatrance]

This is a question for any of you who used to be disorganised/flaky and are now organised and sorted. I have been like this for so long and I drive myself and everyone around me crackers. I'm unbelievably forgetful, I am late a lot and I'm rubbish with finances. I'm so fed up of cringing because I'm so bloody rubbish and make stupid mistakes all the time!

I've got an 8mth DS and a 10yo DD and while I've always had disorganised tendencies, since I had DS, it's gone from bad to ridiculous and I feel like I am constantly trying to catch up with myself.

I'm self employed (which is for the best as even I'd have sacked me by now) and have somehow managed to run my businesses haphazardly over the last ten years without fucking up too massively. Well, not often anyway...

Well, no more, I've had enough. I am using the New Year to kick me up the arse and I need your help.

If you used to be crap and are now brilliant and incredibly organised, please, please tell me how you did it. What changed in your mind and where the hell did you start?

Ooh, could you send me a copy of the list, please, melted?

Yeah, if ohdearnigel sends it to me I will forward on! :)

Melted Could you please send me a copy to if you get one?
I have been lurking but I think it would take me hour's to read and write everything down!

School dinners
school dinners
school dinners

I absolutely stick by my guns that DD's have school dinner.
I really haven't got the time to make packed lunches,and if I'm pushed at dinner time, soup or sandwiches are fine as they've had a proper cooked meal at lunch.
I love the idea further up the thread of using disposable stuff for a while to save on washing up if you're really pushed.I always use up the paper goods this way if DD';s have had a party but it never occurred to me that it could be a useful tool at other times.

Please can you send it to me too? Thanks

Can I have it too please

Please could I have a copy of the master list too?

Please could I have a copy of the list from somebody too please?

If I get things out the night before I am so much more organised the next day. Otherwise I end up running in a panic and leaving things behind.

But I am bad at actually doing it! Off to get sorted now...

I would also definitely like a copy please! I had a slight panic a minute ago as this thread had disappeared from threads I'm on on my phone... The horror!

If you suffer from anxiety and feel like a failure helps. I work 4 days a week, and get up at 5am. (DP drops off DD to a CM at 7am) so that I can pay half the mortgage. Then weekend spend at supermarket and batch cooking healthy meals. Have no time for friends or social life. On your one day off go to toddler group and the library in the afternoon. DP wonders when/if he will get sex again. But your cupboards are tidy and your freezer full of healthy home cooked food and your skirtingboards are dust free....

LittlebearH what is your point?

I dont know...think it must have been the vodka..

Argh! Haven't followed my routine for 2 days (away Sat pm - Sun pm) and already I can feel the badness creeping back in and I HATE it! Shocking how much difference being organised can make and how quickly things can start to slip. Quick cup of tea, watch 'call the midwife' and then back on to it.

I know what you mean Fliss. Maybe just start all over again today? Change your mindset to get that excitement you had two days ago? I am trying to do the same!

Hilarious Littlebear!

I've managed to get back on track already - the difference it made to see dirty plates sitting on the side after two weeks of tidiness (we were serial use-every-plate-in-the-house-ers a few weeks ago) and have things lying all over the hallway (thank you DD) is strange. An hour and everything is done, including most of the Zone tasks for today DD has been parked in front of Nick Jr for that hour, but hey, it's only one morning.

I've even managed to ring Littlewoods to complain about yet another set of drawers being delivered with damage done to them - do they not KNOW I need these to organise the Futility Room!?! I cannot afford to be sending another set back just because the supplier is too cheap to use a bit of bubble wrap! I've got labels for them ready to be printed and laminated and everything

And now I have to wait for the insurance bods to turn up to rip up the lino in my NICE AND CLEAN AND ORGANISED bathroom (argh) to tell me how badly damaged the floorboards are from the loo that has been slowly, slowly leaking for god knows how many years thanks to the shonky plumbing that the previous owner appears to have done :(

LittlebearH - stop going to toddler group. That's what's driving you to the vodka

Well done Fliss. Yeah we are the same with the dishes. That is the main thing I am trying to change, getting dishes done STRAIGHT away. If dishes go wrong the rest of the place follows!

Loving a bit of order even if it is not perfect yet :)

I love this thread and get very excited when there are new posts. Sadly I can't add anything to it, as I'm very unorganised. Can anyone recommend a system for receipts? I bought some lightbulbs last week and they are the wrong fitting, now can't find the receipt and will end up throwing stupid bulbs out just like I do with tons of other things that I buy and need to be taken back.

Please help!

Also, if anyone has a copy of the entire thread I'd be really grateful to get a copy.
Thanks in advance

Flee I find organised mess helps with stuff like receipts / paperwork. I can't bring myself to be good enough to file them, so I have a wooden box into which all paperwork, receipts, payslips, bank statements, car stuff goes into. Every few months Ill go through it and throw stuff I no longer need or pack away, say, last years MOT cert etc that I dont need this year. If I need anything like this, I at least know it's in The Box....where is anyones guess, but my search area is drastically reduced

Would someone mind PMing me The Master List?

Cheers.

Flee - some places will exchange items without a receipt, so don't throw them away, contact the store you bought them from and see if they will do an exchange. I know ASDA do this as we're going to take back a part-used bottle of conditioner and they don't need a receipt.

We have an expanding file for all our paperwork and receipts for large purchases go in there (as well as electrical stuff like the toaster or kettle) - we had a problem with a TV when it was almost 2 years old and DH had filed the receipt, so we took it back (a TV should last more than 23 months!) and we exchanged it for one that was £200 cheaper - so we got a new TV and a £200 refund.

For smaller items (or anything you might need to take back within say 28 days, like lightbulbs) why not clip the receipt to the NEXT month's page of your calendar - then if you've not taken the stuff back within that month, bin the receipt?

Flee, I have always stored my receipts in a filing cabinet file named 'receipts'. As I have realised recently, they are just a jumble, so I have started keeping envelopes in there with each date on it - e.g., 'Jan 2012' - and put the receipts for that month in there. In Feb, I start another envelope.

Well, that is what I do in theory. In practice, I just throw them in randomly and once in a while start a new envelope!!

Clothes peg on the fridge door. Low tech but fine for receipts that I only need to keep for a few weeks. Actually, I am a big fan of clothes pegs sticky-fixered to the fridge door. When mail comes in it goes straight to my clip or OH's if it can't be dealt with right away and then I know it will get dealt with at some point that week because it is right in front of his nose every time he goes to get the milk. Whereas if I hand him mail to deal with it will disappear into The Man Zone never to be seen (or responded to) again.

I'm a big fan of clothes pegs too,but I use them for opened packs of things.Anything open in our house has a clothes peg on it,to "reseal" it - partly to stop flies etc getting in,partly to stop going stale (crisps etc),and partly to stop opened bags of rice depositing their contents all over the cupboard.

Receipts stay in my purse until sorted then chucked (always plenty of room in there as its never exactly bursting with tenners!).If its a "big" purchase its clipped to the instruction book then filed.

I have a new tip

Buy every child in your house one of those over the door sets of 3 metal hooks that just slot over the door (so you don't have to be organised enough to find a hammer and nails) Then they can hang up their bathtowel, their dressinggown, and their hoody, all at once...and find them. I have just bought one for dd from Homebase. Wonderful.

Also any recipe you cut out of a mag/newspaper, should go on the fridge, and if you haven't used it after two months, throw it away, rather than filing it...If you have used it, keep it/file it, but otherwise you NEVER WILL USE IT.

swanthing - I had a premonition that you were going to suggest hanging the children from hooks, so they couldn't mess up the house! Glad I was wrong