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?

Genius. Really. I am actually looking forward to doing this while the kids and I tidy up tomorrow evening already!

Something I've recently come across is a site called chart jungle (sorry can't link as I'm on my phone). It has lots of different charts which are downloadable and can save you time or give you ideas for organising yourself and others.

I've also been experimenting with scheduling the children on a time plan for an hour and a half after school. They have a lot of homework, music practise, optometry exercises etc to do so I've been scheduling them in for 15 minute slots so I'm working with one child at a time and the other is doing something they can do independently. They've really got into it and it's helping us get through the mountain of school stuff with minimum of stress.

We're moving on saturday. i am deptermined to unpack and be organised. I'm pretty nervous. I'm not normally the nervous type!? I think i am being stupid and winding myself up. The new place is not my dream place, but I can see that we can make it much nicer, I'm just feeling nervous about it.

I'm hoping to unpack calmly and really decide what goes where and then really looking around and buying some sensible bits of furniture.

I'm feeling super pleased with myself as I have spent the whole weekend sorting through my endless paperwork and have actually created a filing system and everything! I do believe that I will now be able to find stuff, it all has a labelled place to be and I feel so satisfied and positively soothed by doing it. The anxious feeling I had every time I thought about it has gone. This thread still rocks!!

Well done! Can I really encourage you to set a time each week to deal with your shredding and filing so that it never gets back to that monster pile? I've finally dealt with my huge pile (3 years after getting married, DH and I have finally sorted everything out.) and now it just takes 10 minutes max each week to keep it that way.

Melted Chocolate the benny Hill thing is great, I sing that to the kids when I want them to tidy up quickly, but I thought only I was that mad

Yes please!!

Hi! I have been slowly wading through this thread noting down tips. Only got about halfway so far, but I thought I'd note down a few things I do (to make me FEEL organised!), as well as some of the bits I'm still working on.

Things that work well for me:

• Chalkboard and chalk hanging up by the kitchen - as soon as anything gets low, it gets written on there to be added to the next shopping list
• Each week I write out a "big list" for the week, down one side it has each day of the week and I write in events and jobs (e.g. bin day). Down the other side, a "jobs for this week" list followed by a longer-term jobs list.
• I have a box of lightbulbs, and a box of batteries, tucked away in cupboards which I try to keep stocked with all the types we use in the house so there is usually the right one there when we need it. Also a medicine box with most things in, and a basic first-aid kit.
• A big Excel spreadsheet which is my master packing list for holidays and weekend trips. One section for general holiday stuff, one extra bit for each of the DCs, and then extra sections for different types of trips, e.g. work travel, watersports, camping, weddings and so on. I add and remove things when anything changes. If we are going somewhere, I sit down with a pad and paper and make a list for that trip, based on the master list but excluding things we don't need - I can then carry it round easily while I pack. I also always try to take the list away with me, as that makes it easier to check we haven't forgotten anything when coming home!
• If we go to the library I immediately put a reminder in my phone for a few days before the books are due, I also pin the paper receipt on our noticeboard so I don't forget what books we got. I've also set up my account so I can renew them online if I can't get there in time.
• Phone reminders for other things too, like taking medicine
• Big calendar, plus nagging DH to actually write things on it!
• Inside our dining room cupboard doors (as these are handy) I have taped up lists of things we regularly need to know - a list of useful contacts and addresses, a list of things DCs need to take to MIL's, and a list of things to take on trips out (including picnic stuff). It's especially useful if DH is doing the packing, as he knows now not to keep asking me what we need as he'll just get told "look at the list"!
• Trying to sort out suitable places/storage for everything. Pretty baskets or boxes are brilliant, we have one in the loo for nappy stuff, one for bath toys and two huge ones for general toys - that way the kids can have all their clutter, but once it's thrown in the basket it all looks tidy! Those fabric tidy things you can hang on the backs of doors are also great.

Things that don't work very well for me yet:

• Washing and ironing (always seem to have piles of stuff everywhere waiting to be washed/dried/ironed/put away...)
• Keeping the place tidy - think we need to get the DCs trained up a bit, but they are still quite young, and we don't have much spare time at the end of the day, which would be the obvious time to do it otherwise. And DH is also very messy by nature, though he's better than he used to be...
• Paperwork - I'm always behind, and a lot of it always ends up strewn over the dining table - though that is partly due to DH, but not all!
• Food shopping - I don't really want to meal plan as our weeks are very variable and I want to stay a bit flexible, but would still like to get a bit more organised to avoid regular dashes to the shops when we've run out.

There are lots more, but these are probably the worst things at the moment...

How's it going?

I'd appreciate some advice about storing and organising toys. They are all over the house at the minute and different pieces for things aren't together and I have a few unwieldy boxes in awful places. I was thinking about investing in a TROFAST from Ikea but any advice???

We have some trofast and find it good for storage of stuff like Lego, trains etc. I find the little drawers a pain as they sometimes slip off the runners. I have made some book ends and screwed them to the top so we can use the top as a book shelf- a good height for small children. I also have my dd's dolls house up on top which means it gets played with as it is at nose height!

It's all gone wrong. I have lost any motivation I did have. I am sure it is down to awful sleep but I have got into a bad rut. :( boo. The house looks like a bomb site and even DS is commenting :(

Awful sleep, definitely - very hard to care about the effect not doing THIS job NOW will have in a few days when all you are actually thinking, in minutes, is how soon you can next put your head down. Try picking three very very small jobs and doing them - just little 5-10 minute ones. Write them down first and tick them off as you do them. The little lift from having planned and achieved something helps to make your day feel less chaotic than a day preceded by a bad night usually does and makes you feel that you are doing something at least. If DS is commenting point out that it's his house too, you are putting in a dayshift and a nightshift at the moment and then tell him which job it would be really helpful for him to do for you. I find this usually results in the commenting stopping at once but, alas, doesn't always lead to any actual assistance :-/

PS Aldi reusable giant shopping bags cost 80p and work a treat when my house gets like a bombsite - one for each room (who am I kidding - sometimes it takes 3!) and dump everything in it that is contributing to the chaos. Then shove them all somewhere till you are ready to face them one by one - life will settle down at some point and you will get on it then but at least you don't have to live with the chaos in the meantime. If you urgently need to find something that was living on the bathroom floor you will at least know you only have to rummage through one bag to find it.

Thanks ancient! I did tackle a bit and house looks better and more importantly I feel better and more charged. DS is only 3 so wont be too harsh on him and he did help to make lounge more 'special' :)

I have Ikea bags and use them for that very purpose, but I never seem to get to them and eventually after a year of them being in the spare room just throw them out

Gah! this is why you should never MN while on the wine - I read that as DH! I think being 3 is a reasonable excuse for not doing all the housework for you. Maybe when he is four...

Petrean could you cover your diary so you aren't shy about getting it out at work/in public? Just a thought :)

I've only managed to read partway through this (inspiring) thread so far, but thought there might be someone else on here who'd be interested in a good Christmas organiser? (easy enough to make, but have never got round to it, and am determined to never have to buy another tree stand/bulb tester etc)
'Dodo Book of Christmas' with pockets and lists etc. Lakeland now reduced to £2.50 (was £6.99 if that matters to anyone)

PS. the Dodo bit is about ?saving the spirit of Christmas from extinction? as a result of disorganised chaos. :)

I love the idea of books and lists for everything! A friend of mine bought a well being journal from Paperchase yesterday which had sections for recording goals and all sorts of things. I womanfully resisted :-(

How have I only just discovered this thread?!
I've been slowly reading through and taking notes and have just come across mention of a 'master list'.
Is it possible anyone could send it on to me, pretty please...

What a fab thread!

I LOVE this thread! I'm always 'half motivated' and will organise a couple of things in the house then get fed up! Read this last night and couldn't sleep for thinking about all the bits I'd like to get sorted before I return to work after mat leave in September. So far this morning I have:

• Sorted both mine and DPs 'clutter drawers' (2 carrier bags of rubbish from 2 drawers???)
• Ordered some self seal bags to separate, store and label the million chargers we have between us
• Sorted 2 of the shelves in my wardrobe into 3 piles (Ebay, charity shop, bin) (Never Ebayed anything so will see how that goes - more may end up at the charity shop if its a hassle!)

I'm off into town in a bit to get

• Some storage boxes (prob those plastic shoe storage ones) to put into my drawers to separate bras / socks etc as these drive me mad - can't get to an Ikea or I'd have gotten some of theirs
• An academic diary (I'm a teacher so hopefully easier to use) for when I go back

I WILL be organised!!

Really small tip, culled from this weekend's Guardian:

If you have lots of tights in a drawer, tie them neatly (chimney sweep scarf style) to solid coat hangers - the type with a bar across the bottom. And hang them in your wardrobe!

Looks great, imo.

I had a note pad/scribbler for my lists... for everyone. I would have it sitting in plain view so everyone could view their list...including mine. I found I end up putting it somewhere, refinding it, and seeing that 80% of everything STILL isn't done! Yet, I would get excited of the few things that did!

I love the idea of using a reusable chore list...as I tire of redoing the kids list...lol...

Its not like the kids don't want to do chores... I just seldom have a new list for them to do!!