Help me get organised for the new year

[HoneyandHaycorns]

OK, so I am naturally quite chaotic. Grew up in a chaotic household and never really learnt how to stay on top of things. But I have been really organised about this Christmas, and am loving how it makes me feel - so much less stressful!

So I really want to get other aspects of my life sorted out as well, working on the logic that if I can do it at Christmas, I can do it all year round. But I need some tips to help me, so please would you all share your strategies for keeping track of things, getting stuff done and generally feeling that you are on top of things.

Background info: I work FT, stressful job. DH also works and does a fair bit of cleaning, but suffers from depression and cannot be relied on to do stuff very regularly. One dd, aged six - generally obedient but very messy because she takes after her mother and has too much stuff.

House is not bad, but smaller than we would like. We have lots of stuff that has no home, which probably contributes to the mess.

I am in charge of all cooking, go through phases of meal planning and batch cooking which really help, but not very consistent about it. Also have a slow cooker that we barely use.

Have a big family calendar on the wall which works well, and generally stay on top of school letters etc by responding as soon as we get them. So pockets of things do work well, but we always seem to have endless piles of stuff everywhere without a proper home. And the laundry!! where does it all come from, and how do other people stay on top of it?

Please let me have your tips, big or small, for a more organised, orderly life!

I wash at least every other day (me and ds 17 dd 10). Iron as little as possible! My aim is to be really organised this year. I try and write everything down. I've bought an organised mum family life book this year. Over the next few days I'm going to start making notes for next christmas. The life book has a Christmas section !!

I would suggest you come and join us on the Flylady threads. It's all about little and often, building routines and chatting to others who are similar support for the whole thing. Xx

Thanks both. Will look at the organised mum thing - have had their calendar previously and liked it.

Have also wondered about the flylady threads, but they always seem so big! A little overwhelming for the time-challenged. Is there a particular date in the month when they start? Might be easier if I followed from the beginning!

This is my laundry system (when it works). I am in charge of laundry in our house whereas DP is in charge of washing up. We don't have a tumble drier, and I don't iron unless I particularly feel an urge.

3 baskets in our room - 1 light, 1 dark, 1 "special" (delicates, hand wash only, towels) Pile next to the bed of clean but worn clothes (in practice I have to weed out the dirty stuff from here before it takes over the room)

1 small basket in DS's room - mixed - his clothes go straight in here when changing for bed if dirty or back in drawers. (Or in practice, in a pile of "clean-but-worn" next to the basket)

1 large laundry bin in kitchen - this takes leftovers which didn't fit in the washing machine, stuff of the wrong category which didn't fit in, dirty clothes discarded downstairs. (Bathroom is downstairs too)

2-3 "floating" baskets (for transporting)

Pile in the living room by the sofa of mixed clothes - dirty/clean but worn/brand new, not taken upstairs yet, blankets etc. I don't keep on top of this as much as I should. But it's somewhere to put them which isn't in the middle of the floor, and when I do a big clean the clothes get sorted into the kitchen laundry bin, and clean washing basket.

So. I want to wash some clothes. If everything is working perfectly, I merely select the one of the three baskets which is most full, replace it with one of the empty "floating" baskets and take it downstairs to empty into the washing machine. The big laundry bin gets emptied into the basket. The previous load is probably dry now, so empty this into another floating basket to be taken upstairs with the other basket. Then put away and sort the dirty clothes.

But normally I can't do this because there is a forgotten load still in the washing machine. Which I can't hang up, because the airer is full with the load before that. And the one floating basket is in use, because it's full of the folded (but not ironed) clothes from the load before that, slowly being eroded as people wear them.

This is why you need two or three floating baskets and an airer which can hold at least two loads (I recommend this one or the ikea one. Expensive. Worth it!)

So actually laundry time goes like this.

1. Locate floating basket#1 (full of clean clothes). Arrange clothes into piles on bed. Put away mine & DP's.
2. While in DS's room, empty his laundry basket into the big floating one.

I'm coming back to this later.

That sounds rather complicated BB.
Most people wash their clothes too often which stretches and fades them. If you shower every day, you really don't need to.

I have one basket in the bathroom which everyone knows is where dirty clothes go.
I go to it about twice a week and take out enough to do a load, according to white/dark/medium.

It goes dwon to the utility room,gets washed, hung out to dry and is then ironed and put away asap.

That's it.

We start a new thread on each 1st of the month and don't worry we are all tome challenged hence the need for flying! Many of us have multiple children, full time jobs and/or other commitments and it always you just hop in where you are! Very easy whatever the stage/state of you house is. Good luck !!

Find your rhythm and start good habits

I'm not a morning person, so me getting up army to do things just ain't gunna happen, so I tend to do a fair bit at night after DC's are in bed

Here's my general system

Write a weekly menu and use that as a basis for the shopping list
Try to have an heir and a spare - so one jar of coffee being used, one as a heir and one as a spare. This means that sometimes you can skip a weeks shopping
Cook only 4 nights per week, have two nights of of left overs or doubled up reahated meals.
Cook enough leftovers for lunch the next day
Get tomorrow nights meat out of the freezer tonight
Get all clothes out tonight for tomorrow
Make lunches the night before
Have bags packed tonight for tomorrow
Have the breakfast table mostly set the night befor
Have a roster for the DC's chores in the morning and the afternoon
Train your DC's to be self sufficient
Put on a load of washing each night
Hang shirts on coat hangers to reduce ironing and to make it quicker to put clothes away
Set the table for dinner stain after breakfast
Pay bills and run errands at lunchtime
Pay as many bills by direct debit weekly or fortnightly or per pay period

It's not complicated at all. (I'm guessing you've skim read.) It's just writing down what many people do naturally. Before I had a system with different baskets etc clothes would gradually accumulate all over the house and things would languish in corners for months, eventually I'd get fed up and haul everything together into one room and then be at the size of the pile.

It's all very well saying that "everyone knows" dirty clothes go in a particular place but if you're not doing that in practice then you need a system which copes with that. I've found that easily accessible receptacles for everything which strays (in our case, laundry, toys, rubbish) means that it feels so much easier to just do a quick tidy up and therefore it gets done more often.

Stuff only ever gets washed here if it smells or looks dirty, so it's not that in my case.

BertieBotts -- sounds really complicated to me as well. We all put dirty clothes in the hamper. I take downstairs, wash, sort, back in wardrobe and dressers. No need for floating baskets.

HoneyandHaycorns -- it sounds like you are doing well.

Flylady is good for doing small tasks quickly. I like using a timer -- you really can get quite a bit done in 5 or 15 minutes.

Menu planning is great.

No you guessed wrong.I read it carefully because it sounded complicated, not in spite of it.
I can't see how difficult it is to teach peopel that dirty clothes go in one place.

It obviously works for you though, so that's great.
I was telling my dh about this thread (as we hung out the washing) and we are both mystified as to how it seems not to be manageable for so many people.

Okay, that's great for you. I'm glad it works so easily in your household. But OP stated that she is quite a chaotic person and mentioned a particular problem with laundry, so I shared my method. Floating basket just means spare - do you really lug a laundry hamper up and down the stairs?

I'm going to quietly disappear now because I really don't want to turn this into a bunfight, just to say that I always find it really crap when people come on to housework help threads and say "Well, I find it easy. I don't see why others find it hard." and then offer some really basic tip, which the OP probably has already thought of but is finding hard to stick to for whatever reason.

Don't get uppitty!
It's a discussion!
I am really interested in how other people run their homes.
One is in effect running a small business and people's operational styles are interesting.

I do take a laundry basket up and down the stairs, yes. I don;t see that as particulalry onerous. I sometimes have extra trugs around if there's a lot.

I don't think you need to be a particularly organised person to keep on top of washing, you just need a bit of space. Having just moved from a big house to one which is too small for us and our stuff, I feel like it is out of control because I can't go around without seeing laundry in its various stages, even though we are just as in control as we used to be.

If we are having guests upon whom I wouldn't want to inflict this, then I stop washing a couple of days before so it can all be either dry and put away or in the dirty washing basket. But this means it backs up. And if you lack drying space, you can't catch up again by doing 3 or 4 loads on one day.

I still agree you only need one basket for dirty clothes.

I too have a house that was tidied up for Christmas. (We are away at present but will be back for New Year!)

We only have one laundry basket in our house - in our bedroom. When clothes come off they either go in the basket, or if can be used again on the chair in the room.

DH works away during the week so on a Friday on his return I sort out the washing into 2 piles - whites/lights and darks. Included in these clothes is DD's school uniform.

One load goes in on Friday evening, hung on the airer and left up until the other load has finished washing on Saturday evening. (I dry them in the evening as the heating is already on! The airer is in our spare bedroom).

Sunday is used for ironing ready for work/school on Monday.

When the clothes are dry they come off the airer into 2 baskets - stuff that need ironing and stuff that doesn't. It has been known for the ironing basket to be filled to overflowing and the next days clothes ironed before bed!

I know exactly where you're coming from Honey. Workingclassmum I think I need to print out your post and tick off the things-to-do each-night bit each nihgt before bed! I thought your post was utterly brilliant Bertie! I am an incredably chaotic, disorganised person who lives in a small house with two young children. I find keeping on top of the housework mind-bogglingly difficult. I find the whole thing very overwhelming and a huge source of stress!

I know lots of people struggle to understand this. I have a very lovely friend who is totally organised, completerly unphased by housework and doesn't really get it at all. She does however try really hard to understand.

I have a downstairs bathroom, (no upstairs bathroom or toilet at all as I live in an old cottage). We usually get undressed downstairs when having a bath or shower and I wouldn't run upstairs to put clothes in washing laundry bin so I have a bin in the bathroom too. I love the idea of having a basket with seperate compartments because I hate sorting clothes into colours and find it time consuming so I think I'd be more enclined to put a wash on late at night for example when I'm knackered if it were already sorted.

I had a bit of a pants Christmas day actually. Mainly because the run up was stressful due to big money difficulties and a chaotic, messy house which I was desperately trying to get on top of before the in-laws arrived! DH has been ill so I felt like I had it all to deal with alone. I am determined not to be in the same situation next year. I'm going to sort out our finances this year and think I'll join the flying thread in a few days. Might see you there Honey!