organised people...help!

[threeelephants]

Right, I need you lovely people to help me sort my life out!
DH and I both work full time- I do very long hours during term time.
We are both naturally messy, and we don't have a lot of time to clean, as you can imagine.
We have 3 children, primary school age.
I need your tips on being more organised!
We are drowning in all the junk!
Our house is quite small, so gets messy quickly if we don't keep on top of it.
It's a bit of a vicious circle...we're basically shattered. So we put off tidying up. Then everything takes longer. Then we're shattered again cos we're tidying/cleaning etc after a long day's work.
I'm rambling.
So as not to drip feed....DH pulls his weight, and the children will help when asked. And we can't afford any help.
Now please, bombard me with your tips!

[MummySparkle]

Shameless placemark. I need major cleaning help!

[Yika]

I do flylady at the weekends, (so 2 days of 15 minute decluttering) but with some routines and some actions in between like 5 min room rescues or an occasional 2 minute hotspot clean up, or an extra 15 minute session if I'm working from home. The important thing for me is any kind of sustainable system, not to follow it to the letter. I do follow her zones, more or less, so that I keep going round all areas of the house.

I do a whole week plan on a Sunday including: lunch box plan, dinner plan, activities plan, other notes to self. Always batch cook and use frozen food liberally.

[IdealWeather]

Re meals etc the best for me is meal planning. You know you always have what you need for cooking, no need to think about it in the evening with the dcs grumbling because they are hungry.
And then cook for 2 meals, eat one freeze the other for a night when there is less time (eg after school activities). Leftovers are frozen again and used for lunches (mine and DH).

[IdealWeather]

I've never managed to do the FlyLady stuff whilst working full time. It was good when on ML but not after that.

[IdealWeather]

Yep de littering is the way to go. You can do it the Kondo way or just by going through what you gave and be ruthless about what you keep.
In my house, if it hasn't been used for a year and/or isn't deeply loved, it goes in the bin.
And then ONE place for everything.

That means the dcs are asked to tidy up all their stuff at the end of the day incl living room.
We do the general day to day stuff.
Bigger cleaning such as beds and vacuum at weekends.
Washing and drying as we go along during the week (as little as possible at weekend)
Works quite well.

[Yika]

I like the 15 min a day type programmes. I love Flylady who discovered on here. She's also very good on general organising tips and creating routines, and takes you through it very gently and gradually.

[Chrysanthemum5]

We had to move out to have a loft conversion and decluttered ruthlessly. It's made the house much easier to keep tidy and takes less time as everything has a place.

For craft stuff, gift wrap etc. I bought two of these units.
www.argos.co.uk/m/static/Product/partNumber/8753483/searchTerm/Storage+unit+plastic.htm

They are great and keep little things like pencils together. The wheels connections are rubbish so DH took them off and put the wheels on a sheet of plywood which he fitted to the bottom of the units. So now they are easy to wheel in and out of the cupboard where they live.

[TiredOfSleep]

I use ikea large ziplock bags for little things like peg puzzles and craft stuff. You can sort it and bung it in a drawer or box and it takes less space than a box you'd have to buy.

[Anyoldname1]

The box by the door for shoes only is a brilliant idea!

Does anyone know any good tips on storing things in built in cupboards/wardrobes?

I don't want to spend a fortune on plastic boxes

[midnightmoomoo]

Have a basket or box right by the front door for school shoes ONLY! Makes a massive difference to actually getting them out of the door because they know where their shoes are!

[washingrail]

we have just decluttered after an extension (yes, wrong way around).

we didnt bother before starting and we shifted stuff from over crowded rooms into the living room, box room and conservatory. it was awful and we looked like we lived in a second hand shop sorting room with jumble and piles of paper.

its taken us about 2 months using the weekends to sort and take to our local council recycling site and dump.

we've got a small house and its taken us years to realise that we just cant't house as much furniture in our house as we'd like to. so we've taken things like coffee tables, lamp tables, bookcases, tonnes of books, old lamps that are dated etc to furniture recycling.

my house isnt like a show home but it has about 40% less clutter than before.

it also feels like cleaning is getting easier with less stuff and i feel more motivated now there is not as much stuff on the floors and shelve units.

we still do have a whole host of crap taking up space like a bulky high chair, airing rails to dry indoors when needed, tiny bits of barbie and lego, school bags/letters/paperwork... but its better than before.

im going to do that oraganizing made easy thing where in addition to picking up after the kids/dishwasher/putting away laundry, im going to do 15 mins daily of extra cleaning.

[AgathaMystery]

Half term is coming up I think? Hire a small skip & be ruthless. I mean really really ruthless. If any of the clutter is amazing a charity shop will utterly adore it, by all means donate, but otherwise bin the lot.

I also agree re:charity shop bin bag. We have one on the go all the time now (since oct) & it is filled every week or so.

My husband is appalled and is massively, hugely unsupportive of this mega decluterng long Bender I am on. It sort of Spurs me in TBH.

[threeelephants]

Very true, slatternistrying. I love your name.

[SlatternIsTrying]

Don't try to 'cure' every problem at once. I do this and it's all so overwhelming and I get disheartened and slip back into old habits.

[AugustinaDuBois]

When it comes to eating properly, meal planning, batch cooking and freezing and the MN favourite, slow cookers are your best friend.

[Spandexpants007]

Cooking/health just boils down to planning.

Owning less will help with washing/laundry/cleaning.

Also everything needs a home.

[threeelephants]

We don't have overnight visitors, but we do have a lot of people popping in. I'm forever apologising for the mess.

[threeelephants]

It looks like it, doesn't it, brokenbiscuit?

It's not just the clutter that we struggle with, tbh. It's the whole package. Cooking healthy meals, cleaning, keeping on top of the washing.

We used to be rubbish at organising the children for school, so dinner money would be late, kit would be forgotten etc. We got on top of that with a wall chart showing what each child needs on each day. Each child also has a plastic box for their school bags, and pe kits/swim stuff/instruments go in the night before.
So we have made progress.

[Spandexpants007]

Visitors that stay over

[Spandexpants007]

The more you get rid of the easier life is. Used to take me a couple of days to clear up and prepare for visitors but now an hour or two would be fine.

[Brokenbiscuit]

Shamelessly place marking, as I'm in a similar position, OP.

I think getting rid of stuff is key!

[mrsmeerkat]

yes to Kallax. I have quite a lot of it now. It's not intrusive and is really great for storage

[mrsmeerkat]

I followed an old minimism thread on maternity leave a couple of years ago. I didn't follow any rules and also lived in a very small home at the time.

Getting rid of stuff is the key. Keep a large one bag or bin liner in the house and try and fill it for the charity shop. Every day try to put a few things in it. I got rid of seven black bags and honestly it's been the best thing ever. I moved house since and it was tonnes easier.

Try to go paperless with Bill's etc. I have memories box and only keep a few special things and made one for each of the dc.

I need to get back to the job per day thing- I used to do that and it was great.

[Coconut0il]

Don't know about the kondo method but I would say get rid of as much as you can, the less stuff you have the easier it is to keep on top of. Also I try and have a place for everything and keep surfaces clear so a clean is quicker! Before he goes to bed DS1, 12 has to take anything that's his back to his room and DS2's toys are tidied away. For storage kallax from ikea with the cheap Drona boxes holds loads.

[poocatcherchampion]

I'm going to say kondo as well. The less stuff you have the less mess there cna be.

Our children get out all of our toys and the place looks like a bomb went off and meals need clearing up etc. Takes 15 mins and toys away dishwasher loaded.

I love it!

And we are at home all day too