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Oh my goodness do I have some fantastic organizing links to share with you today! I spend a lot of time scouring the internet and always find it so difficult to narrow down my list. But I did and the first 24 links are my favorite organizing links from the past month. I do hope you find a treasure or two amongst them that help you on your own organizational journey. I would love to hear which one is your favorite!
Once again I’m going to leave the link list open for you to add your own favorite organizing link as well from the last month. Please feel free to add awesome posts related to the following subjects:
Happy Monday everyone and happy Family Day to those of you reading and relaxing on today’s stat holiday in Canada. Not all provinces participate in Family Day and as a new Albertan this is definitely a great perk of living in this province for sure! I love just chilling with the family. Also I just found out today is President’s Day in the US. Is that a stat holiday for you?
I was reading one of my favorite parenting magazines the other day, Canadian Family, and wanted to share with you an excerpt from Leslie Beck, a well-known Canadian registered dietician, nutrition expert and author of Leslie Beck’s Healthy Kitchen: 250 Quick and Delicious Recipes Plus Essential Kitchen Tips. In the magazine article, Leslie talked about the many benefits of menu planning including how it allows you to be organized, prevents last minute dashes to the store, allows you to account for the nights you need to put a quick meal on the table, and designating what you’re going to eat prevents you from making on-the-fly poor choices for your family, such as convenience foods. “Knowing what you’re going to eat takes the stress out of having to figure it out at the end of a hectic day.” She also assures us that what seems like such an overwhelming chore really isn’t. The more often you plan your family’s meals, the easier it gets. “The reality is, the busier you are, the more important meal planning becomes.”
Leslie Beck’s Top Three Menu Planning Tips for Families:
1. Get Input: “Engage your family in the process. When everyone has a say about which meals they’d like to eat, they’re more likely to be open to eating other people’s selections. Post your weekly meal plan in a visible spot (e.g., fridge door) to prevent complaints by reminding everyone what’s been agreed upon for dinner.”
2. Plan For Leftovers: “As you plan your meals, think about how you can cook once and get two or more meals out of it. For instance, you might plan to make a large roast chicken one night and save the leftovers for wraps the next night when you need dinner in a hurry. Batch-cook soups, casseroles, pasta sauce or chili on the weekend and freeze to serve on a busy weeknight.”
3. Make a Grocery List: “Once you have your meals planned out, write out a list. It means you’ll buy only what you need. Grocery shopping once a week also saves time and money.”
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We celebrated a fabulous Valentine’s Day with the kids. We had a delicious No Bake Cheesecake for dessert and while this wasn’t necessarily my favorite no bake cheesecake recipe (it didn’t set as much as I like) it was still yummy.
And of course jello jigglers are always a hit but I always forget how much I dislike getting them out of the pan. What is the trick to that anyway?
This below was my valentine’s gift from my son…he made me a big bowl of popcorn with ketchup spices for flavoring. Yum, I love popcorn!!
I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am that I’m able to run another promotion in my shop on one of my all time favorite tools for empowering kids with organization. This magnetic wipe-off visual calendar was used by my son for years and years starting from about 2 years of age (he is six and a half now and reads so it doesn’t get used as often anymore). He loved being able to set up the days with the applicable magnets (there are 58 fun and colorful magnets included) and he would check it over and over again throughout the day. It also meant I didn’t have to keep answering the exact same questions about what was going to happen next over and over again, so worth it for that reason alone! I can’t recommend this product more highly and trust me it’s never too early to start teaching such a valuable life long skill!
Hi friends, here we are at Friday again. That went quick didn’t it? :) So how are you making out with the challenge? Are you beginning to see the light? What has been the most eye opening for you thus far?
I received some questions on Facebook that I wanted to take a moment to answer here.
1. Quite a few of you have asked me about numbers. How much should you keep of this or that, what is the right number? I can’t answer that for you though. It’s so very personal and will differ for each person. There is no right and wrong here. You will need to figure this out for yourself because it all comes down to what you have the room to store and what’s a priority for you in that space. For instance if you have a love of scrapbooking and want to keep your supplies, you have to have the room to store them (and no piles on the floor don’t count!). If you don’t have the room to store them, then you purge until it fits. If you don’t want to purge them, then you have to be willing to sacrifice something else. For instance, perhaps you could pare down your pantry stock in order to make room for your scrapbooking supplies in there. Does that make sense?
Another trick that I love is limiting what you keep with the use of a “limiting” container. This is your visual to know when enough is enough. You decide the size of the container and limit supplies to what will fit inside. It will help you make future purchasing decisions too because you will know in order to buy something new you’ll have to get rid of something in the container to make room.
2. Rachel asked about the best way to organize scrapbook stickers, should they be put in one huge box/binder/system or should they be sorted them by event (eg, birthdays, christmas, baby). Again there is no right or wrong answer. What I say to this is store them by how you look for them. Pay attention next time you scrapbook to your habits and how you search for things. Store them to what makes sense for you and you will waste so much less time hunting for what you need. Do what works for the way you operate.
3. Mandi asked how to decide what art to keep from kids? What to keep & when to toss? Again a “limiting” container is my answer for this one and let your kid’s choose their favorites! I wrote about how I use memory binders and keepsake totes for my kid’s stuff and it really does put a limit on what can be kept. Another reader responded with a terrific idea. Scan the artwork and create photobooks with the pictures. Fantastic!
4. Cheryl asked for suggestions for shredding because she has a lot of paper to dispose of. I didn’t know this (I’m in Canada) but a reader told us that places like FedEx and OfficeMax have shredding services. Definitely might be something to look into and worth the cost especially if your piles are taking up valuable real estate!
5. Tammy had a question about clothes and what to do with them all especially all the ones she no longer fits into that she paid good money for. I wrote a post about this that might help –>Clothes Purging – How to Let Go.
6. Joan is wondering about how to get her motivation spark back? Joan perhaps you could ask a friend to help you. What you might need is a set of new eyes to give you a fresh perspective. Sometimes new ideas with regards to space planning and solutions are right there in front of us but we get so accustomed to our spaces we don’t even see them. That might be all it takes to light your organizing fires again :) Don’t give up!!
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Finally the last thing I wanted to tell you about is a great new site that helps you find different charity organizations to donate your stuff to. Check it out at The Stuff Shop. Very resourceful!
Please feel free to link up below any progress you’ve made during the challenge so far. Big or little it’s all good! Don’t forget to celebrate your accomplishments!!
**Don’t forget to check out all the amazing sponsors, they are AWESOME!!**
Remember to link up to your specific blog post and not to the main page of your blog. Also by entering your link, you are giving me permission to use any part of your post including pictures in a spotlight on I’m an Organizing Junkie (proper credit and links will be given to you, of course!)
PS: It’s not too late to join in the fun, this challenge goes on all month. All details can be found here and prizes will be awarded based on who links up to the final link up at the end of the month.
I’ve partnered up with technology lifestyle expert Carley Knobloch, from Digitwirl, to bring you some fun yet informative videos on various products and services related to technology that will help you get organized and simplify your busy life.
Today’s Digitwirl:
I so love that I have Carley here to be my technology voice because I am soooo not qualified. I’m not tech savvy but thankfully I have a 14 year old daughter that can usually figure things out for me. When it comes to calendars though I’ve yet to see the benefit of going digital. The only reason I say that is because I see how much the big calendar on my fridge benefits my kids (14, 12 and 6). They look at it every day and can see exactly what is happening when. They even remind me of things so I don’t forget. I love not having the entire responsibility of time resting all on my shoulders. That would be a lot of additional stress. Instead we all share the load. Even my 6 year old is less anxious now that he can read the calendar himself (before that I had a visual calendar to help him). Kids like knowing what the day entails and what is expected of them.
So as you can see I’m conflicted about how going digital with my calendar will replace this type of organization when it comes to keeping my family’s sanity. I suppose if each of my children had smart phones (they don’t!) then it would make sense to sync up with each other.
Carley shares a great video below about all the benefits of using Google Calendar. After watching it, I would love to know what you think.
Notes from Carley:
Is my husband going to be home for dinner? Does that business meeting conflict with basketball practice? Game night, girl’s night, date night… keeping everyone’s schedules straight in my work and family life is a herculean effort. To manage everyone’s coming and going, I need something more than just a place to jot things down (sorry, paper calendar). What I need is a system that truly supports me and helps me get through my day, one commitment at a time.
That’s why I can’t live without Google Calendar. Let me count the ways I love it: I can use it anywhere (so every device I have gets me where I’m going), it’s easy to share schedules, so I can coordinate efforts with co-workers and significant others, aaaand it’s free.
Watch this week’s Twirl to learn to see why gCal and I have a standing appointment.
Digitwirl is the weekly web show that offers simple solutions to modern day problems. In 3 minutes, Digitwirl brings busy women the very best time, money, and sanity-saving technology, and then teaches them how to use it, step-by-step. Digitwirl was created by technology lifestyle expert Carley Knobloch, who uses lots of technology to manage her busy life as mom of two and entrepreneur. Become a subscriber to get weekly show alerts and exclusive deals at Digitwirl.com, or follow Digitwirl on Twitter at @digitwirl.
