If you are new to 52 Weeks of Organizing, catch up here!
I’ve heard from many people that they really enjoy using the 52 Week Organizing Checklist each week to keep them on track. I’m so glad and I’m thrilled it’s making life a little bit easier for you.
If you like that idea though you might also be interested in a new organizing planner that just hit bookstores this month. It’s called Totally Together: Shortcuts to an Organized Lifeby Stephanie O’Dea. As many of you know, Stephanie is the best selling author of the More Make It Fast, Cook It Slow cookbooks. Totally Together is Stephanie’s third book and it was written to help you get your house in complete order in just minutes a day.
While this book has many awesome organizing tips and tricks scattered throughout what I think you’ll find most helpful are the weekly journal/planning pages for each week of the year. Here’s what each two page weekly layout looks like to give you a better idea.
On the left you’ve got her 7 Daily T0-Dos checklist plus a weekly chores checklist. On the right side you’ve got calendar squares to assist you further with tracking your organizing goals. Here’s a closer look.
Now you know I’m a list girl, I’ve written about it before here. If you want to eliminate feelings of overwhelm and scattered head, then it needs to get out of your head and down on paper. Brain dump! That’s why I thought this book was so smart. It doesn’t do the work for you but it will keep you in check with what needs to be done and when.
Anyway I thought this was a great resource and wanted to share it with you in case you were needing a little extra motivation in your 52 weeks journey. As I find more resources I’ll share those with you as well.
Questions this week:
1. How have you been keeping up with your 52 weeks list over the summer?
2. What are your biggest struggles with organizing right now?
3. What have been your successes?
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Please feel free to share your organizing journey and encourage one another in the comments. You are also invited to link up to the linky below with any posts related to your 52 weeks of organizing participation or to any post of an organizing nature that you feel will inspire and encourage others in their quest to get organized. Please remember to link back to here though so we can reach out to as many people as possible in need of some inspiration.
One other thing to consider: by including your link below you, you are giving me permission to use parts of your post including pictures as a spotlight in future 52 Weeks of Organizing posts. Proper credit and links will of course be provided. If you are not okay with this please do not link up. Thanks!
Lyssa says
Thank you so so much for recommending and sharing “Totally Together: Shortcuts to an Organized Life” After seeing what it has inside, I just went and bought it. I need serious help with organizing my life and time. 3 small kids at home have done me over and i’m trying to get some sort of holding! My oldest will start school in a couple of weeks. I desperately want to get things in order while she’s at school and just try to get on top of this!
Thank you for all your wonderful advice. I love this site!!!
Liz @ Wonder Woman I'm Not says
I’ve been doing pretty good on my 52 weeks of organizing. My biggest challenge has been physical ailments. Surgery and a bad back have kept me from progressing as rapidly on my big project as I would like. Oh well, the tortoise finished the race. You have fantastic tips, thanks for hosting.
Teresa McNamara says
I’m Teresa and I have fallen off the organising wagon big time this year but I sprained two ankles and fractured a tibia all at once (falling down three steps in March) and survived so maybe that will be my biggest achievement for the year.
I’ve joined back in this week with our shoe docking station. It doesn’t look like much but I’m really proud of the problem solving process that the boys went through to work out this idea and they seem to have real ownership of it so I am optimistic about its success.
Martianne says
The late spring set me back from the 52 weeks while we dealt with some difficult situations with our chidlren, but then I got back to it, even if I stopped writing about it at my blog.
My biggest struggle is simply finding/making the time around the rest of life – especially since I am rarely awake without one of my three chidlren, five and under, awake with me and have very little help as far as wacthing them. I also sometimes strggle with the “fight” of doing somehting moreeasier and mroe appealing (say brwosing online, writing or reading) than the “hard’ chore of purging and decluttering so I can organize.
Successes have been small, but see-able — thank goodness! I have small areas, and a few large ones, I can look at with more peace and also have gotten my husband on board to help me find some more productivity time.
Debra Dane says
Thanks for sharing the update – I knew she was working on that forever but I lost track of her blog.
I also took today as an opportunity to link up for the first time – i am VERY new to blogging and it just has my name above – can it be changed from “Deb Dane” to say that is my “5 easy steps to declutter anything” I better figure out this linking stuff before I add my 1st meal plan on Monday (sorry)
Mama Zen says
That planner looks awesome!
Jenn says
That looks like a fabulous planner! I’ll definitely have to check it out. I pretty much have those 7 daily To Do’s on my list as well. Have a great weekend!
Jenn 🙂
ter@waaoms says
I haven’t been doing very well with my organizing. I keep getting sidetracked or running into problems…
I should make a post about this but haven’t yet. There are two closets in our master bedroom. I bought a closet organizer a couple years ago.I went to install it in the one closet (as it was meant to hang from the current rod) but found that it did not fit and so I put it aside. Recently, my friend pointed out that it doesn’t really “hang” from the rod, because there is tension bars all the way to the floor. Well, duh! I can’t believe I didn’t even think of that. I was only thinking that it would all fall with the weight of clothes because it was not closed at the top. Anyway! So I finally got that up and while my clothes are not too squished together so it looks better, I was still disappointed because the plan was to merge both of our closet contents together so that we could use the other as a bit of a “cloffice”, especially since the computer needs to come out of our guest room. Now, I have no clue what to do to continue this clearing out the guest room for the student.
any advice??
Haley says
I made a small mistake with the name when joining the link party. I an new to blogging. Is it possible for you to delete it and I can rejoin? Mine is #17 Haley.
Love the check list on the left side. Very handy.
Thank you!
Laura says
No problem Haley. I did that for you 🙂
Judy G. says
The planner looks cool, but I’m more of a “write my own list each day in a notebook” person. That has the advantage for me of using up the half-filled notebooks left over from when my kids were in school.
I posted for the first time yesterday in last week’s thread. I’m riding a wave of small successes right now that are encouraging me to keep on decluttering & organizing. Working on small clutter spots has spurred me on to tackle the bigger problems. First up is decluttering in my scraproom/office.
Heather says
Thank you for introducing me to this! I just ordered one!!! This is going to be the most organized (school) year ever!!!!!!!!!!
Chloe says
Hi Laura
I really like that bit in the planner about a family meeting. Over the last few months I’ve been scheduling in ‘Special Time’ each day for my husband, son and I to get together and do something fun during the afternoon and it’s been really great for all of us. Otherwise it gets to after dinner, the day’s gone and we’re all too tired to get round to it. Having it in a planner would be another daily reminder.
Thanks for the info.
Chloe
MonicaB says
This planner looks great. I wish they had an electronic version for my ipad.
Living the Balanced Life says
Love the look of this organizer, I have a difficult time finding one that works for me. I am going to have to go check it out.
Bernice
Frustrated with the ever-present mess?
Ellie says
Laura thanks for spotlighting this planner. It is exactly what I need. Have ordered it from Amazon.
Your 52 week challenges have been such an encouragement.
Jessica says
THANK YOU for suggesting this! I bought it right away and am SO impressed! This will get LOTS of use, planning to come up w/a way to laminate the cover. I’ll be recommending this to all my friends.
jessica says
I also follow stephanie’s blog and my big summer project was getting organized. I have been using techniques from both of you to get myself together and the results this summer have been fabulous. My entire house is clean and organized ( well, maybe not the whole house….the fridge needs some help today, and the pantry is still on my to do list…and a couple kitchen drawers) but the rest, including the basement and the garage and closets are in a ‘company-ready’ state! It’s so nice to finally live like this. I ordered stephanie’s planner a couple weeks ago, and I came home to it when I got back from vacation. It’s so nice to have my ‘to do’ list already made for me…it saves that much time in the morning. (It also helps to leave it on the counter so my husband knows what I did all day!! It makes him more inclined to put his socks in the hamper and help with dinner dishes!!) I look forward to the help it will be to me when I go back to work next week (i’m a teacher) I hope it does well, so it will continue to be printed, so I can keep getting a new copy every year…b/c after just one week of using it, I don’t want to be with out it!
Chelle Belle says
I purchased “Totally Together” a few weeks ago, and all I can say is WOW. This is working for me. My son is almost four, and for that long, I have tried to juggle 3 kids, 2 houses, a 40+ hr/week job AND a sick husband. This works for me. I need something small and easily portable, and something to keep me on track. Am I following it to a T? No. Does it make me less stressed? YES!!! Not every system works for everyone, but this works for me. Thank you SO MUCH for sharing this!
Laura says
Oh that is wonderful news. Thank you for sharing. All the best to you on your journey!!
Laura