I have officially dubbed 2008 the Year of Organisation in our house – or Organise ’08 as it shall hence forth be known.
The reason for the sudden urge to get organised is largely motivated by the Twinadoes starting kinder (preschool).This means that two mornings a week we have to be up, dressed and out of the house by 8am. This may not sound so hard for most of you but when you consider neither I or any of my children are usually even awake by 8am, and take into consideration that I am NOT a morning person, it is going to be tough. Add to that, all the ins and outs with the added kinder stuff, and the fact that I feel so scatterbrained and overwhelmed so often at the moment and I simply feel it is time to ‘take charge’… of what? I am not entirely sure but lets blog about it and find out ok?
So Stage 1 on Organise ’08 – Research!
This is the fun part. The part where I get to spend hours on the net reading organising/motivational/sort out your life kind of blogs and web sites. The part where I get to drool over all the cool ‘gadgets’ and ‘doo-hickeys’ I am going to buy to sort out my life. The part where I just get to sit and daydream about how wonderful my life will be once I am on top of the laundry and getting up at ‘ungodly o’clock’ every morning. The Part that doesn’t require too much effort… but is important none the less.
For me, a good part of getting organised is organising my head. I need to think things through a LOT before doing anything otherwise I find myself getting half way through something and discovering it was a really really bad idea and that I need to start all over. Not only is that a waste of time but it often involves a waste of money, and we simply don’t have money to waste. So I need o have a good think and really decide on a direction first before any action.
To that end here are some blogs I’ve been reading to help get my brain organised and for a good helping of motivation too!
The Lazy Organiser – I’ve been reading this blog for a while now, I’ve even had a go at a few ‘Smart Habit Saturdays’ (not that I’ve been at all successful in making anything a habit!) It’s a lovely easy read about a normal family written by their, dare I say it, ever so slightly obsessed with organisation, Mum! It has a heap of great tips and tricks and links on how to organise your house and your family and your life. I just have to put some of these tips into action for more than oh.. I dunno.. 24 hours!
The Unclutterer – This blog is all about gadgets and ideas to organise your life in a thoroughly modern way. It’s full of lots of great organisation eye candy to make your life more organised, with a good sprinkling of basic ‘sort your ife out’ kind of tips thrown in!
Zen Habits – this blog almost scares me. I am not sure I could ever be quite so serene in my organisational push, or that I really want to be… but it is a great source of info (so so sooooo much information!) and very inspiring!
The Healthy Living Lounge – now this blog is a bit more ‘hippy la la’ but hey, I like that kind of stuff so this is right up my alley. It has some very down to earth practical stuff as well but what I like most is all the cool little tips to organise yourself, lovely positive, uplifting hippy-la-la stuff. Love it!
The Simple Family – ok this is not a blog about organisation as such, but it is rather inspirational all the same. It’s just a regular Mum blogging about a regular family trying to live a little more simply… nothing over the top or fancy, no ‘you have to do x y and stand on your head saying ohm and z’ kind of rules, just one family doing their thing. I like it because it makes me feel like even making small changes to our lives is worth it – sure we still drive around our cars (a lot!) and do other stuff that is not all good for the environment or 100% sustainable or even half way perfect, but the point is that we do other stuff that is good and we should keep doing it.
I am sure there has to be so much more good organisation blogs and websites out there… I do tend to gravitate to Ikea’s website a fair bit when dreaming of the perfect bit of furniture which will magically make putting laundry away so much better! I also love the ‘corners of my home‘ group on flickr for a bit of inspiration and motivation. So anyone want to link me to the ultimate organisation resource??
Jodie says
Oh the dreaded 8.00 am kinder rush, I am so NOT looking forward to that again in a few weeks. I don’t have a great organisational site, but as for getting out the door…PREPACK, PREPACK, PREPACK! I make lunches the night before(they taste fine really), fill waterbottles, pack backpacks, lay out the uniform, put out the breakfast dishes, wash the night before and peg out the washing (doesn’t work in winter)…every single thing I can do to make the morning easier. I’ve morphed into my mother roflol, but at least we are only late one or two mornings a week as opposed to every one ;)
Carole Fogarty says
Hi Kate,
Thrilled you’ve mentioned my blog. Yeah!
This year for me is all about eliminating, eliminating and then simplifying.
So far so good, in fact I’ve had about 4 great money windfalls in the last 2 weeks. How cool is that.
Peace, love and chocolate
Carole
with a touch of hippy la la