Tips From the Almost Always Organized Mom

Purchase a large cork board for each of your children’s bedroom wall. It’s great for artwork, certificates, even sport ribbons ! — The Almost Always Organized Mom

Archive for Household Organization

How many computers do you have in your home ? I have five (but I am a self proclaimed mom geek). As the resident geek of my flock I am in constant demand to help my friends clean up their computers. Which I really shouldn’t have to do if they are maintaining their computer.

So here are my tips for looking after your family computers and keeping their maintenance up to date.

1) Check your antivirus programs and make sure they are downloading their updates. If you don’t have one, get AVG free. Make sure you only have one anti virus program or you will find your computer will stop liking you.

2) Protect your kids ? Hey PROTECT YOUR COMPUTERS. Kids will visit any and every website on the internet and downlaod all kinds of nice and not so nice things to your computer. So stop right now and get cyber patrol. Know what your kids are doing and keep them from doing things to your computer that they shouldn’t. Save 10% on CyberPatrol Parental Controls with Coupon Code PCSAVE10

2)  Run a disk Defrag. Go to Start -> All Programs -> Accessories ->  System Tools -> Disk Defragmenter *do this every week. Need more ?  You need to do this each week

3) Clear your internet cache. You need to do this each week. Videos:  Fire Fox Internet Explorer

4) Take your videos, photos, and music off your computer. Most of us don’t have enough memory to store all of these on our computer without slowing down your computer.

5) Remove unused programs using the Control panel  add/remove programs. Read More→

You might think that as a professional organizer, my stress is relieved by organizing or cleaning. Not so. If life is chaotic, and things have gotten messy, organizing is necessary for me to even function.

As a Myers-Briggs personality profile facilitator, I have learned that stress relievers are not generated from the areas of your natural giftedness, but the opposite. Can you see that moving out of the area where you spend most of your time is a break from the usual – a relief?

For some, cleaning and organizing provides that break. Here are a few 5-minute stress relievers in this area:

1. Clean out a drawer.

2. Clean out a drawer or shelf in the fridge.

3. Make a list of your favorite things to do, and plan when you will do one.

4. Declutter a room or surface.

5. Make a to-do list or prioritize the one you have. Read More→

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It’s September and here that means back to school has arrived. So have the newsletters, teacher notes, dance registrations, band forms, lunch program and picture day forms.

homecontrolI am lost in a pool of paper and determined to not be as ‘unorganized’ as I was last year. or to drown under the pile.

So this busy mom has dusted off her mom time management skills and has managed to get through the first week of school with everything under control.

My family time management control center is back up and running… complete with;

1) a LARGE desktop calendar – stuck onto the cork board with double sided tape. The little ‘30 day family calendars have never had enough space to write down all of our schedules.

2) the large envelopes (on the corkboard) are used for teacher notes, school forms ect.

3) my ticket (the small blue paper). Graciously handed to me by a local RCMP officer who felt I did not come to a full and complete stop at the four way  intersection this week. Read More→

Apr
20

Spring Gardening To Do List

Posted by: Organized Mom | Comments (1)

Spring gardening. I don’t know about you but my yard is a MESS ! I am rather embarrassed by the state my yard has gotten into. Super mom of three, I mastered scheduling, running house and running a business. Keeping my yard up was limited to mowing the yard every two weeks.

yardSpring is here and all around people are cleaning up their gardens and yards. This year that one item is at the top of my Spring to do list. Clean up my yard.

Clearing the over grown blackberry bushes is the obvious starting point in my back yard and today I jumped through that step. Now I am looking for hints for spring yard clean up and now I am researching what comes next in Spring Yard Clean up.

This looks like a great tip and it’s my next step:

“Do you want new beds? If so, lay out newspaper 5 or 6 sheets deep, then add several inches of compost over the top. This kills existing vegetation by smothering it. Four months later, you can dig it up to work the compost into the soil. No sod removal is necessary. “ Click Here for more Spring Yard Tips

Would love to know your Spring Gardening tips.

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clutterdietYesterday my copy of The Clutter Diet: The Skinny on Organizing Your Home and Taking Control of Your Life arrived in the mail ! Over the next few weeks I will be sharing some of my thoughts as I work through the book and better YET – YOU could win a copy over the next few weeks!

My excitement was evident and my son was quickly caught up in it as we opened the parcel.  Upon opening the parcel, he was a bit disappointed to learn that the book was “about cleaning his room”. He perked up when I asked him to be my model though.

So just how do you win a copy of Lorie Marrero’s  book The Clutter Diet: The Skinny on Organizing Your Home and Taking Control of Your Life?

The contest starts Saturday February 28th and runs through to March 14th 2009. (Hopefully this will be enough time for me to get through the book and share my favourite sections with you.)

During this time you can earn one entry for each of the following (be sure to comment and tell me which you have done and provide your email address in your comment):

1)  Tweet this contest out to your followers for one entry (you can do this each week for two entries).

2) Simply leave a comment telling me why you need this book

3) Subscribe to our Newsletter

Enter your Email

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4) Mention the contest on your blog for two entries.

On March 14th one winner will be selected using Random.org and notified by email. The winner has four days to reply at which time a second winner will be selected. This contest is open to residents of the USA, Canada, UK, and Austrailia.

Good Luck !

The Almost Always Organized Mom