"I organize it and 24 hours later it's a mess again!"

"I organize it and 24 hours later it's a mess again!"

Yep.  I've said it and likely you have too.  You put a ton of energy into giving your stuff a new home and then, as you get busy living real life, it all goes back to laying around your house.  It's exhausting and it's irritating.  What are you supposed to do?

Methods of organization are as personal as your routine when you go to the bathroom.  I have four children that all have methods that are different and differ from mine.  Want to see how regimented you are?  Move the toilet paper roll and see what happens.  The whole routine goes, well pardon the pun, down the tubes.  :o)

The system that you have chosen isn't one that fits with your habits, is too time consuming, or requires more effort than you are willing or capable of exerting on a regular basis. You need to become a student to your's and your family's habits.  Pay attention to what everyone tends to do in the matter you are wanting to organize.

For example, when I am getting ready for bed at night I tend to undress in my closet (don't get freaked out, it's a big closet).  I HATE sorting clothes.  So I bought a 3 bag hamper (1 for whites, 1 for colors, 1 for towels) which I placed in my closet.  My night clothes are also hanging for me in there as well.  So when I go in to get ready for bed everything can go in its home without me having to deviate from my routine at all.

You CAN come up with simple solutions to your biggest problems when you cater your systems to your habits.  Give it a try and share with me what kind of solutions you have come up with!

Beginning the Revolution with My Children

I figured out a long time ago that any change that is going to stick must be done gradually.  When it comes to life at home it has to be something that my whole family participates in.  Luckily my husband is interested in efficiency and was willing to help me think about constructive changes.  Over the last year we have started implementing changes in the way we run our home.  This is how we did it.

Step one:  The Daily Help Board

It is way too much work for me to do everything necessary to keep my home and my family running smoothly.  There is no reason why my children should not be helping me with day to day tasks.  My husband came up with the idea of the help board.  There is a column of tasks that need to be done daily that the children can help me with.  Each child gets their own color star that assigns them a responsibility.  Those responsibilities are expected.  At the bottom of the board there is a star bank where stars that the kids earn are deposited.  They can earn extra stars with good manners, doing what they are asked to do when they are asked to do it, performing another child's task when they don't want to, being a good listener, etc.  Poor behavior results in a loss of stars.  Red stars represent a negative amount of stars.  We make it a competition.  At the end of the week the child with the most stars wins.  They can either donate their stars to a bank to earn a big family trip such as the Great Wolf Lodge or Coco Keys and draw a mystery envelop (smaller rewards like daddy/daughter date, choice of dinner, choice of snack) or they can choose to trade the stars in for princess of the day.  Princess of the day chooses what we eat (at home), what we watch on TV, snacks, family games, etc.  Any red stars on the board get taken away from the family trip bank.  

This was put into place and in effect for several months before we moved on to the next step.  Once the kids (and us as parents) got used to the star system we moved on to the next step.  

Step two:  Developing a Laundry System

I had two major problems with laundry.  1)  I had big issues with mating the tons of white tiny socks.  I just don't have time to sit around trying to decide whether or not the socks actually go together and who they belong to.  2) My girls are pretty close in age so doing laundry was difficult because I had to look at every little tag to see who it belonged to.  

I needed a system to keep my laundry separated.  I bought laundry bins at the Dollar tree and lingerie bags from WalMart.  I put each of my girls' initials on the bins and and bags with a sharpie.  I used a hook from 3M and hung the lingerie bags over the hampers in my kids' rooms. I instructed them to put their clothes into their hampers and place their socks in their sock bag.  It took them a while to get into this habit.  Now even if they decide to strip off downstairs they understand that they must carry their  clothes upstairs and put them in their hampers.

Second I bought a label maker and I labeled all of my children's drawers.  It has their name on it and what goes in the drawer.  This helps them with getting dressed when I am too rushed to pick out clothes for them and they can now put their clothes up after I wash them (the ones that are old enough to read anyway).  

When I am ready to do their laundry I ask a girl to zip up her sock bag, place it in her hamper, drag it down the steps, and load her clothes in the washer.  I will wash, dry, and fold her clothes.  Then she drags her hamper back up the steps and put her clothes back where they belong.  

Again, this process has been in place for several months before we decided to add another change to our home.  

Step three:  Keeping up with My Kitchen

Now that my children are a little older they can unload the dishwasher, set the table, and clear the table. I keep my dishes in a lower cabinet so my children can easily take care of these tasks.  If space is a problem you can buy and expandable pantry shelf from Clever Container that allows you more vertical space to store your dishes.  

We are currently in the process of adding dishwasher loading to the children's list of responsibilities.  The first run through worked well enough but there is still some instruction that is needed.  

So far I am pleased with this aspect of our revolution.  It has been a tremendous help to me and the children are learning responsibility.  It is a win win situation!

My Week in the Closet

I spent my week cleaning out my closet.  A close friend of mine is hosting a Clever Container party for me and we are working on giving her some functional space in her closet before the party.  I was so excited by the pictures she sent me that I decided to rip out my closet for a good spring cleaning.  It was an eye opening experience.

This was totally an exercise in two areas of my life for me:  1) sharing the wealth we have been blessed with and 2) creating good functional space to solve a major problem in our emotional lives.

Sharing Our Wealth

Our children are interested in seeing the end of world hunger in their lifetime.  They are so moved by the problem that they opted out of birthday presents to collect donations for Action Against Hunger.  Essentially what they are asking is that the people of the world share their wealth with those that have much less.  When I thought about our clutter problem I realized that we were not sharing our wealth and it was all because I didn't want to take the time.

My husband and I went through our clothes and ridded ourselves of all of the clothes that:
1)  We didn't like the way they fit.
2)  Didn't fit (you know those clothes that we are going to fit into "some day").
3)  Couldn't remember the last time we wore.

This produced 5 LAWN SIZE black trash bags of clothes.  The kids helped us drag them into our garage and my husband promptly loaded them into the back of my van.  On his day off we took the clothes to donate and just like that we had accomplished simplifying our lives and sharing our wealth.

Creating Good Functional Space

My closet is enormous.  I have several friends that likely hate me for my master bedroom closet.  But because we are purging our clothing we don't take up all of the space.  Most of the space in our closet is wasted...until now.

I have 4 children and laundry is CONSTANTLY in process in my home.  Our bedroom tends to be my staging area to fold and hang clothes because my "laundry room" is only big enough to hold our washer and dryer.  My husband hates this.  In fact, he told me that by the end of the year he wanted our bedroom to be a place of relaxation rather than a laundry room.  He wants what I call a "zen den."

After I cleaned out our closet I had an entire "nook" that was unused.  I created an "in process" laundry area.  This is the place where our hamper lives, where I can put shirts that I need to hang when I haven't had time to do so yet and baskets of clean clothes that need to be folded.  I even have space that I can put a drying rack up to finish drying the waist bands of our jeans that, for whatever reason, never seem to get dry.

I have a totally happy husband right now because his "zen den" is one huge step closer to happening.

I was totally thrilled with myself until I talked to a friend who told me about all of the treasures (like gift cards and money) she found when she cleaned out her closet.  All I found were dust bunnies.  :o(

Maybe the hall closet contains better treasure???

It is Time for a Revolution!

My name is Jessi O'Brien and I am a stay at home mother of four.  After I had my fourth baby I found myself scrambling just to survive every day.  Something had to change.  I was losing library books, papers that were important for my children's school, forgetting doctors appointments, and simply staying exhausted.  I was frustrated to say the least.  I needed to get my life pulled together.  

My husband read a book about living with just what you need and use.  I can't remember what it was called but it changed our view of what we truly need to have in our home.  Our storage room is packed to the gills with stuff that has tons of dust.  I can't remember the last time I accessed 90% of what is in that room.  It is time to purge.

I began looking for home organization stuff online and ran across a company called Clever Container.  I liked what I was seeing so much that I decided to become an independent sales consultant for them.  If I was undergoing revolution whose to say other women out there weren't as well?  I found a slew of them upon joining Clever Container!

So here I am, purging my junk and getting what we love and use organized into a workable system.  This blog chronicles my journey.  I hope you enjoy it and that it encourages you to begin a journey of your own!