Simplify Your Life in the New Year
December 30, 2012 in All Posts, Parenting, Sponsored Posts
This post is as much a cry for help as it is a tips post! Seriously, what are you planning to do to simply your life in the New Year?
As you know, we moved - in the middle of Christmas of all times! - and are still buried in boxes, trying to wade our way out before school starts in January and Hubby and I both head back to work. And I’ll confess: even though I tried my darndest to organize our stuff BEFORE putting it into boxes and lugging it over to the new house, I actually ended up just boxing up a lot of the unsorted jumble of junk as-is. (Please leave me a comment and tell me you’ve done the same!!)
Just looking at the physical junk in our home and then dealing through all the other clutter in my brain - like, what classes to sign the kids up for in the spring, remembering all the forwarding address forms to fill out, how I’m going to live out all my New Year’s Resolutions - has me aching for ways to streamline my life in 2013.
This is going be THE year that I achieve Super Organized Momdom. (I know, you thought that I already was, but that was just me faking it really well).
What’s MY plan? Well, there are a few things I have on my list that I’ve already halfway started and can’t wait to finish:
1) Label all the kids’ toy storage spaces.
I’ve already put every toy in its own designated space, but just need to find a cute way to label them. Now when the playroom is complete chaos, the kids can easily pick it up themselves without me slaving it over it at the end of every day.
2) Clean as I go.
This one might sound weird, but I become completely paralyzed when I see a week’s worth of laundry in the basket or a day’s worth of dishes in the sink. I don’t do any of it and then face a total cleaning crisis at midnight or the next morning when I’m supposed to be getting everyone out the door. So, in 2013, I’ll be taking care of business as I go instead of procrastinating as usual.
3) Color code and “occasion code” the kids’ and my own wardrobe.
It gives me great peace - and makes mornings so much easier - to see everything hanging from light to dark and casual to fancy. The coolest thing I saw in the blogosphere this year, which I’ll have to find and link to for you, is a box system one mom did for her kids. She put five days worth of clothes in separate boxes for her older kids and every morning, they just needed to pull down a box and dress themselves. Ta-da! How is that for super organized? I’m working up to that.
4) Menu plan.
If I could do this, I am 100% positive my life would be awesome and stress-free and grocery shopping wouldn’t be such an overly expensive and unfocused chore.
5) Streamline my online shopping.
I am a complete and total online shopping freak expert.
Online shopping is the realm where my Internet and shopping addictions collide.
One of the things that annoys me more than anything in the instant gratification process - or when getting things done online is the quickest way to get things checked off my to do list - is having to input my credit card information over and over again every time I make a purchase. It’s especially a headache when I’m in a hurry or I don’t have the physical card by my side so I can retrieve those security code numbers I am always being asked for. I also don’t trust individual retailers when there’s an option to save my credit card information for later since I don’t know what kind of security they use. Plus, I can never remember all my individual passwords.
Enter V.Me by Visa and those headaches are gone. Simplifying my purchase process is complete! It’s cool: just enter your information (billing details + Visa, Mastercard, Discover, or American Express card number) one time at V.Me and then you can just check the V.Me payment option at participating retailers and all you have to remember is your e-mail and password. Totally easy.
When I went to Shoebuy.com - of course - I couldn’t remember my username and password and kept getting bounced.
But since I had the option of checking out with V.Me
all I need to do was sign in. My card was linked already, and I could checkout Just.Like.That.
I FINALLY bought the shoes I’ve been meaning to get my son. His other pair was literally falling apart and he refused to buy a new pair at the store when I took him in because he is so in love with his old pair and insists, “They’re not broken!” (I’m sure Hubby wishes I were like that, too).
Paying in real life with your mobile phone is coming soon. And, they’re going to be rolling out budgeting, tracking, and deal features, which I’m sure I could use.
Actually, my big question to you: How do you keep track of your budget and your calendar?
For budgets, I’ve tried homemade spreadsheets and YNAB (You Need A Budget). I don’t know if I’m totally jazzed about those options. And I have a hard time with digital calendars (Google Calendar, Outlook, etc.) because my mind is stuck in an old-fashioned rut where I really like to see everything in real-life on a real paper calendar. Any solutions you can recommend? If you’re a dinosaur and use a paper calendar, do you have a favorite organizing system?
Disclaimer: This post is brought to you by V.me by Visa. Online payment. Simple and secure. For a list of websites where V.Me is currently accepted, visit https://www.v.me/shopping. I was compensated for this post, but as always - all opinions are my own.
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Chrissy – who has written 426 posts on The Outlaw Mom® Blog - Creative Living in a Conventional World.
I am so sorry for not being able to keep up with your awesome blog for what seems like forever! It’s been a whirlwind with all the travel! Love this post! Awesome tips and reminders! For our budget and calendar, I’ve chosen to go back to my old school systems! I carry an 8.5×11 planner with me EVERWHERE I go! And, I also keep a slim fabric pencil case to emplace important documents and notes that need action so they are handy while I need them. I used to keep an electronic budget (and my hubby still does a spreadsheet update monthly for us), but I have now also taken that back to a manual process in a planner-like binder where I keep copies of correspondence for all bills, assets, investments, bank accounts, insurances, pay stubs, etc for quick reference and I hand write notes/expenses. I like using written mediums because I don’t have to wait to get to my computer to make updates- and I don’t have to worry about backing up my back-ups. The color coding and occasion coding of your wardrobe is a great idea! I bet your recent move has given you lots of opportunities to build simpler systems! BTW….can you message me your new addy, again?
For years people have been asking me how do I keep it all together with my families crazy schedule, I do not like to forget things or be late. I love paper and pen, color coding the family, etc….so my best tip is buy the calendar from momtimemoms, the family organizer comes with lots of space to write everything for my family in each day. You also get stickers for reminders. I use fine point permanent markers, assigning the same color each year to each family member, ex: hubby-navy,child1-turquoise, child2-purple, child3-orange, me-red. I take my previous years calendar one day and copy all reoccurring info onto it, ex: birthdays. I will put a birthday sticker in one corner of that date than write in gold the persons name next to it.
For my budget I only do a small part of it, ex: I do the cash envelope system, I know how much I need for Christmas to buy year round, the kids sports activities, school field trips, monthly lunch acct amts (anything extra they make a cold lunch).
Thank you SO much for sharing your tips! I am going to check out that calendar and see if it might be something to work for us. I sort of tried out the different color marker thing, but then wasn’t organized about keeping them together and then had several colors on my calendar, but not coded for anything. Will need to re-try it again for this new year! The cash envelope is an AWESOME idea. If you don’t got it, you can’t spend it
Thanks again for sharing and visiting here!