Simple solutions to all types of spaces.

Thanks giving is coming up fast. But there are a few things you can do now that you can check off your list. That way, when its crunch time…you’ve already done it!

This is so important, especially when your hosting larger gatherings.

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Clean your china

Do you have seasonal or formal dinner ware that you use for this occasion? What about glass are? If you are like me, they have been sitting in storage all year and its time to wash the dust off of them.

Clean and iron the linens.

What linens are you going to use? A table cloth? Place mats? Napkins? Are they clean? Did you iron them? This is a huge time saving step you can do right now.

Polish the silver.

If you have silver or silver plated cutlery, they may require polishing. Take them out of the cabinet and decide if they need to be polished.

Decide your meal plan.

Have you decided what exact recipes your going to make? If you make the same thing every year and use the same recipes, great! We always try a new dish or two to see what is a hit or not.

Make what you can ahead of time- and freeze it.

Now that you meal planned, is there some thing you can make ahead of time and freeze? Like maybe your pie dough. We make a soup sometimes that can be made ahead.

Early grocery shopping.

Are there things you can get at the grocery store now to prepare? For instance pie crust? Cranberry perhaps or pumpkin puree in a can? Don’t for get the coffee! Buy 100% Pure Kona Coffee

Below is a list of 25 things you can buy ahead of time.

• potatoes
• marshmallows
• pie crust
• turkey
• ham
• cream cheese
• frozen veggie
• butter
• whipped cream
• canned olives
• canned pumpkin
• seasoning/spices
• soup
• canned veggies
• gravy seasoning packets
• canned pie filling
• canned cranberry
• canned fruit
• sugar
• chocolate chips
• cake mix
• flour
• crackers
• chicken broth
• stuffing mix

Slammin sweet potato pie.

ingredients

• 1 1/2 lb sweet potatoes
• 3 tbsp butter
• 3/4 c packed brown sugar
• 1/2 c milk
• 2 lg eggs
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 9 in pie crust

Preparation

• pre heat over to 350 f
• boil sweet potatoes in their skins 45-50 min
• run under cold water, then peel skins
• Blend potatoes in a blender for about 1 min. To make sure all fibers are broken. Place in a bowel, with butter and mix well. Add sugar, milk, eggs and cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg. Beat on med speed until smooth
• Pour into pie crust and bake for 50-60 min. Let cool before cutting.

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Kids bedrooms, Is there anything more scary to think about when it comes to keeping things clean, organized and clutter free then kids bedrooms? Maybe, but they certainly can be a clutter collector.

When all together, there are 5 kids in this family. 4 of which have to share a bedroom. I have become an expert in this area. I have mastered some techniques when it comes to making kids bedrooms liveable and manageable for our kids. At the same time, these techniques keep my boyfriend and I happy too. Since expecting perfection isn’t realistic.

You may want to watch for my upcoming post “how to encourage kids to be tidy.

In everything I have learned, I think there are 10 key ingredients in controlling the clutter in kids bedroom, and here they are.

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1 Limit the opportunity for clutter to collect.

This means keeping the amount of “stuff” they have in their rooms to a reasonable and manageable amount. This amount is completely personal and also depends on the size of the bedroom. You also have to take into account the availability of space in the other areas of the house for their things. It also depends on how many children are in the bedroom, and so much more. I cannot stress enough the importance of being reasonable in what is kept in your kids bedrooms and is not.

2 Train your children to be involved in controlling the clutter in their room from the time they can walk.

Kids who are only one can learn to put their pajamas on the bed for instance. Giving them age appropriate tasks from the earliest age is vital. Then, continue to train them while also holding them to age appropriate standard.

3 Declutter/cleaning needs to happen at least 2 times a day.

I have discovered that kids are easily overwhelmed when it comes to keeping their own space clutter free. For this reason, keeping clutter under control is essential. This is also true for us, but teaching this basic concept to our kids early is setting them up for success in this area.

4 To keep kids bedrooms clutter free, you must have the proper tools.

As I have said in reference to other areas reguarding the things we need our family members to be a part of, we have to make is painfully easy for them to do so. Make sure there is ample storage available for clutter prone things. I find multi – purpose things are especially clever. The Dollar Tree has many options available.

5 Label where you want things to go.

Labels make it easy for anyone and everyone to put things where they belong. With out a label you husband may not know where the kids books or toys belong. This means that it will be very difficult for him to help. Labels also avoid kids being able to argue, “I don’t know where that belongs” as an excuse for being lazy. When labels are being used properly, it saves time since you will not have to continually go in and reorganize everything.

6 Be specific in organizing and labeling things down into smaller groups of like items.

When you have a bin labeled “trucks” ideally you wont be finding trucks put in a different area. If your bin is labeled toys, everyone will have a harder time finding things they are looking for. General labels will also make it more difficult to return things to the correct spot. Having a drawer labeled winter tights will be more organized then just having a place for tights and socks for instance. The Dollar Tree has many types of stickers that can be used as labels.

7 Don’t shy away from implementing “stuff rotation”.

Whether it’s clothes, books, toys, or something entirely different, proactively making sure there isn’t too much to get cluttered in the first place is key. One easy way to avoid this is to rotate the things in kids bedrooms every couple of months. Having less is often a welcome sign in many kids eyes.

8 Involve your kids.

Allowing your kids to be involved in how their room works ensures that they will be more willing to help you keep their space clutter free. Give them a space they enjoy being and that they can take pride in.

9 Avoid being an emotional collector.

Don’t hang on to things for emotional or sentimental reasons. We all have things that are important to us. But limiting the amount of things we keep for the sake of keeping them is needed. Doing this is important for you. It is also important that your kids have a good role model in this area. There are numerous things you can do to preserve the memory while letting the item go.

10 Only allow approved items to come into your kids bedroom.

Kids bedrooms should not be a dumping grounds for things that belong else where any more then our master bedroom in the first place. As I have mentioned before when deciding on what to allow your child to have, keep in mind that everything they have must be stored.

Always being mindful of this has kept me from allowing certain things into my home just from a storage stand point. This was something I came to learn the hard way.

Clutter can so easily collect in kids bedrooms. But doing these 10 things has greatly helped limit the clutter issues we have in our kids bedrooms. They will help you as well.

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Its time for round 2 in the fall clean up. Round 1 was the list of 10 spots to purge every fall. Today digs deeper into organizing 5 areas as we start to prepare for cooler weather and busier schedules.

Fall kitchen organization

The decluttering step last week should have cleared out everything that was expired. So, now its time to organize what is left. I’d recommend thinking about the three things that make you crazy when you are trying to cook or put away clean dishes and focus your time on those. Here’s a few ideas from our kitchen.

I don’t bake often through out the year, but various baking supplies were spread through out the pantry. When I organized the pantry, I grouped them all together in a dollar store plastic bin. Before using the bin, I spray painted it to match the rest of the pantry accents. Now, when ever I’m in desperate need of home made chocolate chip cookies, I can pull the whole bin out to the kitchen.

Can organizer/storage bins Using bins to corral similar items also works inside the fridge. The hour I spent organizing the fridge like this two years ago was so worth it. It finally started to get out of control again this summer, so I’ll be getting it back into shape this week as part of my personal fall clean up.

The plastic ware is another great cabinet to tackle before the season of holiday left overs begin. I don’t know what took me so long to figure out how to store them, but I get a little excited every time I open the cabinet and see them under control.

Fall coat closet/mudroom organization

If you’ve got kids in school, now is the time to figure out a landing zone for back packs, shoes, coats ect. Having a routine place to drop things and help control clutter.

You can fake a mudroom really inexpensively using a cube organizer on its side by the front door, with a bin for each family member. Above the bins, add coat hooks for back packs and your all set.

If you’ve really got limited space like we do in our garage entry, I’ve been really happy with the slim hooks we installed for coats. The hooks flip up flush when not being used, and hold a surprising amount of weight. Its great in the middle of winter when we load them down. It was a great way to utilize the space behind the door.

Organizing kids rooms

I mentioned that fall is a great time to de clutter kids rooms of toys and out grown clothing last week. But then what do you do with everything that is left? Bins and baskets are a huge help!

I will have more tips on this in a upcoming post “De cluttering and organizing a child’s room.”

Organizing the guest bedroom

Is anyone else guilty of letting the guest bed turn into a landing pad for the most random crap?

I kid you not, there was still Christmas junk on ours in June! Thank goodness we had some family come and stay with us so I had to clean it up.

Don’t wait until right before Thanksgiving or Christmas to organize your guest space. No one needs more things to do around the holidays.

ATTITUDE

Office/homework/craft space organization.

The last place I think fall is the perfect time to organize is where ever you keep craft/and or office supplies. Even though I’m not currently in school (thank goodness) I get a bit excited about school supplies and office organization every fall. If you’ve been following along you know I got a jump start on this one and have my paper clutter and office organization under control. You can find this article under my organization tab on the home page.

There is a reason I think we should work on the organization of these areas every fall.

Our lives and habits evolve, which I believe is why some people think organization doesn’t work. They do it once and expect it to last forever.

Tweaking the system once a year lets you evaluate whats working and what needs to be updated. Having a designated season to work on key areas of your house will help you stay on top of everything year round. And that makes the time spent so worth it for me.

What do you think? Did I hit or miss the most important areas for fall organizing?

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Want to know the difference between those with cluttered, messy homes, and those with mostly clutter free homes?

HABITS!

Good habits can put a clutter-free home on auto pilot for you. And bad habits can ensure that things stay cluttered. Forming new habits isn’t easy. But it’s worth it.

Imagine returning home after a busy day. You walk in the door tired, but your glad to be home. Look around. Your house looks pretty good- not perfect, but tidy enough that you feel you can relax for a few minutes before starting dinner.

Isn’t that what you want? Its what we all want. Keep reading to learn which bad habits have been keeping you stuck. Replace bad habits with good ones to create the decluttered home you really want.

I’ll walk you through every one of the habit changes, one easy step at a time.

Sick of all the clutter in your life? Learn the 5 bad habits that keep your home cluttered.

1 You’re so overwhelmed with it all that you’ve given up trying.

Solution: Don’t give up yet! Its not hopeless. Keep reading!

2 You don’t put things away through out the day.

You (and your family)

• Leave papers scattered through out your home.
• leave dishes though out the house, on the coffee table, side tables, dressers and bedside tables.
• Leave clothes (both dirty and clean) strewn about the home, on the floor, on the couch, over the backs of chairs.
• Leave other items all over the house rather than putting them away when finished using them.

Don’t feel bad. These a very common sources of clutter. And good habits can help you do away with this type of daily surface clutter.

Solution: Make putting things away an automatic habit you practice as you go about your day.

• When you leave a room, take dirty dishes with you and load them in the dishwasher immediately. If there are no dirty dishes, take other -out-of-place items and put them away. (clothes, papers, ect.)
• After you fold laundry, put it away. It really doesn’t take long. Enlist some help from family members to make this even quicker.
• When you take off clothing, hang it/fold it or put it in the hamper. Teach your children to do the same. It will take time for this to become a habit, but its possible. Put hampers in every room where dirty clothes get left.
• Put important papers that need attention in an inbox/basket.

3 You don’t put things away upon returning home.

Keys, jacket, bags, phone, mail, ect. Are all deposited in the most convenient spot.

Solution: Practice a threshold routine.

You’ve probably heard of morning routines, evening routines, and daily routines. Those are all good things.

But you also need a “return home routine” That rolls off the tongue slowly, so I like the term “threshold routine”

When you cross over your threshold with stuff in your hands, put it where it belongs.

• Hang jackets
• put keys on hooks, or in a basket/bowl
• Put your phone, purse, and other bags in designated places.
• Empty shopping bags, put everything away, and store/recycle the bags.
• Open/recycle/shred papers, putting important ones that need attention in an inbox/basket.
• Open packages, put things away and recycle the boxes.

This goes A LONG way toward helping you maintain a decluttered home.

It may sound like a time-consuming process but, really, its not. Try it and see. If you time yourself, you’ll see just how quick it is to do these things.

4 You don’t have a “place for everything” That’s working for you.

• Your previous organizing efforts are a bit troublesome to use, there for no one is using the system you set uo including you.
• You haven’t de cluttered closets, drawers, and shelves of things you don’t need or use. This makes it difficult to put things away (see #2 & #3 above) which keeps your home messy. This creates a vicious cycle, but it can be broken!

A place for everything, and everything in its place:

That’s my motto, and sort of my mantra that I keep repeating to myself, to make sure I stay on track. And its the most important organizing principal for maintaining a clutter free home. Making the ‘place’ easy and convenient to use help ensure things get put where they belong rather then left out on the most convenient surface.

Solution: Set up easy to use on hand storage solutions, like open baskets, trays, hooks. Frequently remind your family menbers to use them until this becomes a habit.

5 You don’t follow a daily routine

“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail” Benjamin Franklin

We all need a basic routine to follow each day.

Will you accomplish everything you plan to each day? Not likely. But that’s no excuse to give up completely. And let the days get away from you day after day and week after week.

Solution: Create a simple daily routine on paper and start using it. Put it some place in easy sight, like the fridge door. And hold yourself accountable.

To create a simple daily routine, get a sheet of paper. Across the top of the page write Monday – Sunday. Down the left side of the page write each important task you need accomplished each day. Those tasks should include things like:

• unload the dish washer before breakfast]was/dry/fold/put away one load of laundry
• decide on/prep dinner
• one urgent task

If your just getting started with a daily routine, keep it very simple. If you add too many tasks to it, you may quickly become discouraged and give up.

Start with micro habits so small that you have no excuse not to do them.

The four tasks listed above are the bare minimum chores required to successfully run a household. You need to be able to load dirty dishes to keep your kitchen reasonably clean through out the day. You and your family need dinner. You and your family need clean clothes, and most days have at least one really urgent task that needs to be completed. Complete these four things each day and you will feel like a success.

Once you fall into habit with these basic tasks for a few weeks or a month try adding one more task to your daily routine.

You can do this!

Your home will be cleaner, and you’ll be happier.