Here's my latest progress report for One Year to a {More} Organized Life hosted by Unsolicited Advice.Bare Minimum
I'm coming along. I rarely do every single thing, but I'm finding that even if I miss something, it's not that bad because I'm generally keeping up. I've found that loading the dishwasher each day is critical. The times I haven't, I have gone on to regret it, so that generally keeps me in line {but still, life happens, like yesterday I didn't load the bottles, so I ran two loads today}. I have been pretty darn good about making the bed and about sorting the mail right away so there's no pile {but again, life happens, I've got a little pile going right now, sigh}. To sum up, I really like my Do Or Die list, it keeps me on track but allows me to goof up along the way. :-)Kids Chores
Last week's assignment was to set up a chore system for our kids. Well, this one is a failure for me. I will just be up front and tell you I'm not doing it. I should. L is certainly old enough (5 and a half) to have some chores. But I can't handle it. I cannot add to my plate supervising a chore system for him. Hopefully, once I get my life more organized I will be able to move forward with kids chore management.As a substitute, I am implementing a reward/punishment system that I've been meaning to do for a while. L has a listening/disobedience problem. He completely tunes me out! Grrrr! After chatting with my BFF, I had a plan and today I finally set it up. I bought a $1 dry erase board (Batman) from Target. On there each day he will start with 5 stars. When he disobeys or gives me attitude or generally does something I need to correct (but it's not so big it deserves a time-out), I erase one star. It's possible he can earn a star by doing something good (I imagine this will be hard for me to "catch" him being good, but I'm going to try). At the end of the day, if he has 5 or more stars, he gets a sticker on his chart (just a basic chart with 25 spaces). Days with fewer than 5 stars, no sticker. Filling the chart with stickers earns him a prize. Ugh, wish us luck!
Daily Schedule
I continue to do trial and error to figure out how to manage my week. Stayed tuned, next week I hope I'll have a rough schedule to share with you.
Today (Thursday) has been super productive. I made a list of what I wanted to get done (nothing fancy, just dishes, laundry, etc.), put some down for morning and some for afternoon, and I've just been banging out the list. Yea! Anyway, it makes me think that Thursdays will be my don't go anywhere, ignore T, get stuff done day.
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Two additional sources of inspiration for me in this task:
Daily Cleaning List from Money Saving Mom
The Power of Something Simple (a guest post on Life As Mom) about a daily To Do List.
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So stay tuned, I will keep you posted as my daily/weekly schedule comes together. For more organizing stories or to join the challenge, go here.
How do YOU organize your daily and weekly tasks?
3 comments:
Good for you on knowing what you can and cannot handle right now.
Im so glad the bare minimum is helping you. I have been quite impressed with how helpful it is to have a list of things I MUST do. But this last week and a half has been so intense in the area of parenting, and I've had little help from my husband (work/school/needing to fix his truck), I've been sick and have had little sleep. My bare minimum list was all but ignored. Boo.
I was originally thinking the bare minimum would help me get through these "tough" times without getting so far behind. Apparently, you actually have to DO the bare minimum. ;) ha ha.
I really like the dry erase board/star idea! I might try that when my 2yo is a bit older. Way to go on *mostly* sticking to your bare minimum! ;)
I have REALLY got to get back to making lists for myself. I've been so lazy lately. I might just make a To Do List tonight. Thanks for the inspiration!
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