Tips on Organization

Organizing
Some people seem to be born organized, like Doug, who folds his dirty laundry before putting it in the hamper, rotates his clean socks and underwear to ensure even wear, and tears every piece of trash into four pieces before stacking it neatly in the bottom of the trash can!

Other people, like Jennifer, are not so naturally endowed. When I was growing up, my mother would have found it impossible to imagine that anyone whose closet and drawers looked like mine would ever be able to keep an orderly home. But visitors who admire my tidy closets, drawers, pantry, or garage today assume I’ve always been neat-nik. Little do they know that they’d have needed a tetanus shot just to peek under my bed thirty years ago.

My point is this – organization is definitely something that can be learned. I acquired it out of sheer necessity, as big families cannot afford to be disorganized. You know the frustration you feel when you are ready to walk out the door and realize the baby has misplaced his shoes? Well, multiply the hassle of tracking them down by twelve or thirteen, and you’ll see what I mean.

Through the years, we’ve developed systems of doing things that keep our lives and home running smoothly. Click on the topics at left to read some of the ideas that have worked best for us. We hope they may help you make your home into the peaceful haven of rest that God intends for it to be.

We’ll be adding to this section as time permits, so check back later for more hints. If there is an organizational challenge you’d particularly like to see addressed, send us an email. We’ll try to address it here.


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Lost and Found

Posted on February 18, 2012
As every mother knows, assigning “a place for everything” does not guarantee we will always find “everything in its place.” Items will inevitably turn up missing from time to time, and our family is no exception. The things we are most likely to lose at our house are winter coats, van keys, our six-year-old’s glucometer, and matching shoes for every child under eight. This, despite the fact that each of these items has a very clearly-defined and easily-accessible home.

So what are we to do when our stuff goes AWOL? The strategies I’ve found to be most effective are as follows:

  1. Retrace your steps – If you’re the one who’s lost something, think back to where you last saw it, then check there and everywhere else you’ve been since you misplaced the item. If it’s your child who is missing something, walk him through these same steps.
  2. Pray for God’s help in finding it – This should really be what you do first, but if you are anything like me, you may not remember to do it until you’ve already tried step #1 without success. The advantage to praying straight off the bat is that:
    • Nothing is hidden from God. He already knows where to find what you are looking for, and it’s a small matter for Him to steer you in the right direction.
    • Prayer has a calming effect, which is especially important if you were running late already.
    • Voicing a prayer keeps your tongue busy, so you are less likely to chew out the (ir)responsible party or to say something you’ll later regret.
  3. Solicit help from family – The more people searching, the faster you’ll find it. You might even offer a small reward to the child who can locate it first.
  4. Straighten as you go – Instead of ransacking the place, use the opportunity to tidy things up, and teach your children to do the same. If there are clothes or towels on the floor, don’t just leave them lying. Pick them up and put them on a hook or in a hamper while you are searching. Same goes for toys, books, coats, caps, pillows, blankets, etc. As other items in the room are picked up and put away, it will be easier to tell whether the lost item is there. If it isn’t, go to the next room and repeat the process. If you’re lucky, you won’t find what you’re looking for until the entire house is in order!
  5. Buy duplicates – To avoid unnecessary delays in the future, you might also consider keeping extras of important items. That way, if your child can’t find his shoes or you discover a missing set of car keys on your way out the door, you can use the back-up pair now and search for the lost ones later.

What about you? What do you do when you can’t find something you need? If you’ve got other search-and-rescue strategies, please share!

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Clean or Dirty?

Posted on April 18, 2011

Putting Away DishesWant a quick way to tell whether the dishes in your dishwasher are clean or dirty? Use a dry erase marker to write the word “Dirty” on the inside of your dishwasher door as soon you’ve finished unloading (test first). The word will stay there until you run your washer again, at which point it will be rinsed off. This method works best on dishwashers with a stainless steel interior. If yours is made of some other material, try using a grease pencil or a piece of colored chalk.

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Absolutely Organized

Posted on March 17, 2011
Absolutely OrganizedAbsolutely Organized

Thinking about spring cleaning? Debbie Lillard’s “Guide to a No-Stress Schedule and Clutter-Free Home” is a great starting place for anyone desiring a more orderly life and home. From scheduling babies to storing beach balls to sanitizing bathrooms, this short book covers all the bases. Plenty of photos, charts and diagrams make it fun to read, easy to understand, and simple to implement.

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Large Family Logistics

Posted on February 12, 2011
Large Family LogisticsLarge Family Logistics

This book was a lot bigger than I was expecting. Subtitled “The Art and Science of Managing a Large Family,” it is chock full of practical wisdom for managing a large family. Even when things at our house are all running smoothly, I enjoy reading this sort of thing. When things aren’t running smoothly, I especially enjoy it. The chapters are succinct and their titles self-explanatory, so I suppose it would be possible to use the table of contents as an index and just look up Kim’s suggestions for problem areas. But if you are anything like me, you will want to read the book straight through, cover to cover. Of special note is Kim’s appendix on coping with exhaustion — there you’ll find tips any mother can use, whether she has two kids or twenty!
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Household Tip: Bright and Beautiful Brassware

Posted on November 14, 2010

Want to get your brassware gleaming before holiday company begins to congregate? Mix one cup of vinegar with a teaspoon of salt and just enough flour to give the mixture the consistency of heavy cream. Using a paintbrush, coat the item with this solution. You can rinse it off almost immediately, and watch the tarnish disappear. This trick works on candlesticks, chargers, or anything else made of solid brass. If stubborn spots persist, rub them with a little Barkeeper’s Friend. You’ll find it at the grocery store on the shelf next to kitchen cleaners.

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Kids’ Chores

Posted on August 12, 2010

Kids' ChoresHi, Jennifer:

I am trying to implement paid chores at our house. I’ve told the kids no more allowance and that they can earn money by doing extra jobs, but I’m having trouble coming up with amounts for each job, frequency of jobs, etc. How do you handle chores with your own children? My kids range in age from 5 to 13. Thanks in advance for any input you can give!

- Home Manager

Dear HM,

Our kids do daily chores for which they do not get paid, just because we believe that everyone who lives in our house should pitch in and help keep it nice. These unpaid responsibilities include making beds, tidying their rooms, and folding their laundry, in addition to mealtime chores like setting the table, loading the dishwasher, wiping down counters, taking out trash, etc.

We have a separate list of paid chores. These include weekly deep-cleaning tasks (vacuuming and mopping the entire house, scrubbing bathrooms, dusting furniture, mowing the lawn, etc.) and less-frequent or seasonal tasks (raking leaves, cleaning the garage, chopping firewood, baby-sitting, etc.). Pay for such chores will vary, depending on the size job, the age of the child, and his ability to do the work well. I suggest you take into consideration how much it would cost to hire a professional to do the same job. For instance, say a weekly maid service would charge you $100 to clean your house. If you divide that fee into the separate tasks the cleaning service would do, you might get a pay scale that looks like this: $100 = $15 to dust furniture + $5 to clean each of three bathrooms + $20 to deep clean the kitchen + $20 to vacuum bedrooms + $30 to sweep and mop living areas. If your child is capable of working independently and can do one or more of these tasks as thoroughly as the professionals would, then pay him accordingly. If he needs lots of help and training and supervision, pay him less until he is able to do the work on his own.

In our family, children five and under usually work beside Mom for nominal pay, if any: I might pay them a dollar or two to “help” me weed the garden or rake leaves. By the time they are six or seven, they begin to take a sincere interest in earning money: I’ll assign those kids a chore like cleaning baseboards or vacuuming under the cushions of the couch and let them work independently. Our kids who are twelve and older are especially motivated to earn money: We depend on them to do the bulk of the housecleaning and yard work and pay them well to do it, because (1) by that age, they can do just as thorough a job as a professional, so they really earn the money, (2) this is a relatively pain-free way to save for their future, since we insist they deposit 40% of everything they earn directly into their college savings accounts, and (3) it provides cash for clothes and entertainment, which they must pay for themselves once they turn twelve.

Happy training!
Jennifer

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Taming Untidy Toys

Posted on December 30, 2009

Hi Jennifer!

I have an organization question. What do you do with the kid’s toys? And what would you suggest when small space is an issue? We have enclosed our garage for a play area for the kids. When everything is in it’s place their is an open space on the floor yet, when they each get something out it covers the entire floor (which isn’t that big of an area – only 1 car size). I’m not always in there so there are times when the kids leave out what they played with and it is a mess – needless to say the clean up process takes awhile and it doesn’t get put up well unless I’m in there with them. So I guess it could be a training problem – and yet I still feel like it is partly a space problem. As with the rest of the house, I don’t think we have alot of stuff – in a larger house it would feel like we didn’t have alot. Yet in a smaller space it feels tight.

Thanks,
Feeling Crowded

Dear Crowded,
We don’t have a dedicated play area. We keep four big boxes full of Duplos, Lincoln Logs, train tracks, and wooden blocks in the front hall closet, which the kids play with either in the middle of the library or in the middle of the den, whichever we dictate, depending on who is playing and what everyone else is doing. The Duplos and Lincoln Logs are pretty standard, but the wooden blocks and trains occasionally get changed out for other toys that we normally keep in the school closet upstairs. I have clear bins up there for matchbox cars, potato heads, hand puppets, tea party supplies, baby dolls, etc. There’s an empty dormer closet that the younger ones sometimes use as a play area when we are doing school upstairs, but they only get one toy at a time, and the other toys are kept locked in the school closet.

Rebekah and Rachel keep their American Girl dolls in their rooms for anytime play, and each of the older boys keeps a box of his own Legos in his closet, which he is free to play with when schoolwork is done or after little ones go to bed at night. They are responsible to keep all that picked up when it’s not being played with, or it gets confiscated and moved upstairs for a time.

The secret for us is to only provide a very few choices at any one time… even when we’re upstairs, I don’t let Isaac and Daniel just go in the school closet and select from three shelves of toy bins. Instead, I’ll usually ask, “Do you want to play with cars or puzzles?” It also helps to make it easy to put away. For example, if the toys have to be stacked “just so” in order to fit in the box, they’re probably not going to be put away properly ever… If they can be tossed back in the bucket with plenty of room to spare, even Gabriel can help pick up and be proud of himself for doing so.

I hope some of this will help. Check out the suggestions on our toy page for more ideas. Don’t feel like you have to store all your toys in the play room. If you have space on a high shelf in the pantry, or under the master bed, and can rotate from there, then go for it. Fewer toys makes for less clutter and for more creative play, as well.

Happy organizing!
Jennifer

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Mailbag: Scheduling Question

Posted on May 24, 2008

ScheduleDear Jennifer,

     I am interested in how your daily schedule works. I have a 2 year old and an almost 5 year old whom I might be home schooling in the fall. My husband…is gone alot and so it is a bit overwhelming for me to think about [home schooling or adding to our family], although he is always eager to help when he is home. Thank You for your time and may God continue to richly bless you and your beautiful family.

- Busy Mom

Dear Mom,

     The children and I have found that we all get so much more accomplished when we stick to a routine. Even though few days ever go exactly according to our schedule, having an ideal helps keep us all on the same page. I found Terri Maxwell’s book, Managers of Their Homes to be an invaluable resource when first attempting to bring some sanity to our family’s schedule. You may want to check out the Maxwell’s website, www.titus2.com for information on how to order a copy.

     My schedule helps me deal with unexpected turns of events more efficiently. I can simply make any necessary adjustments and keep on truckin’. But you must remember that what works one year will probably not work the next, so you will need to tweak your schedule every so often to accommodate changing interests, ages, commitments and/or responsibilities.

     I know how difficult it can be when children are young and Daddy must work long hours away from home. We had many years of that when my husband was in medical school (we married before he finished his undergraduate degree and had our first child 9 1/2 months later. Doug worked three jobs and went to school part time in order to get through and keep a roof over our heads!) Let me encourage you, though, that the children are definitely worth the effort. What a blessing each one of ours has been to us. My oldest daughter was telling me earlier this week that she would want a large family regardless of the work and expense, just because she sees how good it is for kids’ character development to have to learn to get along and share with so many siblings — plus they really are each others’ best friends.
     If you could use further encouragement in your role as wife/ mother/ home maker, there are a couple of wonderful, (free!) magazines that I would highly recommend: one, published by Nancy Campbell, is Above Rubies, and the other, published by Mike and Debi Pearl, is No Greater Joy. Click on the imbedded links for more information.

Blessings,
Jennifer

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Mailbag: Keeping Bedrooms Clean

Posted on May 16, 2008

Hi, Jennifer.

How do you get teens to clean their rooms? This is a big struggle at our house right now. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks.

- Frustrated Mom

Dear Frustrated,

I believe that some children are naturally tidy and others are not. We have both kinds in our own family. I myself was a messy child but am an organized adult — so I try not to lose hope when I can’t find the floor of my child’s closet for all the wet towels he has dropped there. Still, those towels may mildew if they don’t find their way to the laundry, so how do we make that happen?

First, try to make it easy for your children to keep their bedrooms clean. Identify the problem areas, then think of a solution. If the dirty clothes pile up in the floor of the closet while the bathroom hamper stands empty, move the hamper to the closet. My oldest daughter would come in from college every afternoon and drop her backpack on the floor of her bedroom, so I put an empty blanket chest at the foot of her bed, and now she drops it in there (most of the time).

Second, you must clearly define your standard (and possibly even consider lowering it). I would love for my children to keep their rooms 100 percent clean, 100 percent of the time — but I’m content when they keep their rooms 85 percent clean with some consistently. I can ignore cluttered drawers if the beds are made neatly. When their bedrooms need a little extra attention, I give them a checklist of what needs to be done, so we both stay on the same page.

Third, be sure you are modeling good behavior yourself. I’m much more likely to get upset at the papers scattered all over my son’s desk if the files on my desk are overflowing, so while I ask him to clean his, I work on getting my own back in order. Our children learn much more from our example than from our instruction. I think the real reason my home is clean and organized today is that my mother was such an immaculate housekeeper when I was growing up.

And finally, come alongside your child — at every age — and give patient, loving help when they need it. Even teens get overwhelmed by what seems to be a hopelessly cluttered room. They feel stressed out and don’t know where to begin, just like younger children (and even mothers!) sometimes do. I still get a warm tingle down my spine when I think of all the times my mother rescued me when I got bogged down with the burden of tidying my room. She’d sit down at my desk and say sweetly, “How about I organize your drawers while you clean out your closet?” Then she’d visit with me while she separated paper clips from rubberbands. It was heavenly.

Blessings,
Jennifer

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