5 Things You can do to Get Organised

Sometimes you need to clear the decks to clear your head. That's what I did this week. I semi-wagged work (told my boss I needed some me time...I'm a lucky chick), then spent my day getting rid of crap I haven’t worn in years, cleaning out cupboards, and mass culling the kids wardrobes. The result?  The kids no longer fight over the last pair of black leggings, I can find my scissors, egg cups and glue sticks, I’ve cut my dressing time to about 10 mins, and weirdly, I feel about 5 kilos lighter.  Here’s a few ways you can drop 5 kilos without dieting!

1.     BUY BOXES – It’s the $2 shop again. A world of boxes in all shapes, colours and sizes.  Plastic or paper, choose at will and use them to store your kids’ mementos.  The stuff you can’t bear to throw away, and think they may want to look at when they’re 21. The bookmark they made you for mother’s day, the story they wrote in barely legible first-words writing, the teeth the fairy took to build her castle and the patient name-tags from when they had their tonsils out. Box it, label it store it. See ya later crapola, you’re gone from my sight and from my coffee table!

2.     CLEAR OUR YOUR WARDROBE – I did this.  It’s fabulous.  You can see what you have and what you need. For example, I need two new pairs of boots and a pair of flatties pronto!  It’s great for clearing the headspace and saving you time.  Look at what you’ve got, and if you like it, keep it.  If you can’t see yourself wearing it again, chuck it.  If you can’t see yourself wearing it again but you really, really like it, box it!  (see above).  Or bag it, in one of those vacuum seal bags that I can’t seem to use.  

3.     CLEAR OUT YOUR KITCHEN CUPBOARDS – Oh the relief this brings!  No more bread crumbs in the cupboard where the toaster sits.  No greasy ring marks from five varieties of oil.  No drink bottles without lids, cups without saucers, or muffin tins that will never release their contents.  Candles, lighters, toothpicks, bubble mixture, straws, label writing machines, the labels that go with them, thumb tacks, blue tack and the fuzzy little stickers that go on the bottom of your bar stools – you finally know where they are! YAY!

4.     PAY BILLS & MAKE CALLS – Sooooo tedious. Soooo time consuming.  But it has to be done.  Set aside 2-3 hours.  Get your pile of paperwork, your computer and your phone.  Pay what you can online, call whoever you have to, sit on hold and deal with it.  Activate your bloody new FlyBuys card, change your healthcare provider, send the enrolment forms to 5 high schools your kids won't go to, and get the childcare rebate you didn't know you could claim. Stamp them all at once and file them, finished, done, finito!

5.     GET A NOTICE BOARD – I forgot something this week. Two things actually.  Really, monumental, embarrassing things I should never have forgotten.  I have a smartphone calendar with little alarms to remind me about stuff, and yet I still forget because I have SO MUCH stuff to remember.  And because I never know the date, just the day. The easiest way for me to remember stuff is for it to be smack-bang in front of my face.  I use a whiteboard marker on my kitchen splashback to make notes to self, and as I spend so much time in the kitchen, whatever is on that wall is in my head.  Obviously making food for the lady with newborn twins didn’t make it on to the wall. Neither did the two catch up swimming lessons.  They were on the high tech email/phone which system I ignored because I didn’t know what date it was!