For this household “Back to School” is an event more about getting organized than anything else. How else will we survive not being able to sleep in until 7:30 every morning?
I am not naturally an organized person. In trying to become one, I’ve tried self-help books, lists, electronic calendars, paper calendars, schedules, you name it. I have a snazzy Franklin Covey calendar (empty), a Droid X complete with task lists, organizational apps and a Google Calendar right on the home screen (useless because I despise inputting data using a touch screen. I mean, DESPISE), and a white board big enough to sleep on hanging in my kitchen (blank). Stuff accumulates – old papers, old clothes, books unreturned to the library – and I don’t even notice until it’s a full-on TLC Hoarding disaster (okay, it’s not THAT bad).
It’s a real effort for me to keep on top of things in small amounts – daily loads of laundry, Friday Filing days in my home office, a housekeeping schedule. I am addicted to the sense of accomplishment that comes from conquering household mountains. This is not a very efficient way to run a household.
So, back in the spring I started keeping a binder as my kind of my portable office. Over the course of the summer I’ve actually kept at it pretty consistently, planning my days every evening – and sometimes as much as a week in advance.
To you this might seem a small thing, but to me, I see the consistency of my using a plain old (although beautiful) red leather notebook and a three-hole punch to keep track of our needs and schedules as a glimmer of hope that I might actually be turning things around and getting – dare I say it? – good at my job as a stay-at-home mom/freelance writer. I am unable to subscribe to others’ plans for organization, but, happily, it looks like I’m fully capable of coming up with one on my own.
Now that I’ve found a way to function week-to-week instead of day-to-day, maybe I can actually start training to conquer a REAL mountain (since I’ve scheduled time for exercise several times a week).
In case you’re anything like me and need a simpler solution for organizing your household for free (or close to it) using materials you have on hand, I put together a daily planning page inspired by one I found on the Simple Mom blog. They’re only slightly different, but even Simple Mom’s daily docket was a little complicated in some ways and not complicated enough in others, so I changed it up to fit my own needs and I have been using it ever since. I thought other people might like it too.
Click to download the planning page, then just hit Ctrl+P and get out your three-hole punch.
It’s not a fool-proof solution to the chaos that will surely take hold a week (if we’re lucky) into Diva’s first year of public school, but hey, it’s a start.
Happy Back to School! And best of luck.
