I need help.
Serious help.
I seem to have a bit of an organization problem, as in, I am freakishly unorganized.
This is embarrassing, but for interventions sake I'm going to publicly reveal my weakness in hope that somebody out there can give me some ideas to help me get my life in order!
So here it goes:
I get appointment cards from the doctor or dentist and lose them.
Sometimes I just forget about the appointments altogether until the office calls me the day before to remind me.
Then I have to scramble to rearrange my whole schedule to fit in an appointment I forgot about.
This goes for car appointments, hair appointments, visiting teaching appointments, kindergarten registration appointments, you name it, I forget it.
Another huge problem: I have no laid out system for the mail.
I just grab it at random times and either leave it in the car or drop it on the table of chaos (pictured below) where it gets lost, buried, turned into scrap paper or forgotten.
This has resulted in many failing moments that I'm not proud of, such as the time when Taber's mom sent him a birthday card with birthday money, making a special effort to get it here on time and I lost it in the pile of chaos. I found it a month later but I felt pretty bad when his mom was trying to figure out how it got lost in the mail. Not lost in the mail, lost in the hands of captain chaos, (a.k.a. me!)
Or the time when I got a notice saying we needed to send in a check to renew our car registration by a certain date or our registration would expire. Yeah, um, found that one a month late too. fail.
I have honest intentions but without a good system of organization in place everything just gets jumbled together and I can't seem to stay on top of it.
The big wake up moment happened on Wednesday.
I was rushing Teya to preschool and when I got there I noticed that all the other kids were unloading bikes and helmets at the drop off. When I pulled up Teya's teacher asked if I had gotten the paper work about the Roll-a-thon and if Teya was going to participate.
I had no idea what she was talking about. I'm sure Teya did bring home the paperwork and my guess is it was buried somewhere on the table of doom.
Teya asked where her bike was.
I told her mommy forgot it and maybe we should just skip preschool that day.
Tears welled up in her eyes.
The mommy guilt was crushing.
My cheeks were burning red with embarrassment and disappointment in myself.
I was that mom, the mom that forgot. The mom that's not organized, and it didn't feel good.
I had to be at a Dr. appointment for Cam in 30 minutes but I hoped it was enough time to remedy the situation. I parked the car, ran inside the school and filled out all the permission slips. Then I ran home, grabbed Teya's bike and helmet, labeled them, and rushed them back to the school. Then I ran to the Dr. appointment, got Cam's vaccinations, and sped back to the school to watch Teya and her classmates roll on in the roll-a thon.
I'm glad I was able to salvage the situation but it could've been avoided.
I need to get organized.
Somebody, anybody, please help me!
What do you to to stay on top of appointments, paperwork, bills, callings, and kid's schedules? Now that I have 4 other people's lives to coordinate I need to be on my A game. If you have ideas, even if you don't think they're great, I'm sure they're better than my junk table system so please send them my way. Please oh please! Thanks!
17 comments:
Hey Becca!
Baskets are great! Get several for that table of yours and label them school stuff, bills to be paid, things to file, appt. reminders etc. When you get the kids to bed or during nap time go through them and throw out all of the junk mail right away. Open the bills to be paid and throw away the outside envelope and put the bill with the send off envelope. Go through your appt stuff and school stuff and write all of your appts. and school stuff on a calendar right away and hang up by your desk or table. If I don't write it on the calendar I forget it. Throw away the reminders and cards after you write it on the calendar. It helps to have a designated time to do this daily or every other day, that way you don't miss anything. You can also put it in your goggle calendar. Hope this helps. Loves and Hugs!
Mom
P.S.
Make sure you take everything out of the kids backpack as soon as they get home and put in designated basket to check later and don't forget to make it a habit to check your calendar every morning.
a calendar is a must! hang one up right above that table. You can try one of those Mom calendars that has tabs/columns for each person in the family (like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Moms-Family-Calendar-Sandra-Boynton/dp/tags-on-product/0761157379)
Junk Mail: Place a trash can and (if you've got one if not get one) a paper shredder right under that table (keep it unplugged unless using to keep those little fingers safe) that way you can take care of junk mail as soon as it comes in!
Bills: the very best invention is online bill pay. If you have bills that are the exact same every month then set up automatic payments so that you don't even have to think about it. I pay our mortgage, cell phone, rent, and cable bills this way because they are always the same. That still leaves me with a few bills I have to pay but I still use online bill pay so I don't even have to use envelops and stamps.
I still end up with a pile of mail but it's a much smaller pile than yours! :) and like your friend said, baskets help.
This is my not-so-organized-but-it-works for me method. (: I put all the reminders/bills/appt cards on my fridge. Then I put them in my phone calendar with a reminder ring that goes off before hand. I figure I open the fridge about a zillion times a day so I look at the stuff going on and remind myself and my phone is my backup. The key is to put the papers high enough that the kids can't get them. (: Then, when I've completed that event or whatever I just take it off the fridge and throw it away. Don't beat yourself up too much about forgetting the roll-a-thon though. We all do it. Just last Sunday I totally forgot that Parker had the talk in sharing time...and I'm in the primary presidency so I really should have remembered. Yep, that was embarrassing. (:
I put EVERYTHING in my phone calendar with reminders. I like your mom's idea of the baskets and then i would suggest once you go thru each basket write it on a calendar but put it in your phone as well. I COULD NOT live with out my calendar on my phone and its reminders stuff for appts, b-days, lessons, reminder to call someone, reminder to bring something, reminder of an event, etc, etc...Even though I write it down, with out the beeping reminder I would still forget half my stuff ;) And don't be too hard on yourself, everyone has their strengths and you my friend have MANY of them!!! love you!
Oh girl, I feel you. I am THE WORST. I wish I had a remedy but I can see this roll-a-thon situation in my future. My husband is super organized and so I feel bad that he gets to deal with Tornado mess over here. Anyway--This thought came to my mind when I saw "Extreme Couponing" in TLC...holy crap! Have you seen that?! I just kept thinking...there is NO FREAKING WAY I would ever be able to do that because I would have to be super Type A and not as "artistic" (as I like to call it).
You have a lot on your plate with 3 kids--you're no doubt doing a great job. From one tasmanian devil to the other--Don't sweat it. :)
I'm bad w/ reminder cards too! But if I make myself put it into my phone the second I leave the Dr's office (or whatever place) I'm usually good I'll even put a reminder alarm on it a couple hours early or the day before to remind me of my appt! It's saved me many times. Usually when I don't do it, I totally regret it later.
As for the mail business, I'm really bad too. Gaylon will bring our mail home & put it on our table which is easily cluttered. And many times I don't even realize he brought it in. Luckily, I pay all our bills online & each month I write down all the bills due & their amounts in my "bill book" and even on a calendar. I've switched to online billing instead of a paper copy for almost all our bills. So usually we're just mostly getting junk mail. That helps!
But I need help w/ cleaning & staying on top of daily chores like laundry, dishes & well, everything else! Haha. I'd rather be sewing or playing w/ my kids--and my house definitely shows it. HA!!
Ha! I was thinking blogger should have a "like" button, I will have to add that, too. :)
First, let me say that I forget things a lot, too. We kind of have a lot going on! One time I forgot it was show-and-tell and didn't find out until I picked up Kenz from preschool and she totally broke down crying because she was the "ONLY ONE" who didn't have something. Uugghh!! I remember experiencing that as a kid and I swore I would never make my kids go through it. Well, guess I had to learn that moms aren't perfect, including me! I felt terrible though.
Ok as far as organizing goes... with mail, I don't keep it around, it drives me nuts. As soon as I get it from the mailbox, I go through it real quick and throw it away, unless it's a coupon I want to keep or a document I need to file. I have a drawer in my kitchen with one of those paper drawer-y things (haha, a file tray? I have no idea what they're called) and I keep coupons or papers I think I will need soon in there. When it gets full, I dump old things. As for the to-be-filed stuff, I put it on top of the file cabinet and file it every once in a while. I hardly save anything though since most stuff is online.
With appointments, I have to put stuff in my phone or I WILL forget it!
Alright, glad to know other people forget things, too! We're
I couldn't live without our calendar. Everything goes on that-including emptying out the preschool folder as soon as she gets home so I could write those things on the calendar.
In addition to writing appointments on the calendar, I also keep the appt. cards on the fridge so the phone # is handy if I have to reschedule.
The calendar is on the fridge-so it's looked at multiple times/day. I think I use the calendar so much because that's what my mom always used growing up. We would write stuff on her calendar as we got older so she wouldn't forget.
Good luck!
Can't wait to see a post on what you do!
ditto to moms comment. but first you should go to the store and buy cute organizing caddy(s) that will get you excited label them like mom say. make a game out of it with the girls or just get em excited about putting the mail in different boxes with labels. get a fun calendar! you can even go to shutterfly.com and make a personalized one which are a lot more fun. you could also invest in a franklin covey planner (i think those are the best) and keep everything in that thing and look at it every night before going to bed and clean it out every week. also you can set an alarm on your iphone to remind you about organizing the mail and other bills and stuff...i should probably take my own advice cause i am not too great about getting things done on time i always think "i will remember that and deal with it later"! hope that helps!
p.s i only read the beginning of moms comment so if this was already mentioned just ignore it :)
I think I had an anxiety attack just reading your post! You poor poor thing....I don't have any kids and yet I feel completely disorganized....not a fun feeling....On the good side I am so glad to know you are human too-so often I read your posts and wish I had it all together like you do and you always remind us all that we all are working on something...I've been dabbling with trying to get more organized and I LOVE the fly lady system by marla cilley. check out her site at www.flylady.net- I LOVE her book "Sink Reflections". Just this week I created a "control journal" I'll email you what I put together.
No words of wisdom here - just wanted to let you know that I can SO relate. I am Queen of Disorganizationville and this whole post was making me hyperventilate because I could see myself doing this exact same thing in a few years.
I gotta get organized while time is still on my side!
Being a mom is tough. Hats off to u sista Becca at trying to get more organized. I just want to say that I really admire my wife (first and foremost) and all the moms out there. I like all of the ideas so far. It looks like a common theme is striving to schedule things on a calendar of some sort right when an appointment is made. I do the same on my phone and some times add reminders to myself the day before about the appointment if I need to get anything ready for that appointment. Not waiting is the biggest hardship...thinking that we'll get to it later. Momz idea of some kind of filing system would be great too. Good luck Becca.
I've done the same thing -- I once showed up to Isaac's pre-k class and all of the students were dressed up as nursery rhyme characters, except for Isaac. And that's just one instance. I'm sure there are more. As he (and the other kids) get older, the stakes get a little higher -- think forgotten term projects -- and so I've definitely had to get better and at being organized. Each of my kids now has a two-pocket folder that I put their school papers in. I also have one for bills, etc. Then I try and remember to look in the folders. :) I also write important stuff on a calendar in my kitchen. For a while this year we had a white board we used for a weekly calendar that had everyone's names listed on one side, and the days of the week along the top. At the beginning of the week we went through our schedules. The white board came down when we got the house ready, but I'm totally planning on putting it back up after we move. :)
Flylady.net You can sign up for emails that gives you a project to do every day. First you do a 30 day schedule and once you do that you can work on the daily emails. It has helped me a ton in getting organized.
Taylor recommended a life-changing book that he learned about at work called Getting Things Done by David Allen. I tried it and it was life changing. Read it once to understand the program, and then again to start implementing it step by step. Once you understand the program, find a sitter for the kids for a couple of mornings in a row so you can clean up and get the system started. General Mills actually gave Taylor two days off to do just the same thing as part of a "Getting Things Done" training program. There are too many details to list here, but the underlying philosophy is that you need to get your "to do" list and calendar out of your head/inbox/kitchen table pile (doesn't everyone have one?) and into a calendar/alphabetized file/to-do list/project folder. Spend time each day processing this stuff. Because when all your stuff to do is floating around in your head/piles around the house that equals major stress. Good luck Becca!
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