HOW TO :: Avoid post-holiday chaos (and blues!)

Yes I have already done a 'HOW TO' post this month, but I decided to give you two for the price of one as school holidays are almost upon us! This post is actually Part B to my previous post on how to be better prepared for a family road trip, but applies to any kind of travel - business, pleasure, plane, train or automobile.

One of the biggest contributors to post-holiday blues is coming back to the drudgery of your normal daily life and all the undesirable tasks you have to do. If things have been frantic before you left and you are coming home to a messy house and smelly fridge, this is definitely going to be compounded. Here are a few simple tips to help ease the transition from holiday bliss into daily routine, by avoiding chaos and stress.

Images from freedigitalphotos.net 

Planning for the trip itself is obviously very important, but so is planning for your return, and this is unfortunately what many people fail to do. Having things all sorted and organised for the first few days after you get back home will extend the enjoyment of your holiday too.

1. Tidy the house - don't leave piles of clothes on the bed that didn't fit into the suitcase, and do a general tidy up around the house so that it is a pleasant space to return to
2. Don't leave dirty dishes in the sink or dishwasher
3. Have enough clean clothes, work shirts, school uniforms etc washed and ready for when you get back so that there is no desperate rush to do laundry
4. If you are going straight back to work or school, have the bags packed with the correct files, books, homework, or sporting equipment required for the first day back
5. If you will be away for more than a few days, clean out the fridge and dispose of any items which will expire while you are away 
6. Consider ordering some groceries online and getting them delivered on your return, so that you have some basics to get you through the first day back without needing to rush to the supermarket
7. Remember to empty all the rubbish bins, and place the big bins out for collection

Do you have any other great tips on how to ease into daily routine post-holiday? Please share them in the comments below - I would love to hear from you!

www.homeandlifeorganising.com.au

HOW TO :: Be better prepared for a family road trip

School holidays are just around the corner, and if yours is one of the lucky families planning a road trip, then these tips are just for you! Whether you are just taking a quick day trip, or heading off for a couple of weeks, better preparation and less stress will make for a much happier family experience.

The key is not having a rigid schedule and trying to ensure nothing can go wrong – rather it’s actually acknowledging that things can and do go wrong at times, but you can be flexible and equipped to deal with unexpected changes without the wheels falling off - figuratively speaking of course!

Plan Ahead:

• After you have plotted your route using your GPS / Google Maps / map book, check with your local road network authority, as close to your departure date as possible, for any road works or events which may cause road closures or delays along your route (eg. http://alerts.vicroads.vic.gov.au/)
• Plan frequent stops along the way at locations which provide the facilities you require – play equipment, baby change facilities, restaurant, petrol station, convenience store, ATM etc
• Check the weather forecast for the days you are travelling on, not just the days you will be at your destination, so that you can factor in longer travel time if it’s raining or snowing, or extra stops if it’s very hot
• Time your journey to avoid getting stuck in peak hour traffic when travelling through other main towns or cities
• Confirm your booking details and time restrictions which may apply for check-in and check-out, so that you can plan your arrival and departure times accordingly. You don’t want to arrive at your destination at 11am only to be told your room/campsite will only be available after 2pm! 

Things to remember:

• Charge the batteries for the portable DVD player, iPad, camera, phone etc, and pack the chargers and car adapters in an easily accessible place
• Make sure your travel insurance is up-to-date and covers you for the location you are travelling to, and any activities you plan to do while you’re there
• Make sure your car insurance is up-to-date and covers you for the location you are travelling to, terrain you are travelling on, and any other drivers
• Make sure your RACV / NRMA (or other roadside assistance provider) membership is up-to-date
• Make sure you have working tools and jumper cables, and check your spare tyre 
• Pack an ‘Emergency Kit’ in the car – First aid kit, water, toilet paper, tissues, wet wipes, non-perishable food, nappies if required, a towel, a change of clothing, and emergency contact details in case you lose your wallet or phone

Most importantly, remember...

www.homeandlifeorganising.com.au

Neat vs Organised

Spring is here! Yippee!! And with Spring comes a surge of motivation for people to Spring Clean and organise their homes. Here is a little nugget of advice - have a realistic expectation of what you are trying to achieve.

One of the comments I hear the most from people when I tell them what I do for a living is "your house must be beautiful / perfect / look like a show home", to which I always respond "I wish!". A family lives in my home - more specifically, a tornado disguised as a 5 year old boy lives in my home. And I have much better things to do with my time than follow him around with a vacuum cleaner all day. So no, my home does not resemble a magazine spread. It is, however, organised.

"Neat" does not necessarily equate to "organised". You can have a very neat pile of papers on the corner of your nice clean desk, but that pile could contain everything from your child's artwork to an overdue bill that you've forgotten about - and is therefore not organised. Being organised is about having a system in place to allow you to live and work well in your space. This may not look very neat and tidy, but that's ok, as long as it serves you well. I have worked with very creative clients and artists who think very differently to how I do, and their "organised" looks very different to mine, but it serves them well (and much better than my way would work for them) as they know where everything is and can work well in their space.

So as long as you have a place for everything, and everything is in its place (most of the time!) you're doing well. Don't strive for unattainable goals - it's just disheartening.  Have a Happy Spring :)

www.homeandlifeorganising.com.au

PRODUCT REVIEW :: 'Rokii' from Bower & Beyond

I had the pleasure of going to Kids In Style for the first time this year, and discovered all sorts of fabulous new products. Today I would like to introduce you to my favourite find - 'rokii' from Bower&Beyond.

I love this product so much I even contemplated having another baby just so that I could buy one of them! It's everything you could ever want in a piece of baby gear: versatile, adjustable, multi-purpose, sturdy, easy to clean (yes please!!), environmentally friendly, and soooo gorgeous! No wonder it won a Good Design Award last year!

"rokii is a sleek rocking egg chair that morphs into a ride-on toy, for fluid functionality from newborn through to preschool"

This was very quickly added to my list of items to recommend to expecting and new mothers. As my clients and readers of my book will know, finding clever products which can fulfill multiple functions is very important to me (this saves having to buy, store, maintain, and ultimately get rid of, multiple other items) as well as finding natural, non-toxic and environmentally friendly products. With the rokii egg containing no BPA, phthalates, or PVC, the base being made out of natural bamboo, and the full kit serving the purpose of 5 different products - this certainly ticks all of those boxes. 

One additional benefit which I love, is that even if you have a preschooler and a newborn, rokii can entertain both. Often products which "grow" with your baby, only serve one purpose at any one time. Think about a cot which converts to a toddler bed - it's either a cot or a toddler bed, it cannot be used interchangeably as both (unless you hold the world record with an allen key). rokii goes from horizontal newborn rocker to preschool ride-on in just a few minutes. I think this image from their website says it best...

*Please note - this is not a sponsored post and I have no affiliation with Bower&Beyond

www.homeandlifeorganising.com.au

HOW TO :: 5 Little tasks to make a Big difference

I am very pleased to introduce a new monthly feature called "HOW TO". Each month I am going to do a post on something quick, easy and cheap (usually free) that you can do to get more organised. This first one is about 5 little things you can do to make a big difference, and hopefully the results will motivate you to do more than 5 things!

Start by doing one of each - it should take you about 5 minutes - at the same time each day (first thing in the morning, after school drop off, just before bed - when ever works best for you), and when you have established that routine you can then ramp it up to do a few of each, or one of each at both the start and end of the day. Choose just one area to work in for each 5 step exercise - the kitchen bench, the kids' room, your desk, etc - it will help concentrate your efforts and make more of a visible difference.

The idea behind this is to only choose items which can quickly be actioned, not items which you need to think long and hard about before deciding what to do. The more difficult decision-making process is the topic of a forthcoming blog post, so just stick with the quick and easy stuff for now.


Step 1: Get rid of it

If there is anything in your chosen area which you have thought "I really should throw that away", now is your chance. Find one thing which needs to be put in the rubbish or recycling bin, and do it. Also, if there is an item which has been sitting around for months waiting to be fixed and there is no chance of you getting around to doing it soon, and especially if no one has missed it, just throw it out.

Step 2: Put it away

I know it's much easier to just put something on your desk than in the filing cabinet, or on the chair instead of in the wardrobe, but this is how piles of clutter can quickly develop. Again just choose one thing in your chosen area which is not in its right place and which you know has a proper home, and go put it away. If it doesn't have a proper home or you don't know what to do with it, leave it - remember we are just looking for items which can be actioned quickly.

Step 3: Do it

Make that phone call, send that email, book that appointment, change that lightbulb - choose one quick task which has been hanging around on your "to do" list and get it done.

Step 4: Schedule it

If it is not a quick task that can be done as part of this exercise, then schedule it in your diary or calendar. A "to do" without a "when" will never get done, so schedule it in and allocate the time required to get it done.

Step 5: Straighten it

That very large pile of paper on your desk is not going to be solved in this quick exercise, so straighten it up into a neat pile and straighten up everything else on your desk, and the visual effect will instantly be pleasing and less chaotic for your brain to process while sitting there. The same applies to any other area you are working on - if you just neaten up the piles of clutter it will make it much easier for you to work through your quick 5 steps the next time round. Plus you are less likely to just dump something down in a neat area than you are in a messy area.

If you stick with these 5 steps it will soon become habit and you will action these items immediately, instead of waiting for piles to form which will need to be addressed later. Let me know how you get on with this exercise - I would love to hear your feedback.

images courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net

It's all about boundaries

I have concluded, based on my experience with many different clients over the last 2 and a half years, that being disorganised is all about boundaries - either not establishing them when there are none, or not respecting them when there are.

Think about a wardrobe - it is a specific fixed size, with it's physical structure setting the boundaries. If it was designed to comfortably accommodate 20 hanging garments, but you have stuffed 50 in there, then you are not respecting the boundaries of the wardrobe, and in fact you are not respecting the garments either, because they have no room to "breathe" and are getting all wrinkled and are not being worn because you can't even see what you've got in there any more, and when you can't be bothered trying to force another item in there it gets chucked on the closest piece of furniture or horizontal surface. (Same goes for the overstuffed shed, kitchen drawers, toy box..... etc).

Your day is the same - the fixed length of 24 hours sets the boundaries, but because they are not tangible or visible, it's even more difficult to respect them.

Then there are all sorts of things that have no boundaries at all, and if you do not establish some for yourself you are going to be in big organising trouble! There is no limit to the flow of information, entertainment, work, requests, demands, email, junk mail, and so on. If you were not able to set (and stick to) boundaries with all this coming your way, you would end up being consumed by the internet and cease to be a functioning member of society! Obviously this is an extreme case, but I'm sure you get my point. Not operating within appropriate boundaries which you set for yourself and your lifestyle can lead to a frustrating overflow of stuff cluttering up your mind, your time, and your to-do list.

To use boundaries effectively, start big and break the area down into smaller and smaller areas, until you have well-defined homes for everything. If you have a place for everything, it's much easier to have everything in its place. Your actual home is the first boundary, which is broken down into smaller functional zones (the different rooms) which contain appropriate things, and then those rooms are further broken down into smaller areas (wardrobes, kitchen cabinets etc). Within those you can use drawer dividers, shelf dividers, storage boxes, or other tools to establish further boundaries or specific homes for items (for example a box for batteries in the kitchen "junk drawer").

The concept of boundaries does seem restrictive at first, but really they provide a framework within which to operate, so you know exactly what goes where, and what you have in each specific zone. And respecting those boundaries means items are better looked after and much easier to keep to organised.

So what boundaries can you set in your home and life to get more organised? I would love to hear from you!

www.homeandlifeorganising.com.au

Information Overload

I have just returned from 4 very busy days at our annual AAPO conference, immediately followed by a day at the Kids in Style / Life in Style trade expo. I'm not going to lie - my brain hurts and I'm exhausted!

I absolutely loved the conference! I was on the committee which organised it so it was great to see all our hard work come to fruition, and I also presented for the first time at the conference. There is something wonderfully satisfying about being completely immersed in all things organising for 4 days! We had some incredible speakers and I learnt soooo much, but I have definitely been subjected to information overload.

If you have ever experienced anything like that before, remember that organising your thoughts and information in your head is very much like organising your physical belongings. You can't hold on to everything, otherwise things get too cluttered and messy in there, and it becomes difficult to access what you need. Rather, assess what is useful and meaningful and find a home for it, and the rest of it will either be discarded, or placed in storage for later reference. My first task tomorrow is to review all my notes from the past 5 days and do exactly that.

In the coming weeks I'll be sharing with you some of the fantastic lessons I learnt and products I discovered, and I just know you are going to love them, almost as much as I do!

www.homeandlifeorganising.com.au