4/3/15: Sunday Basket Instructions by 365 (Week 1)

Week 1: Creating a Sunday Basket 

Reminders and To-Do Lists

Mail

NOTE - THIS IS FROM "40 WEEKS 1 WHOLE HOUSE CHALLENGE" - I DID NOT WRITE THIS

You can make a binder, a bag or a basket. It doesn’t matter. You just need a place for paper to land until you can “deal” with it. ONE place for all the mixed up paper.

Essentially, the Sunday Basket is EVERY piece of paper in your kitchen that you haven’t processed yet. It’s a BIG holding pile in a pretty basket. 

Right now your laundry basket IS your Sunday basket. Now, we are going to pull out items and create systems for each kind of paper. But until you can get to creating the system – your papers are SAFE in these baskets. You can hunt and peck and find what you need.

Let’s talk about what’s in there. Paper is hard, but once you conquer your paper, you will feel SO much more in control of your life!

This how to sort mail post will walk you step by step through how to tackle the mail backlog. Going forward, put all your mail that needs your attention and can wait until Sunday into theSunday basket right away.

Setting up your home office

• mailing supplies
• homework / office supplies
• greeting cards
• a filing system for papers
• addresses
• a place to put kids’ school work
• a place to store memorabilia and photos
• coupons
• a project area
• storage for binders of information

Kids’ school papers

The kitchen is ground zero, home base.

Consider having the following accessible:

I have ONE binder for each child’s artwork and papers that come home from school. Then, at the end of the year pull out things you want to save - report cards, artwork, awards, etc..

Have an office in the corner of the bedroom? That is too far away. You MUST have a home office in your kitchen.  Just the mental deep breath of accepting the kitchen as the hub of your home for food AND planning will be a relief.

Embrace it and make it work for you.

3/31/15: In the Beginning

I just totally started giggling when I saw that the last time I even peeked at this blog was back in 2014. Where does my determination go? Do I really find that I'm so busy I can't keep up on task like blogging? Well, here's my effort to try and knock that out of the ball park and turn over the page and start fresh. My husband will be truly amazed if I actually keep this up. 

Yesterday I spent the entire morning on Pinterest trying to figure out all the ideas of putting chore charts, allowance systems, organizing ideas and cleaning tips together so I can attack what I consider a tornado of a house. Now that I have all these fabulous ideas, it's time to put them together. I did purchase the items to make the Family Center. I went to Hobby Lobby and picked up some aluminum sheets, magnets, wood chips and a large cork board. Here's my idea of what I want to do:

Here's what the magnets and wood chips are for - mine will hopefully be a little more fancy:

Here were just a few of the ideas that I want to put on those disks:

- clean room, make bed
- get dressed, brush teeth, comb hair
- practice instrument
- read 20 minutes
- feed dog/cat
- Doggie Duty
- Kitty Clean-up
- homework
- empty garbage
- help with laundry
- take dirty clothes downstairs
- vacuum front room
- pick up trash in yard
- sweep kitchen
- set table for dinner
- help clear table after dinner
- do dishes/load dishwasher
- empty dishwasher
- vacuum couch
- wipe down bathroom
- clean out van
- wash cupboards
- wipe down microwave
- take out/bring in garbage can
- sport practice
- load dishes

For the top of the cork board, I thought it would be fun to add something that would allow the kids instant (monetary) gratitude. They won't be able to do these additional chores until all their daily chores are done. Here's the idea:

Here are the Work for Hire ideas that I came up with:
- Clean Refrigerator
- Kitchen Appliances
- Clean Kitchen Area
- Downstairs Bathroom
- Upstairs Bathroom
- Basket of Laundry
- Vacuum Hallway & Stairs
- Clean Downstairs Windows & Glass
- Clean Upstairs Windows & Glass
- Dust Entire House
- Wipe Down Kitchen Cabinets
- Deep Sweeping
- Sweep & Mop
- Yardwork

Last but not least, I ran over to the dollar store and picked up some baskets for the Work for Hire jobs. This way the kids will just grab a basket, follow the instructions on the front of the basket and go to it:

After the laundry, dishes, tidying up and general cleaning, hopefully I'll be able to post the photos of the completed Family Center tomorrow.

 ~ Debbie

You can't reach for anything new if your hands are full of yesterday's junk.