January Challenge: Assessing & Prioritizing Time

Over the past week we've spent time tracking our time - seeing where exactly we're wasting it. How'd you do? I had an unusual week, so I feel like I didn't get any really great insight. But, nonetheless, I did waste a lot of time...so I guess maybe it is insightful after all.

On Monday I had the day off, so I spent the day shopping with Chris and then planning and doing school related things for the rest of the day. Waste of time? Besides the shopping, I'd say so, yes. A lot of the school related things are probably truly unnecessary, but they're getting done now, rather than later.

On Tuesday, Chris and I went out for dinner after work and then came home and decided to play board games together rather than get anything else done. Pro: I spent some much needed time with Chris. Con: I got nothing else accomplished that night.

On Wednesday through Friday, every day after work I was consumed by Netflix, watching United States of Tara, with Chris. We fully watched seasons 2 & 3. Wasted time, again, by watching TV. But, I spent the time with Chris. On Friday I came home from school earlier than usual because I'm now sick with a head cold. Due to my sickness, my weekend time off didn't really help me accomplish anything. We did decide to go visit relatives last minute on Saturday, and spent the whole day with them...so on Saturday, I accomplished nothing. And on Sunday, I was feeling my worst, so I did some laundry (SUCCESS!), lots of blogging (I wrote some guest posts for another blog and this post), and school related planning for the week.

Overall, I've realized I'm super lazy and I'm not following my schedules and routines that I've previously established for myself. Time to reevaluate. It's a new time in my life with a new job and no schooling (college courses). It's a new year. I need to decide what is important to me and how I'm going to ensure that I'm happy at home.

This week we're going to look at what we consider to be important to ourselves. How exactly would you like to be spending your time? If you didn't download this week's printable last week, go ahead and do so below. Write down the things you'd like to spend your time doing on a daily/weekly basis.

how I'd like to spend my time

I spend a lot of my time at school. I go in early and stay until 5:30 on most days. It's my choice to do this, and eventually it will cut down as I start to feel good about how my room looks. (I'm still working on the environment and organizing.) I chose not to include school on my time tracker because I know I'm not wasting time there. But now that I'm thinking about it, if I were to leave school even an hour earlier, I'd have more time to do things at home that I want to do. Chris gets home from work around 5:30, so I'm not missing out on time at home with him when I leave at 5:30 each day (I luckily only live 1/2 a mile down the street from my school).

My priority worksheet is below. I don't have a lot that I'd like to do at home each day/week. I listed everything, and then (in the right column) numbered each task/experience in the order of importance. I only wrote down things I want to do. I didn't write down anything that I felt I should do. The things I have to do will be placed into my daily schedule accordingly - these are all things I want to do because they're important to me.

I've been doing a great job with my first priority - spending time with Chris. Planning for school hasn't been an issue - but I do spend too much time doing this. I feel like I don't get to spend enough time blogging during the week. Cleaning and organizing my home hasn't been something I've been very good at lately, but I want to do it and get back into a habit/routine with it. I love being online and reading the blogs I subscribe to, checking my email, searching Pinterest...so I don't want to give it up. But it needs to be focused on a lot less in my day/week, so it's lower on the priority scale. And then lastly, I have reading (books and magazines). I never get to do this. I have so many magazines that end up going in the trash, unread, because I'm months behind. I want to read more, so I think it's important to put it on my list.

Assess what's important to you and prioritize the items on your list. I will be back on Wednesday (this week) with a post on creating schedules and routines. Save this worksheet - you'll need it for Wednesday's post. (You may also want to save the time tracking worksheet as well.)

If you have any questions, please comment or email! (Make sure your email is linked to your profile or leave it in the comment if you'd like a response!)

where I'm linking up this post

Have 5 Minutes? Clear Out Your Food Storage Containers

One of my biggest issues in my kitchen is food storage containers. They're a pain because of all of the different sizes of container and lids. Too much to keep track of an organize.

So, with it being right after the holidays, go clean out your food storage containers. Find those that belong to others and put them in a bag to be returned to friends and family. Take the time to match up all of the lids with containers to make sure everything has a partner. Throw out any that are scorched from one too many times in the microwave. Have too many? Donate them or give them to your child's teacher.

(On a side note: I LOVE food storage containers for my classroom. They're great for storage, art projects, snacks, art supply storage, etc. I happily buy sandwich meat in reusable containers each week so that I can save the containers.)

Be realistic about how many to keep as well. I realized I had 10 too many tiny containers. (What would I really use them for?) So I decided to take them into school to use with dice. As much as I didn't want to "get rid" of them since they're brand new, I knew I'd never use them. Time for a new use.

Once you figure out what to keep and ditch, find a way to organize the containers and lids so you can put them back in the cupboard. I have a food storage organizer from the Container Store and love it. I'm short at just 5'2", and we don't have many cupboards, so I needed something to hold containers and lids so that I could easily access them.

Good luck!

Wonderful Words for Wednesday: Organizing

Source: martawrites.com via Tiffany on Pinterest

Source: usethegooddishes.blogspot.com via Tiffany on Pinterest

I've got nothing for today. Just these two awesome quotes. My husband and I went out to dinner last night and then spent the night playing board games. I love love. =]

Be back tomorrow with another "have 5 minutes?" quick organization task and some classroom organization that could be easily transferred over to your home.

P.S. How are you doing with your time tracking? Finding things you didn't realize? I spent 6 hours on Monday education blog surfing, education Pinterest surfing, printing, cutting, and laminating. Blah. So much time gone...all for my love of lamination. ha!

Have 5 Minutes? Declutter Your Correspondence

Christmas has come and gone...so quickly. Where did December go?

Have 5 minutes to spare? Declutter your Christmas/Holiday correspondence.

Gather all of your holiday cards, newsletters, and photos that you received from friends and family and take 5 minutes to go through it. Recycle/throw away any correspondence you don't intend on keeping.

If you decide to keep the photo cards, designate a place for them. Don't just throw them in the closet next to the photo box. Put them in the photo box - yes, take that extra 10 second step.

I would have a picture of this declutter project for you, to show an example, but as soon as cards come in the mail, I write down who it's from and then trash it. Most cards come with glitter now - something that's not allowed in our home (both Chris and I despise it...it's messy, after all) - so we read it, and then throw it.

If you're a sentimental person, designate a spot for the cards. Create a system or display of some sort that allows you to enjoy what you're saving, rather than storing and forgetting about it.

Good luck!

January Challenge: Prioritizing & Scheduling

I am so excited to begin our year long journey through monthly challenges to get organized in 2012. I need this just as much as everyone else does.

Over the past few months, I have received tons of emails and comments asking me for advice on where to start with organization, how to keep up, and where to find the time. Going through a change in my life right now, I need to re-prioritize my life so that I can continue to keep my home clean and organized so I feel at peace.

This month's challenge will focus on the following topics:

• Where does your time go? We'll track our time for a week, seeing where it all goes.
• What is important to you, and how would you like to spend your time? After tracking our time, we'll prioritize what we're doing and decide what we'd like to add or do more of.
• Creating schedules and routines. We'll figure it out so you can "get it all done" once and for all.
  
• Planning out tasks and projects with lists and by delegating.
• List making 101. I'll give you ideas on how to create your to-do lists so they get conquered rather than making you feel overwhelmed.
• Anything else I decide to add as we tread through the challenge.

Sound good?

If you'd rather not participate in this challenge because it's not a specific home organization task oriented challenge, that's okay. But you may just like what I have up my sleeve. =]

Week 1: Tracking Our Time

Okay, seriously...I just had 2 weeks off and feel like I accomplished very little. My home is still a mess, my curriculum is still unplanned, and I'm feeling anxious with school starting again on Tuesday. Anyone else have a similar feeling?

I know where my time went - to the internet. Teaching blogs, home blogs, Pinterest, Facebook, etc. I wish I would have started this challenge 2 weeks ago so I could have logged and seen how much time I wasted each day on these things. I know exactly how I would have liked to have spent my time - planning, cleaning my home, organizing, creating printables for my Etsy store, and purging junk to donate or sell.


Starting today, I'm going to track my time for one week. I'm not going to be super picky and write down every single thing I'm doing. I really just want to know how I'm spending the majority of my time. I'm sure Pinterest will show up more than I'd like to admit.

I challenge YOU to join me. I have created two free printables for you to track your time. The first one is for tracking your time with a weekly calendar (this is the one I'll use). The second one is for tracking your time with an hourly calendar for each day of the week. (I would use this one if I was at home during the day, and probably will use it for Saturday and Sunday.) To download, click the link in the caption of each picture.

track your time with a weekly calendar

track your time with an hourly calendar

And while you're completing week 1's task, think about how you'd like to be spending your time. Would you like more "me" time? More time with your family? More time cleaning or organizing your home? I know I often find myself thinking these things when I'm feeling like I don't have enough time in the day/week to complete things.

Believe it or not, time is one of the biggest reasons people won't organize or clean their home. They feel overwhelmed by everything that is going on in their life and don't realize they're "wasting time" doing things they could care less about.

Being an organized person is a personality trait. Not everyone has it in them to innately to keep their home organized and spotless. That's okay. So many people have asked me for advice on how to become a more organized person. You have to want it. If it's something you're truly not interested in, it's probably something you won't keep up with over time. Sure, you could organize a room and feel good about it - but if you're not interested in keeping up with it, it's going to fall apart.

So, if you want to organize your home, great! That can be added to your list of things you'd like to spend time doing.

Actually, I'm going to give you one of next week's printables now so that you can start your list of things you'd like to be doing on a daily/weekly basis. Go ahead and make your list if you'd like, just don't worry about the second column labeled "priority" - we'll get to that next week!

how I'd like to spend my time

Good luck! I'll be back next Monday with Week 2's task. If you have any questions, please comment or email! (Make sure your email is linked to your profile or leave it in the comment if you'd like a response!)