Let me say up front that I’m in no way an exemplary housekeeper! I’ve been on and off the Flylady bandwagon for over 8 years (mostly off, lol), and I’ve tried many other methods of getting household messes under control. Because we homeschool, our house is very, well . . . lived in. Every day there are countless opportunities for the entire house to descend into clutter and turmoil. Suffice it to say, the constant vigilence that keeps chaos at bay is not something that comes naturally to me.

I am better at keeping house than I was when I started, though. There are several strategies that I’ve tried that have made a real difference in my ability to keep a (more or less) smoothly running and welcoming home environment. I think the biggest lesson I’ve learned is how much of a difference routinely getting a few small tasks right can make.

One of the most helpful techniques for making that happen? The “I thought of it, so now I have to do it” rule. It’s very simple, really. I have a few tasks, each taking about 1 minute or less, that I have to complete whenever I happen to think of them. No negotiation or procrastination is allowed, whatsoever. Even if I’m running late, I can take 1 minute to do something, if I think of it.

I’ve found that I can actually make myself do these tasks because I have timed each one, and I can tell myself with complete confidence that it’ll only take 1 minute, or 37 seconds, or whatever the time is for the task in question. It doesn’t take as much willpower as cleaning out a closet or decontaminating the refrigerator. In fact, once you realize how little time it really takes, you feel silly even considering putting it off for later.

So what kinds of tasks are suitable for this sort of exercise?

Well, one of my first candidates was emptying the kitchen trash can whenever it got anywhere even close to full. (This was the inspiration for my post, The Garbage Can is a Metaphor for Life.) As that post points out, you simply can’t justify piling up the trash any more once you realize it only takes a minute (or less) and doing it every time means you will never again have to deal with another Mount Trashmore.

Another good candidate is making your bed. This one seems insignificant, but it helps keep my whole bedroom looking tidy and comfortable. It takes me literally 20-30 seconds. If your bed takes longer than a minute to make up (and you are a reasonably mobile and healthy adult), you should seriously consider simplifying your bedding!

“Swishing and swiping” the bathroom is another great example. Flylady showed me that this task actually takes only seconds each morning, as I’m getting ready for the day. (It probably takes about as long to actually do it as it does to read about it!) I:

• Use my wet washcloth to wipe off the sink and countertop. (15 seconds)
• Spray daily shower cleaner in the shower stall. (10 seconds)
• Swish toilet, and wipe up any drips or hair with a hank of damp toilet paper. (15 seconds)

That’s 40 seconds to a tidy bathroom, on a daily basis. Mirror cleaning, sweeping, and mopping are done periodically, as I have the time. The key to success with this one is to be sure not to have too much “stuff” on your countertops. You don’t want to have to wipe around and under tons of clutter. Again, simplicity is King!

The task I’m working on now is a little trickier for me, because it does take 2-3 minutes. Unloading the dishwasher removes a huge potential bottleneck in kitchen cleanliness, though. You can’t empty your sink if the dishwasher is full of dishes. The overflow of dishes then backs up onto countertops, bars, tables, etc. One thing leads to another, so just clearing out that dishwasher makes the whole kitchen easier to handle. Because I’ve learned that 2-3 minutes really isn’t that long, I’m actually having pretty good results with this experiment, too. It really helps if your cabinets are decluttered enough that you can easily fit your dishes into them.

Tips for best results when using this rule:

• Time yourself, at first, just to prove it really takes only a matter of seconds to complete your task.
• Watch out when your silly brain tries to tell you, “I don’t have time for that right now.” Of course you have time for it! You just timed it, and it takes less than a minute. If you’d just done it right away instead of arguing with yourself about it, it’d be done by now!
• Don’t add too many items to your list at once. This is critical to your success. Too many new ideas at once makes you have to think about strategies way too much. You don’t want to try to remember what and how and when you should be doing something, you want to spend your time actually doing something well. Figure out a simple way to get one or two things done, and then practice doing them as often as you can, until you can do them with hardly a second thought! At that point you can add another item to the list. I know you’re going to want to make a list with all kinds of little tasks on it. Do. Not. Do. That. Yes, I’m talking specifically to YOU. Why don’t you just pick two things right now? Have fun!
• Institute a “triple jeopardy” rule, which means you can’t be forced to do more than 2 tasks in a row. When I started using the ITOISNIHTDO rule, I got a little intimidated by the thought that I’d think of task after task that I needed to do, and then I’d have to do them all at once. So, I made this addendum to help me relax. I can do the extra tasks if I want to, but I don’t have to do more than 2 of them if it isn’t a convenient time.
• In practice, I often do chain several of these tasks together, especially in the mornings. I usually don’t mind, because I love how much I can accomplish with such little effort. If I get tired of it though, I can let myself off the hook after the first two.

I think you’ll find that as you gradually add items to your mental list of things you must do when you think of them, you’ll have more and more little tasks that you habitually do, without even thinking about it. I’ll be thinking about what I need to defrost for supper, and before I know it, I’ve wiped the bathroom counters and made my bed with no mental effort on my part.

If you are looking to add some good habits to your approach to housekeeping, consider trying the “I thought of it, so now I have to do it” rule. Let me know if it helps!

Also, I’ve mentioned a few possibilities in this post, but there are many more 1 minute or less tasks that can make a significant difference in how well your household runs. Feel free to add your suggestions for more in the comments!

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This post is the third in a series on private blogs. The other posts are There’s No Place Like Your Own Private Blog: A Journal for Your Eyes Only, and You are 5 Minutes from your own private blog on WordPress.com.

I wanted to wrap up my series on creating a private blog by examining some of the practical ways in which you can use your blog to keep track of many different aspects of your life. There are three topics that I’m specifically going to address to get you up and running. They are: using categories and tags, customizing your sidebars, and using Pages. These instructions are geared specifically towards WordPress, but many of the same functions can also be accomplished using other blogging platforms. Feel free to take these ideas and run with them! Here goes:

From Chaos to Categories: How to get your notes organized

First, I find it really helpful to set up a few categories, so that I can easily find the posts that I am looking for later. WordPress lets you set up categories and also subcategories, allowing you to further organize your notes. You can add categories from the Write Post screen, just by clicking on Add. Type in the name of your category, and it’ll be added to the category list. You can then easily select one or more categories to apply to your post.

To keep up with homeschooling related posts, for example, you might:

• Set up a category called Homeschooling
• Then set up sub-categories for Diary (where you keep track of what academic activities you do each day), Field Trips, Curriculum Research (where you keep up with resources in which you may be interested), and so on.
• You can do the same for other areas of interest, hobbies, and responsibilities. Work, Household, Finance, Knitting, Sports, Journaling, or whatever topics for which you are likely to be making notes on a regular basis.

If you have a short-term project that you want to be able to find easily, but don’t want to give it a permanent spot in your categories list, you can add a more specific label in the “Tags” field at the bottom of your Write Post screen. For instance, I might make notes about a particular knitting pattern that I’m working through. I could add a tag of “Paisley Long Shawl” in the tags field. “Paisley Long Shawl” won’t show up in the categories list, but I can still find it by searching or by using the Tag Cloud, which is a collection of all your tags that can be displayed in your sidebar. I’ll also categorize this post under Knitting, so that I can also find it by browsing through my knitting entries.

Confused about the difference between tags and categories? I like to think of categories as a table of contents. The category list should consist of broad umm. . . categories into which your posts are grouped. The tags, on the other hand, are like an index. They include more specific terms that you might want to use to find your post later, but that you don’t want to necessarily add to the table of contents. You can add as many tags as you want by typing them in, separating each one with a comma.

You are the boss of your sidebar!

If you don’t have a Tag Cloud, hanging around on the theme you are using, you can easily add it to one of the side areas (called sidebars) of your blog. Your sidebars are fully and easily customizable. Just go to your Dashboard, click on Presentation, and then click on Widgets.

This takes you to an area where you can easily (by dragging and dropping) select whatever information you want to show on your sidebar(s). You can insert links to all your Pages, lists of recent Posts, a Calendar, the list of Categories, a Tag Cloud, links to your post Archives, and much more. Just drag what you want over and drop it where you want it to go. If the widget that you placed can be customized, just click on the little icon on the right side of the widget to set it up. Be sure to click on Save after you have things fixed the way you want them!

The Power of Pages

The regular posts that you make will be saved and displayed on your screen in date order. You can access older posts by clicking on a month in your Archives widget, by searching for a particular phrase, by clicking on a category or tag, and so on. Sometimes, though, you’ll want a permanent, non-date oriented page to make lists or collect information. In this case, you’ll want to write a Page, instead of a Post.

You can set all your pages to display in the sidebar, using the Widgets screen that I just described. That way your pages will be easy to access at all times, right from your main page.

What topics are appropriate for Pages? Well, I have a page for a list of Blog Ideas, so that I don’t lose track of the different posts that I want to write. I also have another one for a Master To-Do List. I add items to that list as I think of them, and I erase the ones that have been completed. This means the list will always be up-to-date and easy to find in my sidebar.

Other good ideas for pages are: Shopping Lists, Important Phone Numbers, Login Info (I try to keep a list of my usernames for the various websites with which I have accounts - otherwise it gets pretty unmanageable, pretty fast!), or really anything at all that needs to be kept up-to-date and in one place.

Now go get busy and have fun with your private blog!

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This is a follow-up to yesterday’s post about why you need your own personal for-your-eyes-only blog.

Now that I’ve got you convinced that a blog is the way to go, I’m going to walk you through the process of creating your private blogging haven using Wordpress.com. (Just because that is what I use. You can do the very same thing on Blogger.)

Ready? Ok!

1) Go to Wordpress.com.

2) See that huge Sign Up Now! button? Click on it! Then enter your desired user name, etc. On the next screen, you will have the option to name your blog. You will also see a checkbox marked privacy. You want to UN-check that box, so that WordPress doesn’t notify the other sites whenever you post. Then, click on Signup.

3) Congratulations! You are now signed up. Click on the link to go to your homepage. Before you start posting, you do need to go in and make your blog private. Do that by :

• Clicking on My Dashboard, in the menu near the top of your screen.
• Select Options, and then Privacy
• Select “I would like my blog to be available only to users I choose.”
• Then, you can enter your own user name in the box underneath. You’ll be the only one who can view or edit the content in your blog. If you want to let anyone else access your blog, have them register on WordPress, and then add their usernames to that box as well. Save your settings, and you are good to go!

4) Now that you are up and running, you’ll probably want to change how your blog looks. I think the default theme is boring, but fortunately, there are many different themes that you can select, and you can switch them whenever you like! Just click on My Dashboard, and then click Presentation. You’ll see a large selection of themes from which to choose. Page through and find one that suits your mood.

And that’s it! You have now activated your very own private blog, and you are ready to start keeping up with your stuff. Later this week I’ll post some ideas about how you can use the blog as your extra brain.

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Yes, I’m talking to you.

You need a blog. Here’s why:

I know you’ve had “things” in your life that at one time felt so real and solid that you couldn’t imagine ever forgetting them. Events, ideas, even details of daily life were so much a part of you at one time. Now, weeks or years later, how many of these can you even recall at all?

This forgetting phenomenon seems to apply to details both big and small. You forget that great idea you had, that insight into a relationship, those lessons you learned from that really good book, that homeschool resource that you really meant to look into, and even those funny little toddler mispronunciations and cute childhood sayings.

We take those things for granted, and then, while our attention is turned elsewhere, they slowly slip, unnoticed, from our grasp.

Memories Are Vulnerable

This point was driven home to me, when I stumbled across some old notebooks from a few years back. I leafed through them, and couldn’t believe it. Until that moment I’d forgotten all those ideas and experiences I’d documented, but when I read over the notes, it all came back to me. It was a truly amazing and life-changing experience.

It was great to be able to read through and see where I was back then, the things I was thinking about, the problems the kids were having, the solutions I was going to try. These notes weren’t elaborate, by any means. Really, it was just a collection of lists and jottings. They were, however, enough to remind me of how things were, and of how far we had come.

It also reminded me that some things hadn’t changed much at all! I was amazed by how often I seemed to be (unknowingly) churning my wheels. I’d been meaning to get to a few goals for years, but kept getting distracted. I never realized how long I’d been procrastinating until I found these notes. Turns out that memories can play funny tricks with our sense of time!

All of these experiences impressed upon me how valuable memories are, and how vulnerable, too.

Since that time, I’ve tried to keep some records that I can refer to later. I’ve found that even as little as a few notes every few days can make a huge difference in how much I remember.

As you can imagine, though, I soon found myself surrounded by a hodgepodge of notebooks, binders, and other scraps, with no real way to organize or find anything that I needed. Finally, I realized that one great answer is (literally) right under our noses:

a blog.

Blogs Are Great Tools

No, not a public blog that everyone can see. I’m talking about setting up a private for-your-eyes-only blog (available for free from several different hosting services) where you can keep track of:

• What you did each day (or each week), educationally.
• Ideas you have.
• Lists of resources you want to track.
• Questions you need to research.
• Journaling
• Traveling details
• Work details

And really, much more. This is a literal web log of all the “stuff” that you need to keep tabs on, or don’t want to forget. Unlike a hodgepodge of papers, though, you can painlessly search your blog to find just what you want, when you want it.

You can assign tags to each entry, as you write it, so that you can easily pull it up later. Keep all your homeschool records under one label, and all your knitting ideas under another. Don’t forget to enter those priceless gems your kids come up with. (I can’t stand the thought that I might someday forget that for years my girls confused the words moth and wasp, referring to any random fluttering insect as a “mahsp”.)

Retrieve exactly what you want, when you are ready for it, and think of it as a working scrapbook of your ideas and experiences. Nostalgia is one good reason to keep a private blog, but it can do wonders for your personal productivity, too!

Where to Get Started

Now that you know blogs aren’t just for “bloggers”, (though personal blogs are invaluable tools for bloggers, too!), here are a couple of places where you can get your own free blog:

• Blogger
• Wordpress

Both of these sites are easy to set up, free, and allow you to restrict access to your blog so that only you (or people you invite) are allowed to see it.

As you can see, this is a topic with lots of possibilities, so I’ll be posting more information this week about how to set up and use your private blog. If you want to be sure to get the updates, use the link in the sidebar to the right to subscribe. (It’s free, of course!)

Image credit: scol22, stock.xchng

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It’s official - our girls are getting bigger with every passing millisecond. Not surprisingly, their clothes are taking up more and more space each year. They’ve definitely outgrown the little modular storage unit we bought a couple of years ago at Target. This week, I decided to add another modular unit to try to keep up with the unruly mess of girls’ clothing that was taking over their room.

So, we bought a little two door “organize-it” shelving unit, also from Target. As you can see from the photo, the box announces in a prominent manner that there is a *FREE!* storage box included.

Handy, I thought, but not really a big factor in my purchasing decision.

Then I opened up the package to find:

Okaaaay. Not exactly sturdy, huh? Maybe it will look better assembled:

Seriously. What were they hoping to accomplish, here? If you selected this package because you wanted this free box, you’re going to be pretty mad. You’re not likely to be a repeat customer, right? If, like me, you just figured it would be a handy extra, you’re going to be exasperated at the very least. I can’t really figure out how this helps the company in any long-term way whatsoever. It does however make amusing fodder for family stories and blog posts! Stack-A-Shelf, if you’re listening, get a new marketing strategy.

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I finally got my invitation to join Ravelry this evening!!! I’ve been on the wait list since July, when the Yarn Harlot’s blog clued me in to this fascinating new (and only) social knitting website. It looks awesome. You can store your projects, patterns, yarn, needles, and other info online, plus it links to your Flickr account, so you can easily add photos of everything. It even integrates with your blog. You can search for patterns, yarns, pretty much anything. If you see anything you might want to take a crack at later, you can add it to your queue. Pretty nifty, and I’m only beginning to scratch the surface.

The good new is that they have added additional server capacity, so the wait list is now moving a bit more quickly. I believe they are adding about 500 people per day, right now. So, if you are at all interested in knitting and you haven’t signed up yet - you should definitely get your name on the waiting list.

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As promised earlier, here is a photo of the big ginormous project that I was working on for my friend’s wedding:

This is the Paisley Long Shawl from Fiddlesticks knitting. I figure it took about 100 hours over the past couple of months, and it was soooooo much fun. Yes, I was pushing to get it done, but already I can’t wait to start my next project. This was my first lace shawl, but it definitely won’t be my last - I’m hooked!

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On Monday I promised some more tips for using The Grocery Game to save on your grocery bill, so here you go:

Before I go any further, please let me say once more: The A#1 key to using coupons, no matter what your system, is that if you buy things you don’t need you aren’t saving money. “Do I really need this?” I suggest you make this question your mantra as you work with your coupons. When you first start out, the awesome deals tend to cloud your better judgment now and then! It will get easier, and you will be less susceptible to temptation as you get experience. Don’t beat yourself up about it if you make a mistake, but do keep trying.

File folders vs. clip ‘n’ sort

The two basic filing methods for storing your coupons are to either put each weeks’ coupon inserts in a file folder, or to go ahead and cut out the coupons so they can be sorted by category. Either method works with The Grocery Game. I started out using file folders - I marked each folder with that week’s date, and put the two or three coupon inserts inside. This worked well for a while, but it does have a few drawbacks. Every time you want a coupon, you have find the right folder, and then flip through the appropriate insert to find the coupon you want. That makes for a lot of flipping back and forth! Also, it gets difficult to purge the expired coupons, since some of them expire within a month, while others are good for 6 months or more.

Eventually, after I had amassed a huge stack of folders, I decided to clip and sort from that point on. It takes a few minutes to snip out all the coupons, but not as long as I had thought. I can realistically get the whole week’s coupons clipped and sorted in about 15-20 minutes. When it is time to retrieve the coupons, it is much easier to refer to categories, rather than flipping back through the inserts. The grocery game list tends to be sorted by category, so often I just grab the “toiletries” pile and all the coupons I need are right in one spot. Also, about every month or two, I quickly flip through the coupons and purge any that expired unused. This keeps the number of coupons down to a manageable level.

If you do clip and sort, try putting the new coupons at the front of each section each week. That helps you know where in the group to look for a particular coupon. If the list shows that a coupon is recent, you know to look near the front. If the coupon is from several months ago, you know to look near the back. This will cut your search time even more.

Keep in mind

The store’s sales tend to rotate, so in order to save the most you will need to stock up when things are on sale. If you build up sufficient reserves, then you can live off of your sale items until they go on special again. Whether or not you’ll be able to get all of your groceries at the lowest prices depends on several variables. I’ve found that we can get enough free or 50 cent toothpaste for a small army, as well as all the shampoo I want for $1-2 a bottle, or less. At some point, you have to stop buying all but the best deals for those, or you’ll be drowning in them. On the other hand, there are some other things, like soups, yougurt, and canned/frozen vegetables, where we eat more than we have coupons for. In this case, especially if you have a large family, you could consider buying one or more extra copies of your local paper, so that you will have enough coupons. Many grocery stores will honor up to 3 of the same coupon. It only costs an extra dollar or two for the paper, which more than pays for itself if you need more coupons.

Final tip

Finally, you’ll probably notice several coupons for restaurants as you are going through the inserts. I recommend clipping these and storing them either in your purse or in your car’s glove box. (This tip also applies to those community coupon books you buy or receive in the mail.) This way you’ll have them handy when you need them. If you have to remember to get them out before you leave the house, you won’t do it. Besides, we hardly ever decide on where we’re going until we’re halfway there!

Remember, if you don’t have the discipline to coupon responsibly, then the responsible thing to do is to skip couponing. You’ll waste a lot of time, you won’t save yourself any money, and you’ll end up with lots of waste and junk. If you think you do have what it takes to get the most out of coupons, then give it a try. With a little practice, you should be able to find real savings, which is always great when you are trying to live within your means!

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I say yes and no. There are a few big problems with using coupons:

• It takes time to clip, sort, and decide which coupons to use, and sometimes it takes a LOT of time.
• Coupons are usually for name brand items that are more expensive to begin with. In that case, you may not actually save money over buying a similar item in a store brand, or in bulk at a warehouse club like Costco.
• Coupons require a lot of self-discipline. Many of them are for items you wouldn’t normally use. If you buy a lot of extra junk with coupons, you are not saving money. If you buy food your family doesn’t like with coupons, you are not saving money. If you get your kids hooked on a new snack that you will have to pay full price for next week, you are not saving money.

Despite these drawbacks, I do currently use coupons, and I recommend them to others as well. What has worked to help me overcome some of the problems associated with coupons is a very nifty service called www.thegrocerygame.com. (Note that I’m not being paid to refer them - I just think they offer a very useful service that saves you much more than it costs.)

What is The Grocery Game? Well, it is a service that catalogs all the coupons you receive in your local newspaper. It also tracks all the sales for the grocery store that you select. Each week, you receive a list of products that are available for a good price. In most cases, these will be items that are both on sale and with a coupon. This means that you can save 50% or more on the majority of the list’s items. Because stores tend to rotate their sales over a three month period, you can stock up on sale items each time they come up, and they can hold you over until the next time they go on sale! With The Grocery Game, you don’t have to try to decide on your own when to use what coupons. They tell you when you can get the best deals by combining sale prices and coupons. If you buy from their list, you’ll always get great prices, and yes, you’ll even get some items for free.

If you’re not sure whether this is something that would be worthwhile for you, they offer a four week trial for only $1. If you use just one coupon, the trial will have paid for itself! After the trial is up, it only costs $10 every 8 weeks. I usually save between $15 and $30 every week in coupons (not even counting the store sales), so this is very cost effective.

In practice, the process works like this:

1. Remove your coupon inserts from the Sunday newspaper.
2. You have a couple of choices about how to file the coupons. You can just stick each week’s intact inserts into a separate file folder, or you can go ahead and cut the coupons out, sorting them by item type.
3. Log on to your account and print out this weeks’ list of good buys.
4. Decide which items you want from the list, and pull any relevant coupons from the file.
5. Go shopping.

Even the first week that you start collecting coupons, you will probably find enough to get some good deals, and each week you’ll collect more and more. Within 12 weeks, you’ll have virtually all of the coupons used on the list.

This service helps cut down the amount of time you spend trying to decide which coupons to use each week. And, because you use most of the coupons when the products are also on sale, you receive deeper discounts. This means many of the deals are much better than buying store brands or shopping at warehouse clubs. I still shop at Costco for some things, but I’m getting most things at the supermarket, now.

As great as this service is, though, the third problem with coupons that I listed above is still an issue. You must practice self-discipline, because even if you save 50% or more on something, if it is something your family doesn’t need you are still not saving money!

Stay tuned for extra hints and tips I’ve learned for using The Grocery Game to save money on your grocery bill . . .

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I kid you not.

Let me put it this way: Have you ever gone to toss a used kleenex in the trash, only to notice that the can is getting pretty darn close to capacity? “It isn’t totally full yet, though!” you tell yourself happily. (Then you give a little mental cheer, since you aren’t compelled to actually do anything about it yet.)

On your next trip to the can to add an empty Edy’s container, you survey the pile with a twinge of dismay. Inspiration quickly strikes, however, and you artfully balance the Edy’s on top of the growing mountain. “Somebody’s going to need to do something about that soon,” you think. (Then you give a little mental cheer that “somebody” isn’t you, at least not yet, and remind yourself not to throw away anything else big.)

By nightfall you’re amazed to discover that the full trash can has gone an entire day without being emptied by anyone. Of course, you now have a pile of garbage that rivals Kilimanjaro, and your kitchen counters are full of empty boxes and bottles that look suspiciously “big”.

Well, with the whole trash mountain next to your cabinet quaking ominously, you decide you’ll have to finally bite the bullet. By this point, the once simple job of removing and replacing the trash bag has become a much more difficult task, requiring skill and not a little courage to corral all the wayward debris that scatters like a (very pungent) avalanche during the “removal” process. Once all the bits have been retrieved, the bag has been disposed of, and your hands have been thoroughly disinfected, you have your payoff. You finally have the pleasure of throwing trash into a sparkling fresh, newly lined can.

Happiness is having taken out the garbage.

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