KEEPING IT ALL STRAIGHT

I pride myself on being pretty darn organized.  It's a little something I picked up from my grandfather.  

That man was an organizing machine.  Even as a child, I loved having things orderly.  Now, don't get me wrong, with three kids and lots of balls up in the air, every so often, I drop a ball.  

For example, I once forgot to pick up one of my  kids from pre-school.  We've all done that, right?  Please say yes!  A couple of months ago, I was brushing my teeth at about 10:00 a.m. and I suddenly remembered I was supposed to be at the orthodontist that morning at 9:15 a.m.  Ooops!  So while I have the best intentions of keeping it all straight, I'm human, and, obviously, I screw up sometimes. 

The most important organization tool we have in our family is the "Family Calendar".  My old calendar was ready to expire, so I made a trip to Target.  Fortunately for me, a brand new Target opened recently about 3 minutes from my house.  My husband would say that it is very unfortunate.  Anyway, I had planned on buying the same calendar I had last year.  

This one....

It worked well since there was a space for everyone in the family and there was plenty of space to write.

However, I didn't like the fact that I could only see one week at a time. 

While searching for the Post It calendar, I came upon this lovely thing and knew it was perfect.  

It was only $8.99 (compared to $18.99 for the Post-it calendar). 

It has a space for everyone, plenty of room to write, and it even has a spot to fill in the meal for the day.  The best part is I can see the entire month at one glance.  

It's like they designed it just for me!  

Don't you love the name (Organizher)?

It fits perfectly on one of our bulletin boards. 

The bulletin boards hang here, on the side of the refrigerator.

The top bulletin board is used for invitations, schedules, grocery list, birthday list, etc. 

Just on the other side of the wall in the mudroom, is another great organizational tool.  I bought this wooden sorter at Homegoods several years ago and it works great since there are three slots and we have three kids.  When the kids bring their folders home from school each day, we look through them, empty them out and sign what needs to be signed.  The folders go in their slots and they grab them on the way out the door in the morning.  

This summer, their "summer workbooks" are being housed there.  Yes, they have summer homework.  Does everyone have this nowadays?  Even though it is a pain in the you know what, I do think it helps them to not forget everything they learned the previous year.  

Speaking of school papers, once we empty their folders, the papers we want to keep go into this three drawer rubbermaid container.  They each have their own drawer and we keep only the important papers we want to save in here.  Everything else gets recycled.  At the end of the school year, I go through the drawers one more time and the "keepers" get put in an extra large ziploc bag marked with their name, their grade and their teacher's name. The bags are stacked and stored in a rubbermaid container in storage.  So far, each child has only one rubbermaid container.  We are saving less and less each year.  There were so many art projects in pre-school and now we just save a few tests, creative writing and a small number of art projects.  

One last thing that helps keep me organized is this great little book I picked up at Homegoods a few months ago.  I take it everywhere with me and I write down my daily "to do" lists in it.  

It's been a life saver lately. It was only $3.99.  

I know everyone has their own system for keeping it all straight.  This one works for us.  

Care to share any of your organization tips?