Thursday, November 5, 2009

Keeping Things REAL SIMPLE

I LOVE to be organized. When I first got married I didn’t work, so my “job” was keeping our house clean and organized and it was SPOTLESS with everything in its place. I had a cleaning schedule for each day of the week as well as a weekly menu planned for what we were going to eat for dinner each night. I was a domestic goddess, a Suzy Homemaker if you will .. and then I got a job. A full time job. And I lost my organizational touch a little bit. I go to bed with dishes in the sink, I will go more than two days without sweeping my floor, I’ve even left the house without making the bed – my life has turned into that of a full time working mother with a baby and a husband to take care of. I guess you could say it’s starting to wear on me a little bit.

When I was in my organizational prime – I kept a few lists.

A TO DO list (which I still do .. I make one every single day!)

A Weekly Menu List

A Cleaning List.

My to do lists can be pretty specific – I not only write down what I need to do, but I list the time as well. If I’m not making a “time scheduled” to do list, I usually write my tasks out in order of importance. I will also catch myself re-writing my To Do list if it doesn’t flow the way I want it to or if my handwriting is messy. Insane, I know – but I can’t help it! Lately I’ve been writing my tasks down and typing them out so that they are always neat and organized on the paper.

To tell you even more about how insane I am, I have made an excel spreadsheet for myself. This spreadsheet is called “Miranda’s Weekly Schedule”. I have a column for each day of the week and then I have the time running along the left side. Ha ha ha! I'm laughing at myself as we speak! Who knew I was this crazy?!

Anyways – One of my favorite magazines is Real Simple. They have a wonderful website that I LOVE because it’s loaded with lists and charts and things on being organized, etc. I have a weekly cleaning schedule, and I made it from looking through information on the website. They have check lists (or to do lists) on cleaning and I just took it from there and made it my own. Here are some of my favorite check lists from Real Simple Magazine:








Did you know that Real Simple Magazine has also published some books? I can think of 5 right off the top of my head, but they might have more! I have 4 of them and I really like them. The ones I have are:

Celebrations



Solutions

The Organized Home



Cleaning



The one I don’t have but I think would be really nice to have is:

Meals Made Easy



All of these things I’ve mentioned are just skimming the surface of all that Real Simple has to offer. I could spend HOURS on their website and I LOVE LOVE LOVE their magazines! If you haven’t heard of Real Simple, or if you’ve seen it but didn’t know what it was about – now you do! And, GO CHECK IT OUT for yourself!


1 comment:

  1. I am ALL about lists! I make a TO DO list everyday and you're not crazy...I rewrite mine is the handwriting is messy too! I didn't know about their list online! I'll have to check them out

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