One key to a thriving family is to keep your lives in order. You have plenty to organize between meals, cleaning, schedules, and essential documents. But the time and effort required to organize your life will pay off big in the long run.
Dealing with chaos and clutter in your life, particularly if you have young children, will add stress, make it difficult to maintain your commitments, and cause many other problems. Organizing is the answer if you want everyone in your household to flourish, accomplish their goals, and enjoy everyday moments together.
Below, DejaDesktop lays out seven simple, effective steps to creating an organized family life. And they’re all budget-friendly!
Look into Tools and Filing Systems
Your first step is to take time to research the web for any tools that can help you keep your family organized. Today’s wealth of digital technologies can help you create schedules, manage tasks, manage your budget, work from home, and more.
For example, if you have piles of receipts lying around (whether personal or for business), develop a filing system that lets you scan them and store them digitally on your hard drive or in the cloud. You can also use finance apps to help you keep track of receipts, as well as keep an eye on your household budget.
Digital documents are handy for other reasons. For example, digitally signing documents can be done quickly and conveniently with the help of an online tool. With this tool, you can securely sign documents from anywhere in the world and then you can use a PDF filler to complete the rest of the form. All you need is an internet connection. Not only does it save time, but it also reduces paper waste and costs associated with manual document signing processes. With this advanced technology, securely receiving and signing documents has never been easier.
Make a Weekly Schedule
One of the most practical ways to keep your family organized is to create a visual schedule or calendar that you keep in a location where everyone walks by each day. The schedule not only will help you keep all of your family‘s events, commitments, and tasks in an easy-to-see format but also encourage your kids to become more independent.
You might also consider creating or purchasing a weekly organizer for each of your children. Opt for a small notebook or calendar they can easily take with them to school and other activities.
Prioritize Mornings
You press the snooze button a couple of times. You launch from your bed to rummage through your closet for the first decent-looking outfit you can find before making your rounds to wake up the kids. No food is laid out, your kids’ clothes are still in the drawers, and you can feel the tension rising in your home.
Does that sound familiar? If you don’t make mornings a priority, the rest of your day will feel unorganized and hectic. The goal is to plan so that you don’t have to hurry in the morning. Planning will allow you to start your day calm and ready to face what may come.
Creating morning routines for each of your kids and putting them on a visible list is an excellent way to start. But you should also make preparations the night before so everything is laid out and ready to go as your household wakes up and prepares for the day’s activities. And don’t forget to leave time for drinking a cup of joe!
Plan Menus
If you’re not already planning your family menus, you don’t know what you’re missing! When you have a menu planned, you don’t have to worry about what you’re cooking for dinner every night, and it makes it easier to stay within your budget.
Begin with planning your dinners and add lunches and breakfasts when you start to get a hang of things. You might be surprised how much money and time you can save at the grocery store when you employ a strategy that fits your family’s routine.
Keep Your Home Clean
No one wants to live in a dirty and messy home. It adds stress and steals motivation from everyone who lives there. But keeping your living environment clean requires you to dedicate time and energy to daily tasks.
Each family is different in terms of what, how, and when they should clean. The key is for your family to find your own routine and remain consistent so that cleaning chores become habits instead of stressful. Consider creating a visual cleaning schedule you can post in your home, and keep a checklist of necessary cleaning supplies so you always have what you need.
Don’t forget to involve your kids in household cleaning tasks. Giving them weekly chores will help them develop a sense of responsibility and independence while taking some of the pressure off of you and your partner. Start with simple and small tasks and increase as they age.
Embrace To-Do Lists
To-do lists are critical when juggling a hundred commitments and responsibilities a day. But if you’re relying on scribbled notes on little scraps of paper, you are significantly limiting your organizing potential.
Look to digital or printable to-do lists to keep your tasks more organized. You can even categorize your tasks by type while keeping everything in one place.
Make a Drop Spot
Chances are each person in your family has a specific location in your home where they put all of their things when they get home from work or school. Think of how neat and organized your living environment would feel if all of you used a similar location.
Designate a specific spot in your home to drop off your belongings until you have time to put them in their correct places. When you have a fixed area for your things, they’re much easier to find, organize, and pack away.
Find Your Organization Strategies
Being an adult requires you to stay organized. But when you’re raising a young family, you must take your organizing strategies and disciplines to the next level. Consider the ideas above as you arrange your household tasks, and manage files, schedules and responsibilities. And enjoy the feeling of stress falling from your shoulders!
