the Mom-Stuff Community » Organization

Let’s Begin 2011 on the Right Foot

the mom-team — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 16:57:12 +0000

Mom-Stuff.com Featured Resources to help you start 2011 on the right foot.

Tips to Help Your New Year’s Resolutions Stick
Setting New Year’s resolutions may be a time-honored tradition but unfortunately making last-minute vows during a champagne toast isn’t an effective approach. How can you ensure that you’ll stick with your goals beyond January 15th? You’ve got to make sure that your goals possess a “STICKINESS” factor. . . .

Setting Goals and Shaping your Future
Each year on the first of January, I take the time to reflect upon my goals from the previous year. I like to evaluate what I have accomplished, and review everything that has manifested throughout the year. It always makes me smile, how things have unfolded for the goals which had a strong enough WHY even if I did not really know at the time how I would get them accomplished…amazing how that works! . . .

Organizing For Taxes – For the Unorganized
My taxes are a mess, or rather doing them is. I run a small business to make it even worse, am I am semi organized at best. Today found me with a large pile or receipts for just about everything that needed to be organized and tallied and more . . .

To Sick for School?
Kids health questions. Is your kid to sick to send them to school. Parents can use the following symptom-based guidelines to help them decide whether to keep their child home or send them to school.

Recipe Overhaul
Do you have had a stack of recipes to go through each time you cook? Here is some great tips for recipe organization. I started with a spiral index card book in High school, then went onto a small ring binder for index cards, next was a small album with sheet protectors, and now I have FINALLY found a great strategy that works for me. Let’s go about this in 5 steps! . .

New Resources Articles on mom-stuff.com

the mom-team — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:51:20 +0000

Articles to make this the best summer ever at mom-stuff.com

8 Great Tips To Organize Kids’ Rooms http://www.mom-stuff.com/public/300.cfm

Scared of Your Child’s Room? http://www.mom-stuff.com/public/299.cfm

Got friends or family coming to visit? http://www.mom-stuff.com/public/298.cfm

The Cancer of Resentment. http://www.mom-stuff.com/public/297.cfm

Women are Social Media. http://www.mom-stuff.com/public/296.cfm

New Summer Fun Activities on www.Mom-Stuff.com

For summer scheduling and activities visit http://www.mom-stuff.com/public/151.cfm.

Want some fun kids crafts to make with your children this summer? Visit mom-stuff kids craftshttp://www.mom-stuff.com/public/94.cfm

Help your girls make some Fancy Flip Flops to match their summer outfits http://www.mom-stuff.com/public/273.cfm

Before you go on your summer vacation checkout our Vacation Scrapbooking Pages Using Souvenirs http://www.mom-stuff.com/public/143.cfm

Rockin Bobbie Pins http://www.mom-stuff.com/public/245.cfm

Summer recipes http://www.mom-stuff.com/public/92.cfm

Promote your mom-stuff affiliate. Post and recommend any of these articles and links to your readers. Always use public links (these are free links) when promoting your mom-stuff affiliate. If you have not signed up for your free affiliate with mom-stuff do it now. It is really easy, just pick your mom-stuff banner linked to your mom-stuff ID, post it on your site. Our system does all of the tracking and you make 50% commissions on all of your friends who join. Then they join and make money from their friends. It is a win/win system. We are keeping the membership fees low so everyone can afford this opportunity. It is less then .30 a day. Mom-Stuff is all about moms helping supporting and educating each other. Please email any article you want to share on Mom-Stuff.com. If you feel that we do not have a category that your information will fit, no worries, we will create one.

Have a wonderful summer with picnics, BBQ’s vacations, and some get family time. Thanks to all of the moms who contributed to our Summer Pages.

The Perfect Grocery Shopping List

the mom-team — Wed, 26 May 2010 18:34:03 +0000

Jane Alais is the creator of DeclutterBeFree.com and the author of “Get Organized-Get Happy, A Step-By-Step Guide to Organize Success in Your Home and Your Life,” and continues to learn and teach the skills to become clutter free and organized. Visit her web site at http://www.declutterbefree.com/

Discover how to organize the perfect grocery shopping list so you can reduce your grocery bill by 20% and save hours of time every week. A good grocery shopping list prevents impulse and over buying, keeps you on track with your food budget, gets you organizing your meals and makes you a better comparison shopper plus eliminates the need for expensive take away. It can save you hours a week by making your shopping quicker and prevent those time consuming expensive one off runs to the supermarket because there is nothing for lunch tomorrow or you are missing one ingredient for dinner tonight.

Take an A4 paper and make ten small columns or make a permanent copy on your computer that you can print out. Once you have made your columns follow these five organizing tips for the best grocery shopping list ever.

Create food categories and organize your food into groups to make sure you include everything you need. Some common categories are: Fruit, Vegetables, Dairy and Eggs, Meat, Bread and Cereal, Pasta and sauces, Deli and Condiments which are any thing that add flavor to food such as spices, ketchup and mustards.

Mentally walk through your supermarket and write down your categories in the same order you find them in the store. This alone can reduce your shopping trip by half an hour and eliminate back tracking, running around and looking for things as well as forgetting items.

Add categories for those special items you buy in specialty shops. If you like to buy bread at a special bakery or fish at another shop make a category with the shop’s name and add the items you want to buy there to your list.

Fill in your regular purchases ASAP. Most families require the same things in the same amounts every week, such as milk, bread and cereal so as soon as you make your list add in your regular purchases as soon as your new list is made.

Set limits and amounts as you fill in your grocery list. Start to think in how many bags, boxes, pieces and amounts you need. Left over items you buy less of the next week, items that were eaten and enjoyed you can buy more of. Don’t over buy perishable food but larger amounts of dry goods may be cheaper in the long run. Just looking at amounts can reduce wasted food, lets you tailor your grocery list to your family’s needs and makes your money go further.

Put your grocery shopping list on your fridge so anyone can add a food item that has just run out. Add to your list when you think of something you will need to buy so when it comes to your grocery shopping day your list is almost done and completing the list takes minutes. Make a perfect grocery list for you, so life can be a little easier and shopping for food is a pleasure and not a chore.

Need help with organizing? See http://www.declutterbefree.com and get a free report.

Jane Alais is a professional organizer, the creator of Declutter Befree and the author of Get Organized-Get Happy A Step by Step Guide to Organize Success in Your Home and Your Life. She writes about strategies and solutions that make life easier by deluttering, organizing and energizing your home and your life.

Decluttering an Emotional Ride

the mom-team — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:44:21 +0000

Spring is right around the corner. This is the perfect time to declutter your home. The hardest thing about sorting and cleaning my home is deciding what to let go of. Parting with my stuff becomes an emotional ride for me. What if I need it someday? What if I am sorry or sad without it? Who do I know that needs this? I can’t just throw it out it is a perfectly good something. When I found this article by Betty Fellows about the emotions of decluttering I was surprised. Are there other people who have to force their selves to get rid of the stuff they do not use? Are there others besides me who have emotional turmoil over the sorting and letting go of their stuff? I have nightmares of turning into a star on the new reality show “the Hoarders” so I force myself to get rid of as much as I can. I found this article helpful and I hope you will too.

So you have decided to declutter your home – good for you! It is important to recognize that your emotions may vary. Some items could make you happy or sad to be parting with. Some items may cause guilt, and some items may bring back sentimental feelings. Let’s have a look at the type of emotions you can expect, and how you can cope with those emotions.

Paper Products

Paper items build faster than almost any other items. You need to be merciless when you are cleaning up these items. Toss the junk mail right into the recycling. Decide how many days/weeks of papers you want to keep and out with the rest. If where you live offers recycling then getting rid of them is a much easier task. Feeling relief is common when discarding newspapers and other paper products you no longer need.

Books and magazines are paper items too, but many find it difficult to part with these items. Magazines are often hung onto for an article or two. Why not remove the articles from the magazines and store them safely in a binder. That way you can get rid of all those old magazines.

Getting rid of books can create anxiety, especially if you love to read. Parting with books can be difficult. Keeping those you have not read is fine, but those that you are done with need to be parted with. Giving them to a charity or a literacy group can relieve some of the burden and create happiness for others. That can help you feel better about the entire experience.

Sentimental Items

There is nothing wrong with being sentimental and keeping things that are sentimental to you. But you cannot keep every single item that you have sentimental feelings to. Perhaps you have a cherished baby blanket that is fine to keep. However, you cannot keep all of your baby clothes. Choose a couple of pieces and give the rest to someone who can use them.

Photos are an excellent example of a sentimental item that can get out of control. Most of us take hundreds of photos often of the same thing or nearly the same pose. Choose the best, then either put them in photo albums or start scrapbooking. Get rid of all the excess.

Gifts

Every gift you receive will not be something you want or can use, and you do not want to hurt anyone’s feelings so we accept these gifts and then keep them, often in their original packaging, not knowing what to do with them and feeling guilty at the idea of getting rid of them.

Toss your guilt aside. Instead, find a new home for these unwanted items, whether that means donating them to a charity or re-gifting them, it does not matter, just make sure you move them on without feelings of guilt.

Broken Items

How big is your pile of broken items that you have been meaning to fix because you have some type of emotional attachment to the item? You are not alone, but the problem is almost always these items simply take up space and never do get fixed. The second part of the reality is that many times there is really no reason to be hanging onto them like their your best friend. Most of these items can often be easily replaced.

You will get much more joy out of going shopping for replacement items than hanging onto the broken ones.

Duplicates

It is amazing how often fear creeps into the equation. Many times we replace an existing item but then are too scared to part with the original one because we play the “what if” game in our head. “What if we do not like the new one as much,” “What if the new one does not work as well,” “What if…” well you get the idea.

Do not let fear motivate you when it comes to decluttering your home. Very few items are so rare that they cannot be replaced at a later date.

Try to keep your emotions out of your declutter project instead rely on your logic to make the right choices.

For a FREE email course on how to declutter you home http://reducingcluttersecrets.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Betty_J_Fellows