Organize Now 12-Week Challenge Week 4

Organize Your Routines

This weeks assignment from Jennifer Ford Berry's Organize Now 12-Week Challenge is weeks 53 and 54 - organize your morning and evening routines. It took looking at the table of contents for the book at Amazon to realize that these sections don't exist in my book - originally I thought she was referring to previous chapters in the book. Several times over the course of the week I have seriously contemplated purchasing the revised edition so I would have these chapters, but so far I have resisted. (I may still cave, since I find Jennifer's advice very helpful and wonder what other tidbits may be in there that I won't find in my edition.)

The idea of morning and evening routines is not a new concept to me. I've made several attempts to follow FlyLady's method of cleaning and organizing, and routines are the most important part of her system. I went to her site and re-read the posts about morning and evening routines - she recommends starting with your evening routine. The logic is you can set the tone for the next day with a good evening routine. 

I also did some reading at About.com - lots of reading, actually. There's a wealth of information there, and I will definitely be referring back to it. There are tons of other websites that offer tips on developing routines, but my favorite is without a doubt Get Organized Wizard. While certain evening activities will apply to almost everyone, a routine is a very personalized thing. We each need to figure out what will work for us, our household, and our schedule. I work full-time outside the home, so routine recommendations from stay-at-home moms and even work-at-home folks frustrate me. (I'm not making light of what they do - the simple fact is they are in their homes more than I am, so they can, for example, pop dinner in the oven at 2:00 if that's their plan.) Michelle at Get Organized Wizard walks you through the steps necessary in developing an evening routine. (And a morning routine here.) She breaks the thought process down into categories and gives examples in each area to get your thoughts flowing. This really helped me.

The categories to think about are:

1.  Tidy - quick things to get the house cleaned up before you head to bed. It really is nice to wake up to neat and clean!
2. Organize morning zone for tomorrow - what can you do before you go to bed that will make the morning go quicker and more smoothly? For us the biggies are prepping the coffee maker and Z2's breakfast.
3. Prepare for tomorrow - make sure you have everything you need for the next day gathered and ready to go, including selecting your clothing. This all make a big difference, especially if you oversleep!
4. Do a brain dump - empty your brain of all your thoughts about tomorrow so you can't forget. I find it best to keep my notepad handing throughout my evening activities. (Remember that Jennifer recommends keeping a notepad on your nightstand for the same reason.)
5. Get bed-ready - brushing, flossing, etc.

There's a similar breakdown for developing your morning routine.

After working through both routines as well as pondering cleaning activities that need to get done each week, I got to thinking about something else that FlyLady recommends - write your routines down and post them somewhere you'll see them often. Which reminded me of a Pinterest post I'd see where someone had a checklist in a picture frame. The idea is to use a dry erase marker then wipe it off to use it again. Brilliant! So, I picked up a frame at DG for $3 and now have this:

The left side has my morning routine on the top, evening on the bottom. On the right, it is broken down into individual days and lists things that need to be done. Running the stick-vac in the kitchen and dining room everyday (we have 2 dogs), changing the crabs' water every other day, and such things. My favorite part: my DH is paying attention to all this! I got hit with a horrible sinus infection as I was finishing this up and while I've been recuperating he's been doing what he can to keep up with the list!

My personal recommendations when it comes to setting up routines:

• Don't try to do too much too fast. We were already trying to get into these kinds of habits in place, we just hadn't committed to it by writing it down. There's nothing wrong with easing into things with one or two habits at a time.
• When it comes to what you can do to prepare for the next day, think hard and think outside the box. Mornings are chaos - especially if you have children. The more you can do in advance, the easier it will be. We've started setting out Z2's breakfast the night before. He picks his cereal before bed and we pour it into a Tupperware bowl and put a lid on it. Then we pour his milk in a jar with a lid and set it back in the fridge. We also put his vitamins in a container and set it next to his bowl. He gets dressed, comes down and gets his own breakfast. He loves doing it for himself and really enjoys sitting in the kitchen so he can talk to me while I get ready.
• Don't over-think this. If you're struggling with coming up with a "full routine", start with whatever you've come up with so far. More will come to you as you develop the habit and become more organized. (If you haven't organized your schedule yet, you really need to start there.) 
• You probably already have some routines in your life and don't even realize it. (I do things in the same order every morning during and following my shower.) Undoing those routines could be problematic, so try to work new things around them - unless, of course, it involves unhealthy habits that need to be changed.

I am anxious to see how the gals Jennifer chose to take the challenge have approached this week. (More than anything, I'm interested in reading Jennifer's tips that they'll share in their blog posts!) As a bonus, this week I chose to work on organizing our menu as well. This is also covered in the section of the book that I don't have, but it's something I've been wanting to tackle since this organizing mission began. Watch for that post soon.