Online Schedule Organizer for Busy Families

I found a great website for organizing your schedule and family activites, as well as your to-list, shopping list, and family journal, all in one place! Did I mention it's free?! Wow, what a time saver and I love that it allows me to focus on all my thoughts and appointments, not to mention my chaotic day, at the same time and in one place! That deserves a big Eco-licous Mama thumbs up!

So a wonderful friend saw my recent post about Organizing Your Life and Mind, and she shared a website with me. Flylady.net teamed up with Cozi Central to create a fabulous and user-friendly online calendar, to-do list, and grocery list. Appointment reminders and your to do list can be emailed or texted right to your phone! As long as it's set up in Cozi, you won't ever forget anything again, lol!

To set up your own online organizer, CLICK HERE. You have to check it out!

Here's what Cozi says about organizing your time:

Cozi makes managing day-to-day activities easier with a shared online calendar, grocery shopping lists, and to do lists the whole family can access. Schedules are communicated, activities are coordinated, groceries get bought and to do lists get checked off—leaving you time to spend on things you really want to do. Get organized with Cozi, it's specially designed for busy lives just like yours.

The website, http://www.flylady.net/ which helps you organize your cleaning schedule and has tips on decluttering. It has some good tips and schedules but the website itself was a little chaotic in my opinion. The highlight for me was the link to Cozi Central. I'm so excited this goes along perfectly with my Organizing Your LIfe and Mind series! Are you organizing along with me??

Week 2 of Organizing Your Life, Mind and Home!

It is Week 2 of Organizing Your Life!

I am following Bonnie from House of Grace and the book Organize Now to help organize my life, mind and home! I'd love for you to join in if you haven't already! How did you do on week one's goals? If you missed week one, click here. I hope that week one encouraged you to start looking at what an organized life and mind looks like and what is most important to you in your life. Your values and goals should be reflected in how you spend your time each day.

Week 2 - Organize Your Priorities

Does it ever fell like you spend your time doing but not living? Organize your priorities first and then let your to do lists and daily activities be determined by the priorities in your life. If you don't establish your priorites, someone else will establish them for you!

This Week's Goals:

1. Establish your priorities.
       Ask yourself these questions:
          -What do I value most?
          - What things are the most important to me? (ex. good health, strong marriage, 
                 time with my children)
          - What is my purpose, where am I going?

2. Make a list of your top ten priorites. Post this list where you will see it often.

3. Make a list of all of the activities you participate in. Compare this list with your list of top ten priorities. Decide on activities that can be eliminated to make time for your top ten and cut out activities that take your time but don't bring you joy.

4. Right now, schedule time in your planner to contribute to your priorities.
     Appointments may include:
      - A phone call to a friend
      - Meals with your family
      - Family game or movie night
      - Exercise
      - A date with your partner
      - Organize a work space in your home office

5. Learn to say no! Stick to your top ten priorities by setting boundaries.

6. Honor your priorities each day.

Tips on Organizing Your Priorities:
- Keep your top ten list somewhere where you will see them daily
- Make a list of fun things your family can do that cost little or no money and do as many as you can each week.
- Reflect on the usage of your time and ask yourself if this is helping your priorities or taking away from them?
- Take the ten minute challenge. If you have an extra ten minutes in your day, use it on one of your priorities or goal.
- Review your list of priorities and add or subtract them as your priorities change in your life.

Next Week's Goal: Organize Your Schedule!

Please share your ideas for organizing your life and mind! We'd love to hear what you do to stay organized! :)

Small Steps To A More Organized Life!

Organizing My Life and Mind in 56 Weeks!
Is that really possible?

I found a really great book recommendation from Bonnie over at House of Grace. She is going through the book "Organize Now" by Jennifer Ford Berry. There are so many blogs that I follow that have so many great ideas, but like most of us moms, I have very little time to read and browse the internet, let alone act on any of these fabulous ideas I find right?! I am all about organization when it comes to closets and files, but organizing my life and schedule, well... did I mention I work full-time and have a 18 month old, lol! Just wanted to throw that out there so it gives me a little excuse if it takes me awhile to pull off this whole organizing my life thing! :)

Weeks 1-4 are focused on:   Organizing Yourself

Week One - Organize Your Mind and Life Vision

This Week's Goals:
1. Write out your vision for your life.
        Ask yourself these questions:
            What would your days look like?
            What would you do for for
            What would you do less and more of?

2. Get a minimum of 7 hours of sleep per night and readjust your schedule if necessary.

3. Start your day by writing down a short, yes I said short :), To Do list of everything you want or need to do today. (see ideas below)

4. Start a journal. Even if you don't write in it everyday, use it for recording special thoughts, days or memories.

5. Limit TV. This simple act will benefit the entire family.

6. Schedule a two-minute break 2-3 times a day to spend alone and do nothing.

7. Practice meditating/prayer.

8. Schedule time to exercise. Even if it is just running around with the kids or going on a walk. I will commit to 20 minutes at least 4 times a week! Did I really just commit to that, lol?!

9. Schedule more "me time". Turn off your phone and computer and have fun! Do something you love!

10. Eliminate things in life that drain your energy: clutter, unhealthy relationships, unfinish projects, unnecessary tasks on your To Do list.

11. Take control of your time. Set goals and then break them down into daily To Do's. When your goals are clean, you can control your time better and make room for your priorities.

Wow, that seems like a lot, I know!! Well, we have one week to start setting new patterns in our lives.

Next Week's Goal: Organize Your Priorities! Start looking for a daily planner that you will find useful in organizing your schedule and time.

I'd love to hear how you incorporated these goals, of organizing your mind, into your life this week! Please share with us! We all need helpful ideas with this!

Check out these cute and FREE downloadable to-do lists! Thank you Vale Design, Fresh Picked Whimsy and Simple Mom!

http://www.skiptomylou.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/lattelist.pdf




http://simplemom.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/pocket-docket.pdf

Eliminating Paper Clutter in a Modern Way!

How do we accumulate so much paperwork and clutter in our homes? It seems like everyday I am going through papers and "stuff" on the counters, in drawers, and most often, my desk! I have a filing cabinet that stores all of our important papers, bills, coupons, etc. I think I did a pretty good job color coding, labeling and organizing our filing cabinet, but there are so many papers in there. Storage is minimal, especially since our daughter's things have taken over our home and storage unit!  My husband and I are both self-employed so unfortunately, we have a lot of paperwork to save for 7 years... it is time to rethink our filing system. It's about time our modern conveniences transformed our clutter, right!

See how long are we supposed to keep bills, statements, and important documents at Bankrate.com:
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/how-long-to-keep-financial-records.aspx

I wanted to share steps that I have used to eliminate paperwork, clutter and files from our home. I hope you find it helpful!

Organizing your papers:

1. Sort your papers into categories (a few examples below):

Bills

Important Personal Documents

Coupons

Miscellaneous Paperwork

School Paperwork

Receipts

2. Can any items be saved electronically or scanned? -

Think of what items can be scanned and saved into your computer to eliminate paperwork. Make sure you always keep originals of important personal documents.

3. Organize your notes and miscellaneous papers with Evernote! -

Check out a website called http://www.evernote.com/. This is a free service that allows you to save information and access it on your phone, ipad, and computer. This is truly modernizing clutter! Jot down a few notes, take a picture of meeting notes or a business card, save magazine articles or recipes, pretty much anything you can copy or take a picture of can be saved and filed on evernote! It's amazing! Then anytime you need to see it, just search for a few words in the document and it pops right up, even hand written notes! This is great for us moms who have a hard time remembering anything! :)

Organizing your bills and statements:

1. Check the length of available statement history with your bank/credit card company-

Review your credit card and bank statements online to see what length the bank holds records of your statements. Some companies have records up to 6 years, and others, only one year. If your credit card or banking institution holds your statements for 6 years, there is probably not a need to personally save all of the statements.

2. Save E-Statements on your computer-

Sign up for E-statements. The e-statements I receive in my email, I then save the pdf file of my statement in "My bills" file on my computer. I have a seperate folder under "My Bills" for each credit card or bank. If you prefer paper statements by mail, you can easily scan your bills into the computer and then save them in the same way.

3. Purge your saved E-Statements to a CD-

Every 6 months, I purge all of the information from my bills file and save it onto a computer cd. The cd goes into our fire-proof safe and I have all of our records for tax purposes, should we need them.

I'd love to hear your ideas on getting rid of clutter and unnecessary paperwork! Please share your ideas with us!

Photo by: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=1556