Getting organized
I would have written this column earlier had I not misplaced the suggestions given to me by a professional organizer.
After I finally read them over, I wanted to call and thank her, but I couldn't find my cell phone.
As I went to look for it, I realized that a tube of frozen ground beef I had left sitting on the counter to thaw had disappeared.
I asked the kids if they'd seen either of these things.
One of my 3-year-olds sat down and drew me a picture of the tube.
"Did it look like this?" she asked.
"Yes. Do you know where it is?"
"No," she said and went on her merry way, likely to go play with my cell phone.
We eventually found the beef stuffed inside a sock underneath my kids' bunk bed. So, you see, we kind of solved a couple mysteries at once. The next time I can't seem to find a matching sock I'm going to go look for the hamburger.
Understand now why I'm talking to a professional organizer?
Dianne Partipilo runs her own business, Windy City Interiors, Inc. (www.windycityinteriorsinc.com), and is a mom of two. Along with home organizing, she also works as a home stager and senior downsizing specialist. She's working toward a degree in social work and as a wish granter for the Make a Wish Foundation of Illinois, too.
So she knows a thing or two about juggling life's many demands.
"There's definitely a psychological component here with disorganization, clutter, when you just can't seem to get it straight, a running on empty kind of thing," she said.
Basically, organization is also for the mind, she said. I think... uh, forgot what I was going to write here.
Seriously, Partipilo's advice already is helping me. She offered some general tips to keep up with schedules, schoolwork, toys and messes.
"Sit down as a family unit and say, 'This is what's not working. What are we going to do to change it?'" Partipilo suggested.
Get the kids involved, she said. Give them each their own daily calendar or planner.
"After all, it only takes one time for Suzie to miss Sarah's skating party or little Jimmy to miss T-ball practice as a gentle reminder of the importance of being organized," she said.
Sit down with them every month and merge all the calendars onto a monthly family calendar, she said. That way, you can identify any overlapping activities.
Make the meeting fun for the kids by giving them hot chocolate or popcorn, Partipilo suggested.
Keep like things with like things -batteries, toys, school supplies, whatever - and don't just go out and buy a bunch of bins, she said. That'll just add to the clutter.
"Sometimes there is simply too much stuff," she said. "You can't keep shuffling piles around, you actually have to go in there and purge, purge, purge."
Do this at the beginning or end of each season, she said.
As for schoolwork, give each kid their own box. At the end of the school year, go through the boxes with them and choose which items to discard, Partipilo said.
Plan your days - the laundry, the grocery shopping, trips to the doctor. Figure out when each can be done and do it. What it comes down to is that you have to work at it, Partipilo said.
"Sometimes people don't want to hear that, but that's really the gist of it," she said.
