Welcome to the Plan-and-Organize-Life.com Newsletter. I hope you enjoy getting the newsletter and that it helps to keep you on track with your organizing goals. Remember, you can get a lot done in only 10 minutes of decluttering and organizing! Little bits add up over time.

Table of Contents

Organizing Fun
Product Review - Amy Knapp's Big Grid Family Organizer
What’s New on Plan-and-Organize-Life.com - Recent site additions
Monthly Mission - Keeping Kids Organized

I wanted to share this with you last month for the laundry mission, but it was unavailable at the time. Here’s another way to get your laundry done easily!

From Sunday, July 26, 2009
Baby Blues Comic Strip

Here are some of the more recently added pages to the website you may have missed.

Garage Organization – Basic steps to start tackling that messy garage.

Organizing Your Incoming Snail Mail – how to simply manage your daily paper mail.

Home Filing System - How to manage all that paper that is part of life.

Chore Charts – Basic chore chart ideas to get the rest of the family involved in cleaning and organizing.

Laundry - Tips on how to manage your laundry so it doesn't take over your home and your time.

One important way for me to keep my family’s activities organized in one central place for all to see is the family wall calendar. I’ve been using a great wall calendar for several years, but just recently, I found one that’s even better!

Amy Knapp’s Big Grid Family Organizer is a 17 month wall calendar that measures 22 x 15 inches when opened, spiral bound, and the box for each day to write in is 2 x 3.5 inches. Woohoo! It comes with 300 event reminder stickers and 84 perforated “to do” lists you can detach from the back of the calendar. The space is well used and includes space for project lists, things not to forget and on each day, there is a small space to write down your dinner meal plan. It’s simply a great calendar. And I got mine from Amazon.com for just over $10 and free shipping. I don’t think you can beat that. I refuse to use cheap calendars that are pretty. I need something very functional. This totally fits the bill.

2010 Amy Knapp's Big Grid Family Organizer wall calendar

To see how I use my wall calendar, click here.

Getting and staying organized can be a little extra challenging when you add kids to the mix. They don’t seem to understand the peace that a clear floor can bring. When I say “I can’t see my floor” my son tells me “I can, in between all the toys”. And as for how to get across a room of toys, he tells me to “step carefully between them”. Thanks! I have to say, it’s terrible, but I smile inside when one of them steps on a toy and gets frustrated. Karma!

So what can we do to help teach our kids to be part of the team and help keep the house organized?

Be a good example – Kids learn by watching. If they hear you tell them to put their things away when they’re done, but they see YOU leave your things lying around, they will do what you do, not what you say. So start teaching them by watching yourself and that you follow the rules.

To read the rest of the monthly mission for September, click here.


Until next time, happy organizing!

Sincerely,

Tracy Greene
Plan-and-Organize-Life.com

P.S. Sometimes links to website pages get broken. If a link doesn't work, you may need to copy and paste the entire link into your browser.