I can’t get my act together!!!

amother

Orchid

Wed, Jan 24 2018, 5:14 pm

Ok I don’t know which category to put this but help! I am so so unorganized and my house management skill are terrible. I recently got a cleaning lady once a week. Fine. But that’s not what I need. I need organizational skills! I’m so messy and unorganized! And then my brain is unorganized and my kids don’t have a schedule. Laundry is always a mess and kids closets.... let’s not talk about it. Somehow we all look good and put together when we go out. I’m good at fooling the world. My kids are always in with the latest trends and styles and I always pack them with tons of snack and show and tell for the little ones... supper is always made and delicious. But let’s talk timing. Some houses have a supper hour. By us it’s some days at 5 and some days at 7... baths and bedtime don’t either have a time. I hate it!! I want to change and be super organized but it’s so so so hard to change a nature! I considered hiring an organizer to at least organize the closets, cabinets... but will I maintain it??? I need to change before my kids get to old, I don’t have teens yet and must change before they hit the stage of having friends over and I’m panicking even thinking about shidduchim...
I also have like a mountain of mail always always in my kitchen to be sorted. Yuck. Dishes. Yuck. Someone give me skills to cope.

Rachel Shira

Wed, Jan 24 2018, 5:25 pm

I would start with working on time management skills. After you have your schedule under control, you might find that you have more time for organizing and cleaning.
On the nights that run smoothly, what does it look like? Write down a sample schedule and stick to it for a week to see how it goes. Meal plan for the week and shop all at once so you have everything in the house and know what you’re making. Then figure out how to fit the cooking into your schedule so dinner will be ready at the same time every night. Do you have time when you get home from work to cook? Or can you prep in the morning or the night before and put it in the oven when you get home? Or do crockpot meals?
After the dinner piece is bedtime routines. If it will be hard for your kids to stick to a routine because they’re not used to it, maybe a fun chart will work.
Straight from dinner, go to the bath and then pajamas, brush teeth, play for 10 mins, read a book, then into bed. Or whatever works. The point is to get everyone in the habit of sticking to a schedule.
Once you have it in place you can loosen up sometimes and be flexible, but it sounds like it might help to really focus on being very timely to get used to it.

ra_mom

Wed, Jan 24 2018, 6:31 pm

amother wrote:

She'll help you organize and set up a system that's workable for you to maintain. If you're considering this, it's worthwhile. And if you fall behind again it's not failure to call her back for help with maintenance.