Organizational Tips
Monday, March 16, 2009, by Leigh Anne
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Happy Monday!
I am going to start the week off with a fun little organizational tip! Every once in a while that organizational bug bites.
I love texture, fabric, paper, yarn, and especially ribbon!
Last week as I was attempting to clean up the craft room (aka the boys room) I discovered that I had a problem. Too much ribbon. I love ribbon! My craft room was getting cluttered with spools of ribbon so I decided I need to get it organized.
I found this great ribbon organizing tip over at Tip Junkie. It was shared by Kitchen Klique.
As soon as I saw it I knew it was the solution to my ribbon problem!
All you need are some pant hangers.
I only bought two to start with and because of my addiction I need to get a few more!
Not only is it a great way to organize your ribbon but I just love the way it looks. I also color coded mine so it looks pretty too!!
I must confess - this is my craft ribbon. All my present wrapping ribbon is stashed under my bed - now I need to find a way to organize it! Most of that ribbon is those large spools of ribbon from Costco. They are too big to fit on the hanger - any ideas?
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Categories: Nest, Organizational Tips
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Monday, March 2, 2009, by Leigh Anne
What’s on your To Do list?
We’ve had lots of family fun on our To Do list this past weekend. College girl was home for a visit and it was opening weekend of the high school musical for my other daughter so we were busy, busy!
Over the years I have tried dozens of different types of time management systems, my shelves are lined with dozens of different books on time management and I’ve had lots of different daytimers/To Do lists!
Today I want to share with you what I currently use, in its very plain and simple form. I hope you are not too disappointed!
I am a lover of paper, as antiquated as that may seem in this increasingly “paper less” society we live in.
I do not like electronic gadgets for keeping track of my life. I like to do it the old fashion way - with paper and pen!
My current system is a combination of things I learned while reading Getting Things Done by David Allen.
Last year I used a simple, but cheerful, red Moleskin notebook
I love the size that fits easily into my purse (5 x 8″.) The elastic strap that wraps around it keeps it all together. It is well used and well worn and full! This last week I realized I was reaching the last few pages and it was time for a new one.
I figured if I must have a notebook to keep track of my life it mine as well be a pretty one!
So this weekend while college girl and I were doing a little shopping we stopped into one of my favorite stores, full of pretty things - Anthropologie. I found this pretty little notebook - perfect for my next To Do list.
My To Do list is pretty simple. I just divide each page into four sections - Errands, To Call, Computer and To Do.
Errands -list of places I need to go - bank, dry cleaner, pharmacy, Target etc. and the things I need to pick up there.
To Call- calls that need to be made during the week. I include personal as well as calls I need to make for my homebased business. Calls such as scheduling doctor’s appointments, haircuts, etc.
Computer- this list is anything and everything I need to do while at the computer. Emails that need to be sent, bills to be paid, lots of things for my homebased busness, etc. You’ll be amazed how long this list can become. It is usually my longest list.
To Do - this includes projects and just about anything else that doesn’t fall into the other 3 categories. Items such as writing thank you notes, organizing photos, scrapbook project, cleaning out a closet etc.
Each Sunday evening I sit down and make up my To Do list for the coming week. I look back at last weeks list and carry forward anything that didn’t get crossed off and add new things. Of course things get added throughout the week too.
By the end of the week my list is pretty messy - hopefully with lots of lines through things!
If the list just gets too messy or crowded I will rewrite the list midweek.
I use the page opposite of the To Do list to write down phone messages, ideas or thoughts I have or hear during the week, menu planning ideas, blog ideas etc.
What time management system do you use? What do you use to keep track of your life, your To Do’s?? Please share!
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Categories: Inspire, Organizational Tips, Time Management
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Tuesday, September 23, 2008, by Leigh Anne
I know for some of you the thought of decorating for Christmas can bring on enough stress and anxiety all on its own without the thought of decorating for a holiday like Halloween! I must admit as much as I enjoy holiday decorating it can be just “one more thing” to add to the already long list during a busy holiday season.
Years ago, eleven years to be exact, I found a trick that has help to take a lot of the stress and anxiety out of my holiday decorating and planning. In fact, it has made it quite pain free and mindless and dare I even say - FUN!!
My trick is my Things That Work Notebook!
I purchased this great little spiral bound notebook with blank pages from a wonderful Oregon artist - Mary Anne Radmacher Hershey. She even personalized it for me. Any notebook with blank pages will do but I figure if you have to have a notebook you mine as well have a pretty one!
In 1997 I began keeping track of certain things -
-the menus I served at parties and the guest list
- photos of the table setting from the party and sometimes even the guests! (And since I started blogging I now take pictures of the food!)
- the cookies and candy I made each holiday season and who I took plate of goodies to.
- and pictures of my holiday decorating
By taking pictures of how I decorate each year all I need to do the next year is pull out my Things That Work Notebook along with the holiday decorations. I don’t have to start from scratch each year wondering where I’m going to put everything and tying to remember what I did last year.
It works for party planning too -each year I just check my list from last year’s Holiday Brunch. If I am feeling pressed for time and uninspired I can just repeat the same menu or I can add in a few new recipes if I want.
With my decorating, some years I do it exactly the way I did it the year before but some years, like this year, I tweak things a bit. I added a few new Halloween decorations this year so I changed some things around but at least I had a starting point.
Do you have a trick of the trade that helps make your holiday decorating and party planning a little easier? Please share!!
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Categories: Nest, Organizational Tips
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Tuesday, September 16, 2008, by Leigh Anne
I think the thing I hate most about cooking dinner every night is deciding what to cook! Don’t you agree?
My Menu Planning Tool #2 is what helps make the decision easier - The Wilkes Family Favorites List. (See yesterday’s post for Tool #1)
Night after night of having to make the decision of what we are going to eat gets old after 27 years! With the help of my family I have put together a list of our families favorite meals. I divided them into categories such as beef, chicken, pork, shrimp, salad, pasta/pizza, soup and sandwiches.
Having a master list of family favorites makes the dinner decision so much easier!
I have also taken all of these recipes and put them into one cookbook/binder (or rather my mother and daughter did!) so I always know where they are.
When all the kids were home I would make them all pick a night of the week and decide what we were having for dinner, using the list as a reference if needed. As someone at my class last Thursday suggested, I should have taken it one step further and made them cook dinner that night too!
Another fun trick to help make the decision process easier is to use theme nights.
Rachel Jensen shared with me how she has set up her theme nights. You notice that each theme night also has a “fall-back” meal - a great idea! A “fall-back” meal is something she knows she always has the ingredients for that can be made quickly and easily if all else fails! Here is an example of how she has hers set up:
Rice Sunday (Fallback - stir fry with broccoli)
Pasta Monday (Fallback -Spaghetti)
Crockpot Tuesday (Beef Stew)
Mexican Wednesday (Soft Taco Bar)
Easy Oven Thursday (Frozen Pizza)
Grill Friday (Hamburgers)
Chicken Saturday (Baked Chicken Breast)
Having theme nights makes the decision process easier because you don’t have to make as many decisions. You don’t have to decide between chicken, beef, pork etc. - you know on Saturdays you only have to choose from your chicken recipes! Fewer decisions equals less stress!
I like Rachel’s idea so much I have decided to use it in my Wilkes Family Weekly Dinner Plan
To help me with my weekly menu planning I will be posting The Wilkes Weekly Dinner Plan each week on my family blog - if you’d like to see what we are having for dinner this week and the links for the recipes you can check it out by clicking on the link above.
Here are some of our favorite quick and easy meals from the Wilkes Family Favorites List:
Cafe Rio Sweet Pork
Sweet & Sour Chicken
Sesame Chicken
Mediterranean Chicken and Bow Tie Pasta
Pasta with Pesto and Sun Dried Tomatoes
I hope these meal planning tips help and if you have any more to add to the list please share!
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Categories: Nourish, Organizational Tips, Recipes
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Monday, September 15, 2008, by Leigh Anne
As promised, today I will share with you some of the information I presented at the class I taught at church last week on menu planning and quick meals. (Part Two will come tomorrow)
A lot of the information I presented was thanks to you! So many of you left great ideas and suggestions when I asked for your help last week. You are amazing!
Over my 27 years of fixing dinner evening in and evening out I think I have tried just about everything - once a month cooking, dinner coop, Make a Mix, Dream Dinners. Each of these methods of menu planning has worked but as the seasons of my life changed or we just got tired of doing it I have tried something new.
Another option, that I have not personally tried but that many of you shared in your comments is an on-line menu planning service. What a great idea! For a monthly/yearly fee you can have a weeks worth of menus delivered to your in-box each week complete with a shopping list. Some of the services even have specialized menus available - Low Carb, Heart Healthy and others. I took a peek at some of their free/sample menus and they looked great. I even tried a recipe from one. If you have picky eaters at your house this might not be a great choice but you might want to check it out.
Some of the services you recommended are:
www.e-mealz.com
www.savingdinner.com
www.thescramble.com
The number one lesson I have learned over the last 27 years of cooking for my family is that Being Prepared is the key to menu planning and quick meals. Knowing what you are going to make and having the ingredients on hand are essential! Doing a little bit of planning and work at the beginning of the week can make the rest of the week so much easier and less stressful.
I do my menu planning once a week on Sunday evenings - planning our menus for the next week. I found it too hard to plan farther ahead than one week. Life happens and schedules change so often that one week at a time just works better for me.
I have two tools I use that help me Be Prepared and plan my menus. They help me be a much happier and less stressed mommy come 5:00 p.m. each night and my family eats better when I use them!
Tool #1 - The Wilkes Family Pantry Staples. I keep a list of all the food items I need to have in my kitchen that keep my family fed. Having these items on hand allows me to put together an elaborate meal for my family or pull together a last minute dinner when I’ve been gone all day and need to leave again in 30 minutes.
If you will review your favorite family recipes you will be able to compile your own list of pantry staples, items that appear over and over again in your favorite recipes or use mine as a starting point and add and subtract from there. By always having these items on hand you will be able to easily and quickly put together a meal your family will love. My list is divided into categories: Freezer, Refrigerator, Pantry, and Canned Goods. Click on the link above to see what’s on my list.
Come back tomorrow to read about Tool #2!
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Categories: Nourish, Organizational Tips
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Wednesday, April 9, 2008, by Leigh Anne
“The place life happens”
Last week I decided to tackle another “Declutter” project. I have already shared my Declutter the Desk project and my Pantry Organization.
Now it was time to tackle the kitchen corner cabinet - do you have one of those? It is amazing how much stuff you can fit into one!
When you open the cabinet door and look in - it really doesn’t look that bad, does it? Not totally organized but nothing falls out on you!
Well, I started pulling things out and I felt like I was reaching into Mary Poppin’s carpet bag - things just kept coming and coming and coming! I ended up with this pile on my counter.
Yikes! Yes - all of that came out of that small corner cabinet.
An assortment of all kinds of different rubber/plastic containers. I think there was about 5-6 lids for every one storage container - what happened to all the bottoms???
I decided to get rid of all the storage containers I had - yes, all of them and start over. I made a donation to Goodwill and bought a new box of disposable storage containers from Ziploc - love those things. I also found a really cool food storage container organizer at The Container Store. It wouldn’t fit in my corner cabinet so I had to clean out one of the bottom cabinets for it to fit into. I love it!
My corner cabinet now looks like this….
It is now the perfect home for my food processor, and a few other kitchen tools I use all the time. Now really - how many storage containers does one person need? Have you counted how many you have recently?
What declutter project have you tackled lately? I am onto my master bedroom and what lurks under the bed!! Scary!
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Categories: Nest, Organizational Tips
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Thursday, February 7, 2008, by Leigh Anne
O.k. so I just had to share. The first of this year I set a very lofty goal - to organize some part of my house every day until I had worked my way through the whole house - I started the year off great by organizing my office desk and that’s where it stopped! So much for New Year’s resolutions. Well, I’ve revised the goal to organize one part of my house each month. So this month it was my pantry in the garage.
I have a very small pantry in my kitchen so I store alot of my canned goods in the garage. Now you may look at the photo and think - it looks pretty good to me. Well it looked good with it’s rows of matching white baskets but it was not very functional or effective. I never really knew how many cans I had or of what and it was impossible to make sure I rotated the cans. In fact when I was cleaning it out I found 6 cans of mandarin oranges from 2001 that were BULGING and a found two huge containers of sesame seeds, probably a lifetime supply! Yikes!
So during a trip to Costco this week I discovered the Cansolidator! It is an amazing little device that not only keeps your cans organized but it rotates them automatically for you. It is so cool! No more bulging cans for me. I bought four of them and now not only does my pantry shelf look good - it’s functional too! I kept a few of the baskets to hold oversized cans and other bottles that don’t fit into the Cansolidator. Isn’t it pretty!
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Categories: Organizational Tips
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Monday, February 4, 2008, by Leigh Anne
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Categories: Home Based Business, Organizational Tips
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Monday, January 21, 2008, by Leigh Anne
It is freezing cold here in Portland, Oregon. O.k., it’s only in the low 30’s but the wind is blowing and for us that is cold (I did grow up in Wisconsin so I really do know what cold is but I have lived in Oregon long enough to have readjusted).
So any way - I was getting ready to go for a walk this morning and since it is so cold I decided I needed my ear muffs, gloves and a scarf and as I was reaching into the closet to get them - OUCH! I pulled a muscle in my shoulder/back. All I did was reach - I must be getting old!
I am now sitting at the computer with my “Original Bed Buddy“, something that looks like a long sock full of some kind of grain that you heat up in the microwave and it really does make my muscle feel better - so at least I can type this post. The only problem is my children think it stinks so they won’t come near me when I am using it (or maybe that isn’t a problem:).
Back to the post - last week I shared with you my Desk Declutter and that one of the things on my desk was my Smart Book. I promised more details on the Smart Book so here they are.
My Smart Book is called “my Smart Book” because it is my brain. It contains all the important papers, lists, directories, information that I refer to on a regular/daily basis for my business. As I mentioned in last weeks post - people spend 150 hours a year looking for things. My Smart Bookhas helped me cut that number down quite a bit. (If you read my Desk Declutter post - I did find the rebate check I was looking for!!)
To make your own Smart Book you will need:
- A two inch - 3 ring binder
- A set of numbered tabs (1-15)
- All the papers, lists, publications etc. for your business that you refer to on a daily/weekly basis.
My Smart Book contains the following tabs:
Business Calendar (team meetings, webinars, conferences, customer events etc.)
Monthly Company Consultant Newsletter
Team Roster (my first line team members) -includes name, address, phone and email
Leader Roster (all team leaders)
Customer Newsletter
Customer Product Price List
Incentive Brochures -Qualifications for Company Sales and Recruiting Incentives
Incentive Trip Brochure/Qualifications
Convention Brochures (Regional, National and Leadership)
Upcoming Customer Event Registrations/Info
Company “Help” Numbers
Policy and Procedure Manual
Monthly Management Reports
Conference Call Info
Your Smart Book categories may vary. During the next couple of weeks keep a list of those items you use and refer to on a regular basis - what are you spending time searching for on your desk? These are the things that should be put into your Smart Book.
I just 3 hole punch the list, brochure etc. and put it right into the binder or for somethings I put a top loading page protector in the binder and slip in the item (fold out incentive trip brochure)- whichever works best for you.
The trick is to keep it updated - each month remove the outdated info and replace it with the current month’s publication. You will find yourself referring to your Smart Book many times a day - when a downline calls with a question about the current sales incentive, how many points they need to earn an incentive trip or a customer calls to find out about a monthly special.
Be Smart - get a Smart Book!
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Categories: Home Based Business, Organizational Tips
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Wednesday, January 16, 2008, by Leigh Anne
O.K. so I know - I usually share a recipe on Wednesdays but today, instead, I’m going to share some tax advice! Like many of you, bookkeeping and taxes are two of my LEAST favorite things in the world but a necessity with a homebased business.
Recipes are much more fun I know, but yesterday I participated in a conference call sponsored by the Barefoot Executive featuring Deduction Diva, Vicki Collins. Vicki is a CPA that specializes in working with homebased business, especially direct sales. Be sure and check out her website.
On the call Vicki shared her Tax To Do List for 2008. She had a lot of good ideas and tips. Here’s her list -
1. If you have inventory and didn’t do a count on December 31st - do it now!
2. Get an official odometer reading. If you are ever audited, IRS may ask to see proof of your odometer reading at the beginning and end of the year. If you haven’t had any repair work or oil changes in the past month, you will need to find a way to get a reading. If you don’t need any work done, you can always go to an oil change/repair workshop and request an estimate. They should put the odometer reading on the estimate.
3. Finish up 2007 filing and bookkeeping.
4. Review and complete your 2007 mileage log. It will never be easier to finish than right now. If you haven’t started your 2007 log, it’s o.k. - you can still do it now. Just look at your planner and receipts and use those to calculate your miles. 2007’s mileage rate is 48.5 cents per mile.
5. Set up your 2008 files. Think about your categories of expenses. By getting your files together now, it will be much easier to file your receipts throughout the year.
6. If you don’t have a separate checking account and credit card for your business, go ahead and establish them now. It’s always easier to do your record-keeping when you don’t have to go through and separate out personal and business expenses.
7. Make or review your business plan. This is great documentation of your intent to make a profit. It also helps you stay on track during the year.
8. Make appointments with yourself either weekly or monthly to do your bookkeeping. It is so much easier to do your paperwork and bookkeeping regularly. You’ll also be less likely to forget to include income and expenses.
9. If you pay estimated tax, your final estimate for 2007 is due January 15th (yesterday!)
10. Vow to learn as much as you can to help yourself keep more money in your pocket through legal tax deductions and strategies.
Note from Leigh Anne: I learned the hard way the importance of keeping on top of your bookkeeping. After a couple of years of neglecting it and having to spend hours and hours going through receipts, paperwork, tearing my hair out, etc. to get it ready for taxes I now schedule 30 minutes the first of each month to take care of things - it is so much easier!!
Popularity: 24% [?]
Categories: Home Based Business, Organizational Tips, Time Management
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