Organized Chaos

Ugh. Organization. Organization has never been my strong suit. I think I am pretty effective in the way of planning and organization. I guess I would hope that’s true as I actually got paid money for such things. But actually organizing objects… yeeeaaah. I think there is just too much creative chaos boggling around in my noggin to figure out how to keep things in little boxes. This can be a bit of a problemo with children. Especially because, in a strange twist, having stuff everywhere drives me nutty bananas.

So I want to know, what do you do with all your kiddos stuff? An there is A LOT of it. As I’ve said before, I find myself buying baskets. Lots and lots of baskets.

There are schedules, papers, toys, keepsakes, and all that jazzle dazzle. A whole lotta stuff to keep in order. To keep just in case. And more importantly to keep within reach. With one in school, one in pre-school, and a third in drool, we have attempted several different ways of keeping things in order. And some fail miserably. But a few actually work. And the boys are even willing to acquiesce which is half the battle. Or maybe even the whole battle.

First, I am a paper planner gal. I once tried to stray and take on that new-fangled electronic scheduling stuff. But to me, that’s for the birds. I want to be able to feast my eyes and pencil on all the months. I want to be able to have the satisfaction of writing things down. I certainly want to be able to doodle Ashli +Adam=TLF on every page. And I definitely want to have something aesthetically pleasing to do it all in.

Erin Condren planner
Available at Tiny Prints or Erin Condren

I love this planner. It’s an Erin Condren planner. I first ordered one when I was working part-time between Jonah and Harrison and have had 2 since. And I just like it. I know it’s probably completely irrational to spend so much coin on a planner {though I did find a discount code on RetailMeNot}. But I have never ever pretended for even one second to be a rational human being. I know there are smaller options. But this is the one I prefer. It has cute quotes, bright colors, and makes me giddy. And it works for me. And I think, one of the keys to organization is finding things that work for you.

Along with that planner, we keep a family calendar inside of a cabinet in the kitchen. Each Sunday after the meal planning and grocery shopping for the week are done {I’m actually not even kidding. This happens. We’ve always been meal planners. Even when we were two strong} we write the meals in for the week. Part of this is so I know what to thaw, prep, or kill. And part is so if I am looking for different meal options, I can look back to past months and see what we haven’t had in awhile. I also write B’s school Specials in as well as if he’s having hot lunch or cold lunch. We also write in all family events, work events, and practices. And of course, Husker games. So pretty much anything you would put on a normal calendar. If this should ever catch fire, I will probably need a brief stint in rehab like all the big stars. Because like the magazines say they’re just like us.

Amy Knapp family calendar
Amazon

I love this family calendar. It’s big, offering plenty of space for multiple things on any given day. I am sure there are more aesthetically pleasing options out there but this one comes with freaking awesome stickers. And don’t tell me you don’t love freaking awesome stickers.

We have also instituted three habits which Barrett and Jonah are actually pretty good at remembering to do.

[1] Take shoes off when entering the house and put them in shoe baskets. This happens about 60% of the time. I mean, Barrett would prefer to wear his shoes to bed. So I’m calling 60% a win.

[2] Empty backpack and lunchbag. Hang coat and backpack. Put away lunchbag. By some miracle of God, this actually happens on a daily basis. I am pretty sure now that I’ve written that, it will cease.

[3] Go through papers in backpack daily. Pick out 1 or 2 items to keep and put in personal file. Then at the end of the month we go through and play a rousing game of keep or toss. And vote to keep the keeps. And, of course, keep any papers that are necessary to them getting to stay in school as well and those go in the middle file. All in all, this is a win. And yes, that is a 4 lb bag of candy corn. What’s it to ya?

So those things, those are what are working for us. And please note that none of these is Pinterest-worthy… And was not fluffed, stuffed, or prepped for pictures. This is how we live, people. No die-cut labels. No laminated signs. No color-coordinated Legos. That would require additional blood pressure meds daily when Inevitably I would be reminded that my children and I have fundamental differences on what organization means. So we stay low-key.

But you know where it breaks down? The toys. THE TOYS! ACKKKK!

What do you do about all the toy clutter? Sure, we do toys away but that doesn’t mean out of sight, out of mind, because they aren’t even completely out of sight. Our front room, which I will talk about in an upcoming post, has been dubbed the Lego room which basically just means baby doesn’t get to lay on the floor and I always wear steel-toed boots in there. And then there are toys in their bedrooms. The unfinished basement is basically Kiddy Korner. The garage is like a parking lot for miniature humans. And then, there’s this. The toy box that, no matter how often we clean it out, seems to be related to Mary Poppins’ bag. I’m pretty sure J is going to pull a full-sized floor lamp out some day. And I’m also certain that the toys are planning an Attack of the Killer Tomatoes like revolt… And I can’t imagine how we’d even begin to clean smooshed tomatoes out of our spit-laden carpets. But maybe tomato is really in this season.

I don’t mind evidence of my children in my house. This is our life. This is our season. But I do want us all to coexist in a somewhat respectable and orderly fashion. So I wanna know… what do you do with all the stuff? What works for you and what has been a complete fail? How do you keep organized chaos?