Oh I’m smiling as I even decide to call this article that. I’m STILL trying to master the art of organising us all. 

I was heard saying, when I had my fourth child, it took me roughly six months to feel like I had my head wrapped around the fact that I was the mother of four. It took all that time to really get my groove going with getting everyone out of the house in a timely fashion. You know getting the biggest ones to school means you do need to be awake, showered, dressed and have clean teeth. Well, that’s my bare minimum anyway. I have read a bazillion times that mothers find it hard to grab time for a shower or a cup of coffee or the chance to get out of their pyjamas. I’ve never been like that, I have to be really ill to stay in my pjs. 

I thrive on task setting and achieving my goals. I do not get this right every day. I am so totally normal that there are definitely times when I have no clue what we will eat for dinner or that I completely forget that it’s Lachlan’s tennis lesson. But most of the time I do know and I do have a grip on what’s going on. It may not last as my twins are still so young I control everything they do. It’s not that way when they become teenagers. I figure I have a few years up my sleeve and when the time comes I shall try to be flexible. I said I’ll try. 

I do my laundry. Constantly. If I take one day off there is not less laundry, just more. I’ve tried doing it at night, hanging it out in the dark hoping it will be dry by lunchtime. Never works. I’ve tried doing it in the morning. But there is always something I forget. Or then I discover a wet bed which requires three loads of washing to complete. We don’t have the room for spare doonas so if it’s wet upon, it’s gets washed and dried and is back on the bed by that night. I just do it when I think of it and that’s working right now. I buy laundry detergent in bulk.  

I grocery shop constantly. I have a plan for the week. I try to write it down. Sometimes I do, most times I don’t. I periodically go through my freezer to plan to use up what I have already at home. I do the same with the pantry. I make meals from what I have so my grocery bill isn’t so massive all the time. It’s always massive, not big, not a lot, not even huge…… it’s massive. I look for specials. I get sucked in like the rest of us and buy two bulk toilet papers when I don’t need two but I still get them because it’s a good buy. We will use it. Guaranteed. I re stock my fresh fruit & vegetables all the time. We are a family that eats well, we also eat too much but I’m working on that. We eat fresh foods mostly. I don’t find it too hard to include five vegetables for our dinner. So we go through bucketloads of fruit & vegetables. Where I live is very warm. Fruit ripens like you have not known in the Southern states of Australia. So while you might buy 10 bananas a little green and that will do you a week or ten days. Here they’d ripen overnight and suddenly no one will eat the over ripe bananas. It’s just easier if I buy them every few days in smaller quantities. 

I always know what I’m doing for dinner that night by lunchtime. Most days. {In fact if you read carefully , above here I just said I often have no clue…..}

Even if I’m thinking “McDonalds for the children, Indian take away for us” I’ve decided that by lunchtime. The day before I may have a plan. Today, I knew I was staying at home most of the day. So I’ve cooked up a pea & ham soup, a bolognese sauce and a rocky road treat out of rice bubbles. My husband just walked through the door and said, “You do remember I’m not here for dinner tonight?”…. to which I replied “Of course… this is for tomorrow night!”  {I had forgotten… see completely human} 

I label the children’s clothes & drawers. The smaller children all share rooms and they are all boys. We have a lot of t-shirts, shorts, socks, underpants….. and so on. I bought name labels years ago and swear by them. I got some with their full name, ready for the lost property bin at school!! but most with just their christian name on it. I iron them on as the boys ‘inherit’ new clothes or if I buy them something. 

Just in case someone other than me puts their clothing away, I label their drawers. Just simple things like Pyjamas, Underwear, Swimmers/Hats, School Uniforms and so on. You’d be amazed at what can still end up where. Although I must admit that pj’s kinda do look more street wear than they did when I was small. 

If it’s not on the calendar then it’s not going on in my life. Once again, for the most part this is true. I am trying to get my husband to write up his work schedule as it varies week to week. We’ve been married a decade almost and he’s just getting the hang of it lately. Tennis lessons. Dress up days. Medical appointments. Weekends away. Due bills. Birthdays. All on the calendar. I colour code but only the bills. Due bills are in RED. I have a snazzy calendar from that has columns for each family member. The day goes across the page. One month to each page. Works well for us so far. Sometimes it gets crowded. I’m looking into a whiteboard for school assignments that are due. Currently with only two teens I can keep track of what’s due when. But I think that might change. 

I try to stay up to date with technology. Apparently our lives are supposed to be made easier by technology. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say if you understand how to use the technology in the first place, of course it makes everything easy.  However, if you are constantly on a steep learning curve like I am, than it takes some time and committment to staying ahead of it all. 

I have mobileme…. an awesome invention I think, where you sync your computer and phone… and whatever else but that’s how I use it. You type in appointments etc and it comes up on both. So you never lose touch with where you are in your day.

I am extremely organised with my digital photos. I take a lot of photos. I put them onto my computer. Each month becomes an album. Not each event, each month. At the end of each month I burn the photos to a disc. All of them. Then I upload the ones I want prints of to an online processor and select to receive them in the mail. It costs less than $3 to have them posted. We write on the back of the photos and pop them into an album. It’s all sorted. {Now is when I should mention as we lived out of our home for six and a half months we are a little backed up. They are all printed off, all written on, they just await placement into the actual album. There look to be about a thousand photos} 

In a nutshell that’s me being organised. I am constantly tweaking every single system I use. I think I will be for about the next thirty years.