Cleaning Calendar

Of all the things I do every day, housework is the least important, at least in my book. Of course I like to have a clean house, and chores need to be done, but really, in the grand scheme of the universe, housework is pretty lame. In order to keep housework to a minimum, and keep a house that I'm not ashamed of if someone drops by, I use the Motivated Moms cleaning calendar. These clever ladies came up with an annual calendar which includes daily chores as well as all those once-in-a-while cleaning tasks that we all forget until the Spring Cleaning bug bites. Not only do they break down all your household chores, but they include menu planning forms and daily planning forms to keep you on top of your organization priorities. They update the calendar each year, and offer it for a very reasonable $ 8 a year. My cleaning chores are sadly immortal, so I simply downloaded the old 2002 calendar they offer for free at the bottom of their product page. ***Update 1/4/10 New for 2010, the free calendar has been removed :/ However, the price of their regular 2010 calendar remains at $8 and samples of the current calendars are available for you to at least review before you buy.

Once a month or so, I update my planner with the cleaning schedule for the next month. I also keep the daily list of cleaning chores on the back of my Franklin Covey Compass Card. I've added a few things to the daily list (and omitted a few, too). A dry erase marker can be used on the plastic card sleeve to cross off my list every day and easily wiped clean for the next day. The Motivated Moms say that if you stick to their cleaning calendar, you'll have a clean home in less than 2 hours a day, and a life beyond housework. I've never timed myself, but I suspect that prediction is just about right. I've been using this cleaning calendar for over a year and I really find it useful. They have numerous updates and versions available, so check out their site and see if there's a Motivated Moms cleaning calendar for you. Right now, their 2009 calendars are on sale for half-price! Such a deal!

Recycling & Getting Green

Sure, recycling is great for the planet, but in some cases it can put cash in your pocket, too. Who doesn't like getting paid to go green?

Gazelle.com pays cash for your used electronics, then recycles it. In fact, if for some reason your old electronics are so old and useless that they can't make you a cash offer, they'll still accept and recycle it for you. You'd be hard pressed to find electronics so outdated they offered you nothing, though. I recycled a 1996 laptop through them last year, and the hardest part was lugging the thing to the UPS store to ship it. I guessed the wrong processor when I gave them the information, so they did lower their offer when they received it. It was my mistake, and I had the option of declining the new offer, in which case they would have shipped it back to me. However, I was perfectly happy to accept "only" $ 103 for my ancient hardware. I just wish I had more stuff to send them!

PaperbackSwap.com is another useful site, especially for an avid reader like me. At PaperbackSwap, you send in used books and earn credit with them. Then you can use that credit to pick up books others have sent in. It's sort of a combination of a public library and Netflix, but for books. In spite of the name, they offer more than just paperbacks. Many people have been able to find books on this site that they couldn't locate anywhere else, and my book club can always find enough copies of our monthly read for everyone. Before one move a few years ago, my family donated 6 cases of brand-new hardbound books to the local library. While I'm all for supporting your local library, just think of how many new books we could have read if we'd used PaperbackSwap instead!

So dust off those old electronics and raid your bookshelves. Recycle your used electronics and books and enjoy the rewards.

The Lost Art of the RSVP

Our family hosts several large gatherings each year - a Beware of the Irish toga party in the spring, various birthday parties throughout the year, and other casual gatherings. These events usually involve weeks of planning and hundreds of dollars, both of which we gladly invest in the interest of giving our friends a good time. In recent years, however, we've noticed a disturbing, and perturbing, trend: no one RSVPs anymore. I mean, NO ONE.

R.S.V.P. is short for Re'pondez-vous, s'il vous plait, which is French for "please reply". You don't have to speak French to recognize those letters and act on them! Failing to let your host know if you can attend their event or not is exceedingly rude, and will likely insure that you won't be invited to future events. Think of it this way: If you were talking to your host face to face, and he said, "Would you care to join us for Yahtzee on Saturday evening?", would you walk off without a word, leaving him standing there wondering what the heck is wrong with you? Of course not, but failing to RSVP to any invitation is doing just that. Your host is trying to give you a gift - their event. Without an RSVP from everyone invited, your host can't calculate how much food to have, if he needs to buy or borrow extra gear, or whether to bother throwing the party at all!

Some people claim confusion about the various forms of invitations as their excuse for not responding, but this article will answer any questions you may have. When you RSVP upon receiving an invitation, you can immediately schedule that event in your planner, schedule any preparations, such as buying a gift or having an outfit dry cleaned, and start looking forward to the event. Your host will be grateful for your prompt reply and look forward to your company. It's a win-win situation. So dig through your inbox, your fridge magnets, and anywhere else you may have stashed a pending invitation or two, and RSVP now. Then enjoy your busy social life!

5 Biggest Wastes of Time

For a multi-tasker like me, daily time management is like casting a big fishing net every morning, and hauling it in at night. Every morning I throw my energy and attention into the world, covering a broad area. Each thread is a different task, appointment, or activity. At the end of the day, I haul in my net and hope to find it full of accomplishments. Most of the time I do, but I can lose it all if I have too many loose ends. A good time management system can help ensure those wily threads are kept to a minimum. Knowing which activities can cut your lines can help even more! Here are some of my biggest wastes of time, the jagged rocks that tear up my daily net.

Social Networking Sites. How much time does it take to peek at Facebook? Only a moment, unless you keep looking, reading through all the comments and back posts... I don't spend any time using apps, and I still waste too much time this way.

Defrosting Dinner. If I just take the stupid chicken out of the freezer the night before, then I don't waste any time defrosting dinner. In fact, if I make a menu for the week, I don't waste time trying to think of what's for dinner, either.

Worrying about things that might happen. Why waste any time or energy worrying about what might be? Most of the time, everything works out. Even if it doesn't, you can deal with it when it happens, or at least after it becomes more clear what the problem is, rather than what it could be.

Email. Check email once a day, no more. You may have to do this more frequently depending on your job, but I don't. I often do check more frequently than that, but when I do, I waste time. Ideally, email should be checked at one consistent point during the day. If someone requires your immediate attention, they can call you.

Remaking the beds. I'm all for making the beds once a day, when you first get up. My oldest child has been doing this since he was 3. A made bed is a simple, instant accomplishment that sets the state of mind on "organized". It reduces visual clutter and provides a clean work surface. The cats are quite partial to the decorative pillows, too. Having said all that, it's a waste of time to make the bed over and over. There are days I must make the bed half a dozen times, after a pillow fight or nap time or making a fort under the covers. Of course, I don't get to play all these games, I just clean up after the kids have moved on to something new. This is one crazy waste of time.

Do you recognize any of these wastes of time? Lots of time management articles and books talk about using time efficiently in the office, but what about at home? Or in the home office? Email and voicemail are almost always mentioned, but what about my frozen chicken issue? To be honest, I never realized how much time I was wasting standing in the kitchen, turning over each piece every 2 minutes, on low, covering the edges, and disinfecting every surface in the house just to start making dinner! I hope you'll laugh at my weird wastes of time and ferret out a few of your own. I, for one, took dinner out of the freezer last night.

Gotta Love the First

I recently read that it's best to begin a new exercise routine on a Monday because Mondays are a fresh start, you're (relatively) well-rested from the weekend, and if you mess up, another Monday is right around the corner. Not bad logic, if you ask me! I feel the same way about the First of each month. The First is like a Monday "fresh start", but for bigger projects. It's also an opportunity to take care of all those little things that I'd forget if I didn't do them on the same day every month. Here are a few of the thing that make my First list.

*Update my planner. I use a paper planner, so on the First I take out the oldest month and add one for future planning. I save all my old planner pages in storage sleeves for reference.
*Give the pets their monthly medications, like heart worm and flea & tick prevention.
*Plan the next month's budget. Actually, I try to do this before the First. I think of the First as the final deadline for the monthly budget.
*Review my annual goals. If I see any that I've been neglecting, this is when I try to commit to work on it more in the coming month.
*Clean the inside of the dishwasher, the garbage disposal, the detergent tray in the washing machine, the lint trap in the dryer, clean out the fridge, etc... Once you get in the habit of cleaning these things once a month, you'll never have one of those days when you walk in the door and wonder, "What died in here?" again.

Are any of these tasks monumental? No, not at all. In fact, I could probably go a month or two without doing them, but I wouldn't be happy about it. I like starting out the month clean and organized and in control of my home and life. I just like having all my ducks in a row. Or maybe, rabbits. Years ago, I was taught to start every month by saying, "Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit!" before anything else, for good luck. I have no idea where it came from, but perhaps that's really the most important routine of every First for me. Whether it's blind superstition or balancing the books, the First is all about getting into that "fresh start" state of mind.

Wishing you all a happy, healthy & safe Fourth of July!