Tami Fox

Clean Under Your Bed – Getting Organized

Posted on April 22, 2016 by Tami

Getting Organized:

In your home and homeschool

This is our last day in Zone 4. I hope you have enjoyed making your bedroom a place of peace and rest this week. Today we are going to clean under the bed. We do this every month, so hopefully, this is an easy task for you. If not, work at it each month, and it will get easier as you keep clutter out from under your bed. Ask your children to clean out under their beds, too. Kids have all kinds of things that end up under their beds, so make sure they have a trash can handy.

Have a great week-end!

If you have any questions or tips, please email me. I enjoy hearing from my readers.

Zone Mission: Clean under the bed.

Routines:

Home:

Make Your Bed (Do this as soon as you get up.)
Get Dressed Down to Your Shoes
Swish and Swipe
Start Your Laundry
Decide on Dinner
Check Your Calendar
Start the Day off with a Shiny Sink. Don’t leave the breakfast dishes sitting.

School:

Schedule a field trip for this winter. If you can’t think of one, do some research. See what’s going on close to you.

Afternoon Routine:

Eat Lunch
Clear off One Hot Spot
Reboot the Laundry
Declutter for 15 Minutes (Be sure to have your children declutter, too.)
Drink Your Water

Before Bed: (This starts right after dinner.)

Check the Calendar for Tomorrow
Lay out Your Clothes for Tomorrow (Have your children lay their clothes out, too.)
Put things at your launch pad
Shine Your Sink
Clean Off a Hot Spot
Go to Bed at Decent Hour

Declutter Shoes – Getting Organized

Posted on April 21, 2016 by Tami

Getting Organized:

In your home and homeschool

Today, we are going to tackle the shoe collection in the Master Bedroom. This is a 15-minute declutter project, and you need to have a box handy for shoes to give away. You also need to have a box handy for shoes that need to be thrown out. You can also work with your children to declutter the shoes in their closet. The goal is to not have an overflowing collection of shoes in your closet. We all organize and store our shoes differently, so decide on how you want to store your shoes. Then, make your shoe collection fit within the parameters of that system.

Zone Mission – Declutter shoes

Routines:

Home:

Make Your Bed (Do this as soon as you get up.)
Get Dressed Down to Your Shoes
Swish and Swipe
Start Your Laundry
Decide on Dinner
Check Your Calendar
Start the Day off with a Shiny Sink. Don’t leave the breakfast dishes sitting.

School:

Look at your bookshelves. Do you need to do some reorganizing or purging?

Afternoon Routine:

Eat Lunch
Clear off One Hot Spot
Reboot the Laundry
Declutter for 15 Minutes (Be sure to have your children declutter, too.)
Drink Your Water

Before Bed: (This starts right after dinner.)

Check the Calendar for Tomorrow
Lay out Your Clothes for Tomorrow (Have your children lay their clothes out, too.)
Put things at your launch pad
Shine Your Sink
Clean Off a Hot Spot
Go to Bed at Decent Hour

Detail Dust in the Master Bedroom – Getting Organized

Posted on April 20, 2016 by Tami

Getting Organized:

In your home and homeschool

Some days you need to put on your wings and fly about the house.I am armed with my feather duster, and it is time to have a little fun while detail cleaning. So you might not have wings or a purple duster, but you can still make detail dusting fun. You can play fun music and sign and dance while you dust. Today, let’s detail dust in our master bedroom. That can be the flat surfaces, ceiling fan, blinds, etc. It’s whatever you need to detail dust. Go make it FUN!

Zone Mission: Detail dust in your master bedroom.

Grocery Shopping and Errand Day – Take your list, pack snacks, and water bottles.

Home:

Make Your Bed (Do this as soon as you get up.)
Get Dressed Down to Your Shoes
Swish and Swipe
Start Your Laundry
Decide on Dinner
Check Your Calendar
Start the Day off with a Shiny Sink. Don’t leave the breakfast dishes sitting.

School: Are you doing a read aloud book for the whole family? If not, pick one out and read at lunch time or in the evening. It will bring a new dimension to your school day.

Afternoon Routine:

Eat Lunch
Clear off One Hot Spot
Reboot the Laundry
Declutter for 15 Minutes (Be sure to have your children declutter, too.)
Drink Your Water
Errand day: Make your plan for grocery shopping and errands. Pack water bottles and snacks for everyone. Pack up your library books that need to be turned in.

Family Fun: Plan a fun activity while you are out. I am in the habit of checking for free activities that are going on while we are out doing errands.

When you get home from doing errands, have everyone work together to unload and put away everything.

Before Bed: (This starts right after dinner.)

Check the Calendar for Tomorrow
Lay out Your Clothes for Tomorrow (Have your children lay their clothes out, too.)
Put things at the Launch Pad that you will need first thing in the morning
Shine Your Sink
Clean Off a Hot Spot
Go to Bed at Decent Hour

Master Bedroom Declutter – Getting Organized

Posted on April 19, 2016 by Tami

Getting Organized:

In your home and homeschool

Let’s have a little fun today with our decluttering mission. Turn on some fun music. Set your timer. Get your declutter kit ready – 1 bin for give away, 1 bin for throw away, and 1 bin for put away. We are going to Fling, Fling, Fling today. Try to declutter 27 things from your bedroom. You can clean off a chair or flat surface. You can declutter in your closet. You can declutter your dresser drawers. This is not going to be a long project, so don’t drag out everything you own. Start with the most visible area first, and then move to another area. Spend only 15 minutes doing this mission. If you need to do this again, you can do it another day this week.

I have been ruthless with my closet, too, so I do not have as much to go through for these missions. I do want to share with you how to declutter in my closet without making a huge mess and working for hours. I start on the left side of my hanging clothes and work my way to the middle. I pull out clothes that I know do not fit and clothes that I do not ear any longer. I put these on my bed. I will take them off the hangers and put them in my Give Away basket. This takes 15 minutes or less. The next day, I will do the right side of my hanging clothes in the same manner. On the third day, I will work on the closet floor. This helps me declutter shoes and stuff that has found its way to my closet. On the fourth day, I will declutter the shelf above my hanging clothes. This is mostly my running shirts and shorts that are folded and stacked. It does not take long for me to sort through them, so I am usually finished with my closet on day 4. On the fifth day, I can tackle a dresser drawer or two for 15 minutes. The next month, I will focus more on the dresser drawers and less on the closet.

Zone Mission: Declutter in your Master Bedroom for 15 minutes.

If you need more help with organizing your home and homeschool, you can download The FlyLady’s Homeschool Teacher and Homeschool Student Control Journals for free.

Set your timer for 15 minutes for the Home Assignment and 15 minutes for the School Assignment

Home:

Make Your Bed (Do this as soon as you get up.)
Get Dressed Down to Your Shoes
Swish and Swipe
Start Your Laundry
Decide on Dinner
Check Your Calendar
Start the Day off with a Shiny Sink. Don’t leave the breakfast dishes sitting.
Clean out your refrigerator. Toss the science experiments.

School: How’s the weather where you are? Add some weather tracking to your school day for the rest of the month. Track high temperature and low temperature. Track precipitation. Track the sunrise and sunset.

Afternoon Routine:

Eat Lunch
Clear off One Hot Spot
Reboot the Laundry
Declutter for 15 Minutes (Be sure to have your children declutter, too.)
Drink Your Water
Write up a menu plan for the next 7 days. Check your pantry and freezer and make a grocery list. This habit will save you time and money. Try out some new recipes with the slow cooker. It will save you time once you start back to your school schedule.

Family Fun: Take your children for a walk.

Before Bed: (This starts right after dinner.)

Check the Calendar for Tomorrow
Lay out Your Clothes for Tomorrow (Have your children lay their clothes out, too.)
Put things at the Launch Pad that you will need first thing in the morning
Shine Your Sink
Clean Off a Hot Spot
Go to Bed at Decent Hour

Master Bedroom Monday – Getting Organized

Posted on April 18, 2016 by Tami

Getting Organized:

In your home and homeschool

Hello! Welcome to a new week! We are going to work in the Master Bedroom, and if you have children at home, you can use these missions daily to help focus their tasks in their bedrooms. I am finding that by keeping the number of clothing items my children have on hand greatly reduced, it is so much easier for them to keep their rooms cleaned. I can spend 15 minutes per child and purge in their closet once a month, and they are not living in CHAOS in their rooms. It has been very freeing to let go of the excess clothes in our home. My husband has even taken it upon himself to declutter in his closet over the weekend. He got a jump on the week! Today my youngest son was helping me fold laundry, and he put two clothing items of his in the give away box, and he tossed a t-shirt that was worn out. I did not prompt him to do this. He did it on his own. It’s been a blessing to see this fruit in my family. If you feel alone in the process, just hang in there and keep moving forward. It will make an impact on your family.

Zone Missions: Master Bedroom

Monday – Declutter Flat Surfaces

Tuesday – 27 Fling Boogie (chair, closet, dresser)

Wednesday – Detail Dust

Thursday – Declutter Shoes

Friday – Clean under the bed

I have 3 homeschool conferences on my schedule this spring. I will be in Atlanta, GA; Sandusky, OH, and Winston-Salem, NC.

Read HERE about the events I will be attending this Spring.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Home:

Make Your Bed (Do this as soon as you get up.)
Get Dressed Down to Your Shoes
Swish and Swipe
Start Your Laundry
Decide on Dinner
Check Your Calendar
Start the Day off with a Shiny Sink. Don’t leave the breakfast dishes sitting.

Weekly Home Blessing Hour:

Spread these out over the course of the week. Put a note on each day of the week with one or two of these per day.

7 Parts of the Weekly Home Blessing Hour from The FlyLady:

Quick Dust
Sweep/Mop
Purge Magazines or Paper Clutter
Change Bedding
Empty Trash
Clean Windows/Mirrors
Vacuum

School:

Plan one fun activity for this week.

Afternoon Routine:

Eat Lunch
Clear off One Hot Spot
Reboot the Laundry
Declutter for 15 Minutes (Be sure to have your children declutter, too.)
Drink Your Water

Family Fun: Have some outdoor time with your children today. Play. Do some nature journaling. The point is to add some movement to your day.

Before Bed: (This starts right after dinner.)

Check the Calendar for Tomorrow
Lay out Your Clothes for Tomorrow (Have your children lay their clothes out, too.)
Lay anything out that you will need first thing in the morning
Shine Your Sink
Clean Off a Hot Spot
Go to Bed at Decent Hour

Detail Clean Under the Furniture – Getting Organized

Posted on April 15, 2016 by Tami

Getting Organized:

In your home and homeschool

This is our last day in Zone 3. Today I want you to pick one room that needs to have the floor cleaned under the furniture. I will open this up to outdoor furniture since we did not have much time to detail clean our porch this month. I know you have at least one room that you need to clean under the furniture, so set your timer and do it now. Don’t put it off until later. Get the kids to help you. Make it a game. You can do this!

Have a great week-end!

If you have any questions or tips, please email me. I enjoy hearing from my readers.

Zone Mission: Clean under the furniture in one room.

Routines:

Home:

Make Your Bed (Do this as soon as you get up.)
Get Dressed Down to Your Shoes
Swish and Swipe
Start Your Laundry
Decide on Dinner
Check Your Calendar
Start the Day off with a Shiny Sink. Don’t leave the breakfast dishes sitting.

School:

Schedule a field trip for this winter. If you can’t think of one, do some research. See what’s going on close to you.

Afternoon Routine:

Eat Lunch
Clear off One Hot Spot
Reboot the Laundry
Declutter for 15 Minutes (Be sure to have your children declutter, too.)
Drink Your Water

Before Bed: (This starts right after dinner.)

Check the Calendar for Tomorrow
Lay out Your Clothes for Tomorrow (Have your children lay their clothes out, too.)
Put things at your launch pad
Shine Your Sink
Clean Off a Hot Spot
Go to Bed at Decent Hour

Detail Dust One Room – Getting Organized

Posted on April 14, 2016 by Tami

Getting Organized:

In your home and homeschool

Once in a while, I will post about products from The FlyLady that I use and love. Today I want to tell you about her feather duster. It is amazing! It is made of ostrich feathers, so it captures dust and holds onto it. I take mine outside after dusting to shake it out. Then I store it in a flower vase, so it can get air and light. If I stored it in a dark place, like a closet, dust mites would eat it. It also has an extendable handle, which is wonderful for dusting higher places. I am height challenged, so I love this feature.

Today I want you to pick one room that needs a detail dusting. Yes, I mean that room you have not dusted in 6 months or more. THAT ROOM. Set your timer and do the best you can in 15 minutes. If you need longer, go back later in the day or later in the week. If you get into the habit of weekly dusting quickly, the dust does not build up as much. I do a quick dust weekly, and then I just detail dust in my Zones monthly. (When I detail dust, I move stuff around. When I quick dust, I dust around stuff.)

Zone Mission – Detail Dust 1 Room

Routines:

Home:

Make Your Bed (Do this as soon as you get up.)
Get Dressed Down to Your Shoes
Swish and Swipe
Start Your Laundry
Decide on Dinner
Check Your Calendar
Start the Day off with a Shiny Sink. Don’t leave the breakfast dishes sitting.

School:

Look at your bookshelves. Do you need to do some reorganizing or purging?

Afternoon Routine:

Eat Lunch
Clear off One Hot Spot
Reboot the Laundry
Declutter for 15 Minutes (Be sure to have your children declutter, too.)
Drink Your Water

Before Bed: (This starts right after dinner.)

Check the Calendar for Tomorrow
Lay out Your Clothes for Tomorrow (Have your children lay their clothes out, too.)
Put things at your launch pad
Shine Your Sink
Clean Off a Hot Spot
Go to Bed at Decent Hour

Give Away or Throw Away – Getting Organized

Posted on April 13, 2016 by Tami

Getting Organized:

In your home and homeschool

Today I am going to challenge you. I want you to set your timer for 15 minutes and declutter at least 27 things. You can either throw them away or give them away. I do not want you to work on putting things away, I want you to focus on getting rid of your excess today. If you find things to put away, feel free to put them away, but you cannot count them in this challenge. The things you get rid of an range from paper to clothes to toys to anything that you have in excess that is holding you back from having peace in your home. I am hitting this one hard because we like to hold on to stuff. It’s time to release some of it today. Ready. Set. Go!

Zone Mission: Give away or throw away 27 things today.

Grocery Shopping and Errand Day – Take your list, pack snacks, and water bottles.

Home:

Make Your Bed (Do this as soon as you get up.)
Get Dressed Down to Your Shoes
Swish and Swipe
Start Your Laundry
Decide on Dinner
Check Your Calendar
Start the Day off with a Shiny Sink. Don’t leave the breakfast dishes sitting.

School: Are you doing a read aloud book for the whole family? If not, pick one out and read at lunch time or in the evening. It will bring a new dimension to your school day.

Afternoon Routine:

Eat Lunch
Clear off One Hot Spot
Reboot the Laundry
Declutter for 15 Minutes (Be sure to have your children declutter, too.)
Drink Your Water
Errand day: Make your plan for grocery shopping and errands. Pack water bottles and snacks for everyone. Pack up your library books that need to be turned in.

Family Fun: Plan a fun activity while you are out. I am in the habit of checking for free activities that are going on while we are out doing errands.

When you get home from doing errands, have everyone work together to unload and put away everything.

Before Bed: (This starts right after dinner.)

Check the Calendar for Tomorrow
Lay out Your Clothes for Tomorrow (Have your children lay their clothes out, too.)
Put things at the Launch Pad that you will need first thing in the morning
Shine Your Sink
Clean Off a Hot Spot
Go to Bed at Decent Hour

Declutter the Room of Your Choice – Getting Organized

Posted on April 12, 2016 by Tami

Getting Organized:

In your home and homeschool

Today you get to pick the room you declutter. It can still be in your main bathroom, or it can be any other room in your house. This is your chance to work in the room you have been putting off. I picked the picture of the desk because often our home office or desk area gets cluttered, and we don’t make time to tidy it up. So your challenge today is to declutter that one area you have procrastinated. Send me pictures if you like! Remember to use your timer. Set it for 15 minutes. If you don’t get finished, you can go back to it again today or another day this week. Remember baby steps will get you there. Don’t burn out.

Zone Mission: Declutter the area of your choice today.

If you need more help with organizing your home and homeschool, you can download The FlyLady’s Homeschool Teacher and Homeschool Student Control Journals for free.

Set your timer for 15 minutes for the Home Assignment and 15 minutes for the School Assignment

Home:

Make Your Bed (Do this as soon as you get up.)
Get Dressed Down to Your Shoes
Swish and Swipe
Start Your Laundry
Decide on Dinner
Check Your Calendar
Start the Day off with a Shiny Sink. Don’t leave the breakfast dishes sitting.
Clean out your refrigerator. Toss the science experiments.

Afternoon Routine:

Eat Lunch
Clear off One Hot Spot
Reboot the Laundry
Declutter for 15 Minutes (Be sure to have your children declutter, too.)
Drink Your Water
Write up a menu plan for the next 7 days. Check your pantry and freezer and make a grocery list. This habit will save you time and money. Try out some new recipes with the slow cooker. It will save you time once you start back to your school schedule.

Family Fun: Take your children for a walk.

Before Bed: (This starts right after dinner.)

Check the Calendar for Tomorrow
Lay out Your Clothes for Tomorrow (Have your children lay their clothes out, too.)
Put things at the Launch Pad that you will need first thing in the morning
Shine Your Sink
Clean Off a Hot Spot
Go to Bed at Decent Hour

Detail Cleaning in Zone 3 – Getting Organized

Posted on April 11, 2016 by Tami

Getting Organized:

In your home and homeschool

Hello! I hope you had a wonderful weekend! Let’s get started in a new Zone this week. We are going to detail clean in the main bathroom and one extra room of your choice. If you have an area in your home that we do not typically list in the Zone of the Week, this is your chance to work in it. Remember this is only for 15 minutes a day. Don’t start an 8-hour project in your garage unless you plan on working on it a little at a time over the course of several weeks. The rule of thumb when cleaning a big area, is to focus on an area of it that you can do in an hour or less. This summer, you might have time to tackle a big project, but during the school year, don’t try to do a big project. You will burn out, and you will get wrapped up in it and feel guilty if you don’t finish it on your time table.

Here are your Zone Missions for the week for this week’s zone:

Monday – Detail Clean the Shower or Tub

Tuesday – Declutter 1 Room of Your Choice for 15 Minutes

Wednesday – 27 Fling Boogie Anywhere in the House

Thursday – Detail Dust 1 Room of Your Choice

Friday – Pick 1 Room and Clean Under the Furniture

I still have 3 homeschool conferences on my schedule this spring. I will be in Atlanta, GA; Sandusky, OH, and Winston-Salem, NC.

Read HERE about the events I will be attending this Spring.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Home:

Make Your Bed (Do this as soon as you get up.)
Get Dressed Down to Your Shoes
Swish and Swipe
Start Your Laundry
Decide on Dinner
Check Your Calendar
Start the Day off with a Shiny Sink. Don’t leave the breakfast dishes sitting.

Weekly Home Blessing Hour:

Spread these out over the course of the week. Put a note on each day of the week with one or two of these per day.

7 Parts of the Weekly Home Blessing Hour from The FlyLady:

Quick Dust
Sweep/Mop
Purge Magazines or Paper Clutter
Change Bedding
Empty Trash
Clean Windows/Mirrors
Vacuum

School:

Plan one fun activity for this week.

Afternoon Routine:

Eat Lunch
Clear off One Hot Spot
Reboot the Laundry
Declutter for 15 Minutes (Be sure to have your children declutter, too.)
Drink Your Water

Family Fun: Have some outdoor time with your children today. Play. Do some nature journaling. The point is to add some movement to your day.

Before Bed: (This starts right after dinner.)

Check the Calendar for Tomorrow
Lay out Your Clothes for Tomorrow (Have your children lay their clothes out, too.)
Lay anything out that you will need first thing in the morning
Shine Your Sink
Clean Off a Hot Spot
Go to Bed at Decent Hour