Getting Organized:
In your home and homeschool
Dear Friends,
Happy February 28! It’s the last day of the month. We have been practicing the habit of decluttering daily. Spend 15 minutes today decluttering. As homeschoolers, we have lots of paper, and you might even have a stack near you right now that needs to be sorted. Set your timer and deal with it now.
When you are sorting paper, try to not handle it multiple times. You will save yourself a lot of time if you will make decisions and handle the papers once. If you find that you are continually making piles and then stacking them back up, you are handling these papers too many times.
Set up a simple filing system. I will describe mine for you, and you can take my ideas to set up your own system.
Using a small file holder, set up a file for bills that need to be paid. I realize that many bills come to you via email, but you need a reminder of these bills. If you have automatic payments set up, be sure to have that noted in your calendar or file folder.
Next, set up files that you will need to use throughout the year. You may need files for things such as insurance, medical bills, prescriptions, house payments, credit cards, etc. Since I also have a home-based business, I have a monthly file for each month for bills paid, and I have a monthly file for items shipped.
When I open my mail, I file the bills to be paid in the file folder in order of date due. Once a week, I sit down and pay bills. After I pay the bill, I file the receipt in the appropriate file folder. During this, I have handled the paper once when it arrived and once when I paid the bill. The next time I handle them will be when I do our tax return.
If I have papers that need to be shredded, I do that once a month. I toss junk mail as it comes in the mail unless it is something that I don’t want someone to use and protect against identity theft.
Homeschool papers are not a big problem for me. I regularly toss the papers that I have graded. I don’t keep a lot of their papers. I keep tests, and I keep papers they write. At the end of the school year, I go through those and only keep the papers that are special to me. I have a permanent file where I keep our attendance pages and a copy of their annual standardized test scores.
What is your hardest area to declutter? Start on it right now. Use your timer for 15 minutes.
Your Zone Mission today is to do a 27 Fling Boogie in the Living Room or Family Room.
Your Home Blessing for today is to wipe your windows and mirrors.
My menu plan for Wednesday is chicken stir fry.
Have a great day!
