Organizing | Table for Five

Scientists looking for black holes should check my house

February 4, 2010 By Elizabeth

It’s no secret that I’m unorganized, a piler, a clutterer. But it’s not like the crew of Hoarders will be parking 1-800-Got-Junk trucks out front or anything. The surfaces might be piled with stuff, but you can tell there are surfaces underneath. Nevertheless, every once in a while, something disappears and no matter how hard we look, we just can’t find it.

The first thing to go missing was one of Kaitlyn’s shoes. A shoe is not a tiny thing, and yet although we’ve torn the house apart, we just can’t find it anywhere. Then, the case for my Nintendo DS vanished. We’ve looked and looked and looked, it is just gone. And now, this morning, I went to fix a cup of coffee, and the bottle of coffee creamer I bought at the grocery store last night isn’t in the refrigerator. I checked every shelf and drawer, I even checked the freezer because you never know. It’s just gone.

So what is up with that? Where did those things GO? I hate having to buy Kaitlyn another pair of shoes when she has a perfectly good pair except for that whole one is missing thing. And the DS case had a bunch of games in it that would not be cheap to replace. Gah! So frustrating.

What about you? Do things disappear in your house? What’s one thing you’ve lost that you just never were able to find? Tell me!

Filed Under: Stuff I think about Tagged With: cleaning, clutter, organizing

Buried in Email

August 11, 2009 By Elizabeth

Mail Everyone says, “just write about your life”. Well, that graphic over there? That is my life right now. Okay, so Ryan is helping out more around the house than ever even when he would rather be with his friends, and Nathan is mowing the lawn now for spending money, and Kaitlyn came up to me the other day while I was wearing a shirt that reads “happy mom” (all lowercase on it) and correctly identified all the letters, and that’s what ELSE is going on in my life, but mostly? It’s email.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter or on Facebook know that I’ve been posting a lot recently about trying to achieve this mystical state of being known as “Caught Up.” That I’m trying, so hard, every day, to not just stay on top of the emails but to get through the ones I’ve already opened that need me to do something. But people, I’m losing the fight and I don’t know what to do.

Let’s look at Outlook as of today. Outlook is where I read the emails that come to elizabeth(at)table4five(dot)net, the professional address I use for this blog. As of right now, I have 255 items in my inbox. 39 are unopened messages. So that leaves 216 emails that I opened and did not delete because the messages relate to something I need to do. Like, a review I agreed to write or a giveaway I agreed to host. TWO HUNDRED SIXTEEN.

Clearly, I am way in over my head.

Solutions I’ve considered-

deleting everything and starting fresh. Problem with that- all the people who sent me those emails who will think I dropped off the face of the earth, or will just think I’m unprofessional for never doing their review or giveaway.
Hiring someone else to write the posts. Problem with that- how does someone else write a review for me? If I have to tell someone else what I thought of a product, I might as well write the review!
Hiring someone else to read the emails and categorize them for me. I actually did that with Ryan this past year, when I was just so swamped. I may have to make him an offer he can’t refuse

And before you ask, yes, I do say No. I say No A LOT. Every day, every single day of the week, I get, on average, 150 emails to that table4five(dot)net address. As I’m typing this, notifications are popping up in the bottom right corner of my screen telling me that new emails are arriving. Two more people are wondering when their reviews will post, when their giveaways will start.

If I only posted one thing per day, I would have what, 8 MONTHS worth of posts? There has to be a better solution.

I’m guessing that everyone who runs any kind of home business where they still have young kids in the house is having this same problem. So please, SHARE. Tell me your tips. What would you do if you were me right now? How would you dig yourself out? I’m open to any and all suggestions.

And chocolate. Or ice cream. Or a hot personal assistant. You could send those too

Filed Under: Born to Blog Tagged With: Business, home, organizing, work

What do you do when there’s too much to do?

October 15, 2008 By Elizabeth

Those of you reading this who are able to stay organized and on top of things, would you PLEASE tell me HOW you do it? Because Donna Reed I am NOT. Chris has been in Toronto since last Thursday and gets home this Friday, and it’s going to take a freaking miracle for me to get this house clean enough so he won’t feel like he can’t ever leave town on business again for fear of losing his children under a pile of dirty dishes and coffee-table piles.

Every day I get up and I make a big mug of coffee, and I think about my day. I think about reviews that are due and giveaways to start. I think about dusting and vacuuming and putting in another load of laundry. I think about the fact that my daughter is watching TV all day (that’s right, I’ll admit it. Kaitlyn watches TV for most of the day, when she isn’t jumping off of overturned laundry baskets or drawing on her Aquadoodle mat or dumping out a board game or galloping up and down the hallway). I think about the dishes in the sink and the piles on the end tables and the fact that I haven’t seen the top of my desk in months.

I look at my email inboxes.

I think this image that I found on Google images accurately depicts how I feel:

And then I take a deep breath. All I can do is the best I can do. My kids are safe, loved, have plenty to eat and clean clothes that fit. They have warm beds to sleep in at night. They have toys and books and video games. I might have a lot to do, I might be failing miserably at housekeeping, but stressing out about it doesn’t help anybody. I got behind on my reviews and giveaways because I procrastinated, plain and simple. So now I just need to make a list and write them one at a time until they are done. It might require me to post 3 or 4 or 5 times a day until I’m caught up.

And that isn’t going to include Saturday, because my husband will be home and I intend to give him my undivided attention. He needs to know that he is more important to me than email inboxes and dropping Entrecards. After all, those won’t spoon me at night while I’m sleeping