Extra Organised

Today's organising bliss: Laundry zero

Getting to the bottom of the laundry basket is a great feeling!

Because we have two kids and not a lot of time to do laundry, I keep to a routine. I do a load of general washing most days, of either regular clothes or delicate items. I don't sort by light and dark colours as we don't wear a lot of light-coloured clothing, but now my daughter is in high school and wearing white shirts I need to fine-tune this part of my system! Towels are washed twice a week and sheets once a week. I don't always get to the bottom of the laundry basket but if I'm keeping up with the routine then I also count that as laundry zero.

How do you tackle your laundry routine? Do you regularly get to laundry zero?

Today's organising bliss: Origami wall art

Sometimes the simplest low-cost decorating ideas can be just as effective as an expensive piece of art. My 13-year-old daughter is working on making 1,000 paper cranes and I asked her to spare a few for the wall above the dining table. Apparently an odd number is good when decorating so we chose five paper cranes in neutral colours to arrange.

Do you have any other simple and effective decorating ideas?

Today's organising bliss: Getting ready for surgery

If I have to have surgery, at least I can look forward to putting my feet up and using my recovery time to catch up on reading and hopefully a bit of blogging. I'm booked in for day surgery next week and am anticipating a week or two for the initial recovery. With a busy family life, I've taken a few steps to prepare before I'm out of a action for a little while.

The first thing (after I'd filled out all the surgery-related paperwork) was to start adding to a reading and viewing pile.

We've also been cleaning the house and catching up on grocery shopping. The last thing I want to look at next week is cobwebs and dirty windowsills so I moved my deep cleaning into the bedroom to make sure it was clean and tidy. I'm also in the process of getting all the paperwork caught up and bills paid ahead.

The kids are at an age where they're pretty self-sufficient and helpful, and we've also got family helping out, but it's still nice to feel extra organised for the coming weeks :)

How do you prepare to handle weeks where you can't keep up with your usual routines?

Today's organising bliss: Garden art

The garden art I 'commissioned' from my 10-year-old son

There are many ways we can express creativity in our day-to-day lives and environments: writing, music, sculpture, colouring-in, fashion, craft, painting... Creativity nurtures us, builds our sense of self, and connects us with others. It's an excellent way to align our inner and outer worlds. By creating, we take what we're experiencing inside and express it outside, which helps us to make sense of our lives, better articulate what we're feeling, and communicate with others in ways that can include (or be beyond) words.

Here are a few ways to encourage your creativity:

• Make it part of your daily life—consistency gives our minds space and safety to open up
• Make 'mistakes'—they can make your creation more beautiful and accessible
• Try different mediums—take a single idea and express it in paint, words, music...
• Collect ideas that inspire you, perhaps on a noticeboard or in a folder you can flick through
• Take the day off from consuming information and entertainment and use the energy to create

Nurturing creativity in others is also important; remember to embrace rather than judge. I recently 'commissioned' some garden art from my 10-year-old son. I told him that I'd like some sort of timber sculpture for my garden and then I let him loose in the shed. He made two beautiful pieces (in the photo above) using timber offcuts and tools we already had. I proudly admired his work and promptly displayed it in the garden in a place where we view it often. The weathering has made it even more lovely.

How do you express your creativity? How do you encourage it in others?

Today's organising bliss: Homemade takeaway

Friday night is sometimes takeaway but I had a number of ingredients in the fridge that needed using so I decided to channel Mrs Patmore (Downton Abbey) and cook up my own Italian feast.

I decided on a meatlovers pizza using leftover Pork Ragu as the topping sprinkled with lots of tasty and parmesan cheese. There was a packet of veal tortellini and diced bacon that I cooked up with onion, cheese and an egg to make a creamy bacon tortellini. There was also a garlic bread. And the last of a bottle of merlot.

30 minutes later (and with time to bring in the washing and feed the dog in between) and dinner was cooked.

No hassle ordering and picking up dinner, very low cost, and raved over by the whole family. There were even a few leftovers which we will eat for lunch tomorrow.

What are your favourite homemade takeaway meals?

Today's organising bliss: Colour themes for travelling

  

I recently travelled to attend a week-long conference, and as I was hanging up my clothes, I realised I’d put together two main combinations: black and green, and black and red. It wasn’t entirely intentional but it worked!

I could have chosen one colour theme (black and green or black and red), especially since I was only packing for a week, but the two options gave me entirely different looks from the same base of black.

How do you limit clothing (while still giving yourselves options) when you travel?

Today's organising bliss: Books

Today I want to muse over the fabulous ways we can organise and display the books in our homes. Here are a few of my examples.

My bedside reading pile. I try to keep it to one book at a time :)

I like to feature books on a stand.

Another great way to show off precious books is to stand them flat against the back of the bookshelf and stack others in front.

The kids borrow books from a few different libraries which we keep in a timber stand so they don't get lost among their own books. We also keep the book I'm reading to them here.

I separate books I'd like to read next, and books I've borrowed from others or from the library, so I can browse this section of my bookshelf when I need something new to read.

How do you organise your books?

Today's organising bliss: Giving up dressing gowns

Here's another item I've never questioned before: dressing gowns. I've always had one, but never one I particularly liked. And why are they so often white (not good for cooking or eating in) and long (bulky to wash and dry)?

I found a warm, fleece hooded jacket recently that looked so cosy I didn't want to take it off. I noticed it matched a pair of my pyjamas, so I bought it and ditched the dressing gown.

My jacket is warmer to wear in the evenings than my dressing gown, and of course I can wear it during the day as well if I want to. It will also be more versatile for travelling.

Have you given up or replaced an item like this?

Today's organising bliss: Organising tweaks

One of my favourite organising strategies is looking for a subtle tweak I can make that will simplify my daily routine. For example, by doubling the size of the soap dispenser in the bathrooms and laundry from 250 to 500 ml, I halve the number of times I need to refill them. The same with double-length toilet paper rolls.

This strategy can also be applied to many other areas: if I stop one recurring activity, I free up time on a regular basis. Or if I add one tiny new habit, such as a quick stretching routine when I get out of bed in the morning, before long I feel a noticeable difference in my flexibility and energy levels.

Have you made any subtle shifts lately to improve your life?

Today's organising bliss: Knee patches

I generally avoid mending unless I have to—and believe me, I will take every other avenue first. But one mending job I’ve found worthwhile is to iron adhesive patches inside the knees of my children’s school trousers. Otherwise, given the rate of knee wear-through, I have to go through the frequent and lengthy process of tracking down replacements. This can be more frustrating than doing the preventative work in the first place, given a store’s propensity for stocking great trousers once—for a short time—and then never making them available again.

So I keep a stock of iron-on patches in the right colours and iron them on while trousers are still new. The directions on the packet are for repairing torn areas—which of course they are great for—but I find if I leave it until this point, the tear still looks untidy and the trousers don’t last much longer anyway.

Do you carry out preventative work on new clothing?