The Go Home Basket. Go get one. Go now.

Known by many nicknames, the Go Home Basket has revolutionized my life and my quest for organization (per the 9/25 blog post).  So much so, that I thought the GHB was deserving of a brief synopsis here.  Please allow it a moment in the limelight.

What is it?
The Go Home Basket could undoubtedly have a sexier moniker, but it is what it is, I suppose.  Extolled by many the home organizer, it's essentially a coping mechanism.  Not to be confused with the clutter basket (this one is simple: I keep a basket handy and each evening I take less than 15 minutes to walk through my house with it grabbing items that are out of place, or "neatening."  Then, I can deliver those items to their respective homes with the basket.)

The Go Home Basket lives patiently near my back door, the access point closest to the garage from our home.  In it goes anything that is leaving the house.  That's it: simple.

Each morning, I grab ours on the way to the car.  It saves me enormous amounts of time trying to remember things and chasing them around the house.  They are all contained, and I bring it back inside empty in the evenings.

Q: What goes in it?

A: Anything that doesn't belong in your house.  For us, it might be a magazine or book I promised to loan a friend (but never remember to have with me when I meet her for lunch), food containers to return to my sister's house, an item to exchange at the store along with its receipt, the claim ticket for the shoes being repaired by the cobbler.

A few more examples:

- Our new vehicle still had sticker marks on the window, which bugged me every time I got in the car, but my mental capacity did not allow room for me to remember to do anything about it for more than 30 seconds upon exiting the car.  So, I put some cloths and the Goo Gone in the GHB, and the next day when I carried the basket to the car I remembered to fix the issue.  The Goo Gone went back in the basket to be carried into the house that evening.

- I'm pretty good at remembering to write thank you notes, but have been known to let them sit around the house awaiting stamps.  Although this is less of an issues now that I've purchased bulk stamps and stored them with pens, return labels and thank you notes in our communication center (see the 9/25 blog post), if I do find myself with a batch of unstamped notes, they go in the basket.  I check the basket while out and about and remember to stop by the post office to grab stamps and mail them.  Ditto on any packages, per below.

- Remembering birthdays, weddings and events of friends and family members and prepping gifts isn't a problem.  Getting them mailed is, very often.  So I prep the package at home, address it and throw it in the GHB.  Then, it is with me to be mailed while I'm out running errands.

- List of supplies for a home or craft project?  In the GHB (or Evernote) so I can access it while out.

- This week's prepped (laminated, per previous posts) grocery list?  In the GHB.  Ditto the reusable grocery bags once I've unpacked them, so they can head back to the car where they remain in the trunk.  Because they won't be used if they aren't in the car when needed, will they?

This all probably seems pretty basic to the more sophisticated reader (although I assume I don't have sophisticated readers).  It isn't a revolutionary idea, but it is a revolutionary habit.  I notice that now that things coming or going within our home now congregate in the basket rather than all over the place, and that means they are quick to grab and deliver where they belong.  And that makes me happy, which means I am relaxed and a better parent and spouse.  And that, in essence, is why I've pursued the organizational quest in the first place!

The Classic "I Will Get Organized" Tirade (in layman's terms)

Organization and simplification of our lives has been a big sticking point for me lately.

I took the opportunity when I changed jobs last year to do a lot of life analysis, and I realized that I had been hoping to get organized "someday."

This may prove to be really lame reading for those of you who have your act together, but I'm finding more and more people are actually grasping and barely beating off insanity just as I had been for years.

A typical week might include delivering my child to school tardy (by two minutes) three out of five days per week, howling with indignity at slow drivers because I had neglected to leave my house in a timely manner, throwing together random lunches for myself and my child, forgetting to turn in school paperwork, and constantly looking for things around the house. On the surface, most people would tell you I was organized (sort of), because I managed to come across exceedingly well in my professional endeavors, my office was organized and my work generally done on time and well. However, I felt like chaos was constantly nipping at my ankles.

Maybe it's the job shift to something exceptionally fulfilling (I loved my previous work, but this is different), or perhaps the eminent arrival of our second child, but I felt like I absolutely had to get things under control. Here are a few of the tools and websites I used and have come to love (nerd alert!!)

Sites:
Go ahead - channel your inner geek and spend some time on these sites.  You know you want to do it.
- Simple. Organized. Life.
- Simple Mom (esp. posts such as Best Online Tools for Families as well as Reasons to Wake Up Early and Why Home Notebooks Are A Good Idea)
- Guide to Creating a Home Notebook (seriously, one of the best things I've ever done)
- Organized Home 
- Small Notebook, especially My Real Life Daily Routine
- Penelope Loves Lists - especially check out her lists of sites that organize and inspire)
- Real Simple - Organizing (I recommend this magazine and Whole Living to once a month help you slow down, implement a few new things and generally feel good about yourself, plus Whole Living has a very cool Whole Life Action Plan with a simple daily task to live better)

Books
- Organize Now! (seriously, it has changed my life: http://www.organizethislife.com/)
- Anything by Donna Smallin (www.unclutter.com), especially The One Minute Organizer and A to Z Storage Solutions

The Plan
Not being a guru like the folks above, let me just say this - stop feeling overwhelmed and just jump in.  One of two approaches is best for the utterly schizophrenic (like myself) - either doing a handful of small things a day (i.e. any one item from Donna Smallin's books), or a whole hog approach.  I did a little of both:


First, I set aside a day (alone - family elsewhere) to get my act together.  I made some basic purchases (canvas wall pockets for the back door to organize our keys, incoming and outgoing paperwork etc. as well as a cell phone charging station and a ton of binders - corrugated, environmentally friendly ones instead of the PVC atrocities).

I set up a communication center near the back door, which is the dumping ground for all our stuff (which would then migrate to the kitchen and make me crazy).  It includes folders for receipts, bills to pay, items to file, school paperwork to keep close for reference and a binder for the mountains of paperwork that come home from school with children, from artwork to homework.  There is also a calendar nearby and plenty of "equipment" for bill paying and so on, such as thank you notes, stamps, envelopes, return address labels, pens and a mason jar for change.

In addition to the communication center, I put together a home notebook, which includes daily, weekly, monthly and seasonal checklists (yes, essentially chorelists) for me.  As I recently told a friend, I check out the laminated daily list to be sure that lunches are packed, school clothes out, bags for sports and work ready for the next day, my teeth and skin are cared for (yes, I'm serious!) and the day's paperwork (mail, items from school) have been addressed.  I also review the next day's action item list so I can clear my brain of scattered thoughts about all the things I need to do.  Then, I can have a glass of wine or go to bed with a sound mind.

The two things above (the communication center and the notebook) have changed my life.  You would think that some days get too crazy to use these systems effectively, but I find it calming to end each day this way, no matter what time it may be.  In addition to those things, I've used HabitForge and a few other tools to pick away at the small things.

And finally, I've embraced something I avoided my entire life: discipline.  It only took a few weeks to form most of these habits, and now they are routines that make my life, and my family, far better.

I know it works when a neighbor says "I saw you sitting on your front porch looking so peaceful last week when I was dashing off to work in a frenzy" or when someone asks how I have time to get it all done, from work to parenting to blogging and so forth.  When I see that I'm accomplishing more and yet have more free time or when people mistakenly think that my life is organized and my home always neat, I know I'm onto something.

The Inspiration
"He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out that plan carries a thread that will guide him through the maze of the most busy life.  But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidence, chaos will soon reign."

~ Victor Hugo 
 
I wasn't going to post about all this, but one friend recently identified struggling with the same thing, so I thought I'd share.  If it gets one other person on the track I've found myself on, it was worth the usual rambling of my blog posts.

Bonne chance, good luck!

Confessions from Suburbia

Ok, suburbia might be a bit melodramatic.

However, I've come to a realization in this, our seventh year of parenting: Mom definitely had it all figured out.  Don't worry, I've confessed and given her ample opportunity to laugh at me.

I've just spent an hour in the kitchen on a Sunday evening, and dinner did not come as a result of it.  I have:

- Used my laminated grocery list to shop for the week and plan meals in advance.
- Washed grapes and put them in a colander in the fridge.
- Sliced and prepped grapefruit halves and placed them in the fridge with grapefruit spoons on top.
- Written the week's meals on a chalkboard so I don't come in from work and stare into the fridge mindlessly, trying to figure out what it was I was going to fix for dinner when I bought all those groceries.
- Prepped five little containers of fruits and five little containers of veggies for school lunches, plus extras for grown-up snacking.
- Packed Sophie's lunch for tomorrow, and prepped breakfast and coffee items down to bowls by the cereal, spoons in the reusable coffee mugs and vitamins on the counter.
- Filled our reusable water bottles and put them in the fridge, so we have cold water ready to grab.

I realize this hardly makes for titillating reading, and probably appears as though I'm bragging.  Trust me, I'm not.  I used to judge the lady in the grocery store with the pre-typed, nerdy grocery list as some stay-at-home mom with too much time on her hands, struggling to be the alpha in the play-date group.  Now, I recognize that she is simply in tune with her own schizophrenia.  Me too.

All this to say that the realization of this approach to life came way too late, but better late than never.  Here's what that nerdy hour in the kitchen equates to for my family this week:

- I will not stand groggy-eyed in the kitchen each morning trying to remember what highly-intelligent task it is I am supposed to complete (pour cereal, eat with spoon).

- My child doesn't have a lunch that consists of Goldfish and a semi-rotten banana, AND she actually brings home the little containers to recycle for the next lunch rather than us going through gobs of environmentally-caustic plastic baggies.

- My entire family spies fresh, prepared, easy to grab fruits and vegetables in the fridge and (gasp!) they look appetizing, so they grab them for snacks along with drinking enough water daily that I don't spiral into certainty that they will all perish from dehydration (yes, really - I worry about that.  You should, as well.)

- We leave for work and school on time, replete with our reusable supplies for the day so we aren't caught making a last minute (gasp again!) plastic water bottle purchase or using a disposable coffee cup.  Turns out, sustainability comes down to preparedness as well, per my previous rant.

We also now have a genius "go-home basket" (no thanks to my own intelligence) - it's full of the stuff we shuttle around our world.  Stuff that needs to head to the car (the reusable shopping bags from today), the post office, be returned to a friend etc. is all in the basket ready to grab in the morning, right next to our family communication area where we file papers from school, hang keys, place receipts in a file (just getting this one down recently) and hang backpacks, purses, sunglasses, wallets etc.

So why gloat about it?  I'm definitely not gloating.  If what you write becomes gospel, saying it will keep me beholden to it.  I view all of this: the hour in the kitchen on Sunday, the laminated chore lists (for the seven year old and for me), the prepared meals and all the rest of it as my last and only stand against insanity.

Miraculously, our lives have gotten stunningly simple and relaxing - just the opposite of what you'd expect from someone with a laminated grocery list, right?  Meals go quickly, we're on time to work and school, we have time to hang out as a family in the evening, and most importantly: I'm not that Mom I was a year ago, barking at my child to hurry up every morning so she isn't tardy.  Because at the end of the day, it's not the six year old's fault if she dawdles and is late.  Six year olds, it appears, dawdle.  So with a streamlined morning complete with dawdling built in, we still enjoy breakfast together and walk, pleasantly, to school rather than dashing out the door, possibly with or without lunch, homework and hair brushed.

It's a delightful existence, and I wish like so many others I'd discovered why Mom did what she did for all those years ages ago.  It's not a noble feat in alpha parenting - it's a lifeline.