Tackle it Tuesday - guest bedroom

We have 3 bedrooms in our house. The master bedroom, a 2nd one we use for a study and a guest bedroom. We use the first two a lot (obviously) but the guest bedroom is never used.

If I’m lazy to pack linen away, I dump it there. The result is a room of mismatched pillow cases, pillows, blankets and other linen that needs to be packed away and sorted.


Here is the BEFORE picture…. messy bed, mismatched linen, etc.

And here is the AFTER...much better

Menu Plan Monday - 5 Feb 2007

For more menu plan Monday participants, go on over to Laura's blog.

This week I intend to use up everything in my freezer so I can restock next weekend. So it’s going to look a little boring but it is necessary, believe me!

Monday
Stirfried chicken, vegetables and basmati rice

Tuesday
Ricotta & spinach panzerotti with tomato and mushroom sauce

Wednesday
Potato bake with lentils, mushrooms, tomato and cheese

Thursday
Chilli kidney bean pasta

Friday
Those same baked bean sandwiches from last week Friday – because we ended up having leftovers

Saturday (friends for lunch)
Spaghetti bolognaise, salad and cheese focaccia

What's on your menu this week?

Go over to my take charge blog to see what I do for quick snacks on the weekend!

Works for me Wednesday - Organising your daily to-do list

This is my first WFMW and I’m so excited!

I’ve been reading some of the WFMW blog posts for a while now but I keep forgetting to actually post my things in time. But this week I got organised – I decided on Sunday what I wanted to post.

So this week I’ll show you how I organise my daily to-do list in my diary/ planner.

Every Sunday I have planning time for the week ahead. I write subheadings – Phone, Email and Computer – in red pen on every diary page from Monday to Friday.

Then all I do is add in my tasks under each heading. I separate Email from Computer because when I say Computer, it’s stuff like blogging, updating spreadsheets, printing shopping lists, etc, etc. In other words, non-email stuff.

Well, this works for me because it focuses me and if I feel like phoning, I can just get stuck in and make all my phone calls at one time. It saves me a lot of time every day because I don’t have to sort through a whole list to find certain tasks.

For more great tips, check out the official WFMW site

Tackle It Tuesday - Blogger labels

I’ve been on beta blogger for about a month or two so for this week’s Tackle-It Tuesday, I decided to label all the posts on this, my organising blog.

Doesn’t it look cute?! Should do because it took me 3 hours last night.

So now I just have to figure out how to get the labels on my sidebar. But in the meantime, you can click on any particular label and read any other posts with the same label.

Hmmm, it feels so good to finally have this done.

Now I just have to do the other two blogs!

Menu Plan Monday - 29 Jan 2007

This is a picture I just took of the side of my fridge where I actually do keep a menu planner every week.

Remember if you want to download one, you can go here and click on free stuff. It is not the exact same one as this one. This is part of my Household Organising File that I sell on my site under Products and Services.

Monday
Stirfried beef, vegetables and basmati rice

Tuesday
Beef tortellini with spinach, tomato and onion sauce

Wednesday
Baked potato with chickpea and tomato sauce

Thursday
Stirfried chicken, kidney beans, tomato, chilli and rice

Friday
Bacon and tomato sandwiches with baked beans

For more Menu Plan Monday participants, vist the organizing junkie

Tackle it Tuesday

I decided to join this meme to tackle those things I know I should do, but generally procrastinate on.

So without any further ado, this week I decided to finally start a business control journal. I learned about control journals from Flylady. If you don't know Flylady, go on over and visit her site.

Anyway, I made a list of all the tasks I want to do in a week and those I need to do every month.

I then broke up the weekly tasks over the different days so that everything is spread out evenly and I don't get overwhelmed.

When I'd done the monthly tasks, I was on a roll, so I also did a list of 3-monthly, 6-monthly and annual tasks.

Well, my control journal is only 6 pages long (that includes the cover and all the pictures - I have to make it pretty, you know. That's the fun) but at least I have a working skeleton.

I now want to flesh out each section and add my policies (cancellation, travel, for-free speaking, etc) to it.

And that's it for now. I felt really good once it was done.

Then I PDF'd it. Now in Adobe, you have a choice to print multiple pages on one sheet of paper. So I selected 6 and it all printed on 1 A4 sheet of paper.

Which I now keep under my to-do list every day so that it's in my face and I can tick things off as I do them. Lovely!

Organise your goals

I made a form for you to use

Download here: http://takechargesolutions.org/2007goals.pdf

it's a two-pager - the first page has my categories and the second is blank so you can do your own categories.

Enjoy!

Quick Outlook tip - adding contacts from email

Just thought I'd tell you about this, just in case you also didn't know ( I learnt about this recently, just about 6 months ago).

When someone sends you an email and you want to add them to your Contacts, click the email, drag it to the Contacts button and release.

It will open as a contact and you then click the Save and close button. The nice thing is it keeps the email intact so that you can see what the person told you.

The original email remains in your Inbox for filing wherever you want it. You're not storing emails in your inbox, now are you????

Take Charge tip
When I subscribe to sites with membership details, or I buy products with passwords and so on, I do this. It accomplishes two things:

1. Whitelists the address so I get the complete course
2. Saves all the password/ membership info

What did you think of this tip?

How I organise my wallet

This is how I organise my wallet.

On the left I keep my cash/ debit cards – one is my personal bank account and the other is the business bank account.

The middle section has all my benefit cards from the stores – you can see Ster-Kinekor and Clicks sticking out. I also have my Fanatics card from Exclusive Books and in the pocket underneath, there's an Edgars cash card, Dischem and Mr Price Home.

On the right, my driver's licence is in the see-through sleeve. And then my 3 credit cards, each for a different purpose – one for groceries, one for any other household stuff that's not groceries and one for general spending. Now just before you jump to any conclusions, I use these as debit cards as I never buy on credit.

You can see I have a pen clipped there too – it fits perfectly.

Then the pockets...

• The cash goes in the first one.
• Any gift vouchers go in the zippered section – Clicks, Exclusive Books, etc.
• And right at the back I keep my receipts until my weekly Budgeting Update day when they get removed.
  

The coins go in the zippered ouch at the back and my business cards go in the flap behind that. (If I get any other business cards while out, they go in my diary and then straight into Outlook).

Hope this helped you.

How do you organise your wallet?

Dec 2006 - organising challenges

Here are this month's challenges

Week 1 - Baking stuff, pots and serving dishes
It's the first week of December!

Organise all your pots and baking stuff so that you're ready for all the cooking and baking you'll do later this month.You don't need two sets of measuring cups or spoons. If you have some old muffin pans, you can use them to plant seedlings or organise a drawer.

If there are serving dishes you've had for 5 years but never use, cook or bake something in it (casserole/ lasagna) and give it away as a present.

Take charge tip - Double up on some baking recipes and give the baked goods away as gifts. Arrange biscuits or muffins on some plates you don't like any more, cover with cling wrap, tie a red bow and there you have it - an inexpensive, useful gift.


Week 2 - Put up decorations and the Christmas tree & finish wrapping gifts
Decorate your house and put up the Christmas tree. Hang Christmas cards from a piece of string or attach to the side of your wall unit.

Finish wrapping your gifts and writing out gift tags. It's always a good idea to keep a few spare gifts around in case someone pops by and you don't have anything for them.


Week 3 - Finalise your menu and finish buying food
This is more important if you're hosting Christmas dinner.

Finalise your menu. If you'd like people to bring a dish, phone them now. Check your pantry and buy last-minute ingredients and drinks. Download your shopping list at http://takechargesolutions.org/downloads.html

If you're having Christmas dinner elsewhere, make sure that you know what the host wants you to cook.

Merry Christmas!


Week 4 - Sort out your planning tools

All these challenges (plus more) have been packaged into an e-book called Organise your Home. Get your free copy now.