Funktional Home | Professional Organizer

Here’s an actual text I received from a friend last week:

“Having a bad mom morning. Why are we late to everything? Kids don’t move unless I’m standing over them and growing increasingly frustrated.”

I know so many of us can relate – and I have to say – this friend is one of the most calm, organized and together moms I know. Bottom line, we all have bad mornings.

A little background on me and my family. I have one morning bird (he’s up at 6:00 AM every morning, even though school doesn’t start until 9:00) and one night owl (who hates mornings!). My night owl would sleep until 9:00 AM if I could let her – and often does on the weekends. My night owl is a sweet little girl who is as slow as molasses, especially in the morning and especially when I have an early meeting. We live and die by our morning routine. Some days go better than others; some days she amazes me with her initiative and independence and other days she has a full blown temper tantrum because she insists she needs help putting on every article of clothing. My point is that we all have bad mornings when we all feel like we’re the worst mothers.

But, I have found that there are some things that give me an advantage over most mornings. There are tips and tricks that will help. They are not guarantees, but vital reinforcement in the fight.

Two days after the text message I received this link from Real Simple Magazine about how to “speed up your morning” and I took them both as a sign that we could all use a few reminders about how to streamline and simplify our mornings.  You can read the entire article online, but I’ve highlighted the best tips below.

1. Start Your Morning the Night Before I know, that sounds like an oxymoron. But deciding what to wear, packing back packs, and pulling together lunches are usually the sources of our frantic mornings. I learned this the hard way with my daughter (the night owl). When her clothes are laid out the night before she is much more likely to start to get dressed by herself. On the mornings I forget to lay out her clothes we usually start our day with whining and complaining. I try to have backpacks ready to go the night before as well – and when I have my act together this means my work bag as well. I’m still working on lunches – I still usually do those in the mornings.

2. Start Your Day Before Everyone Wakes Up A friend and client, Lisa, shared with me recently that she wakes up at 5:00 AM every morning to get her run or P90X workout done before the kids wake up. Another friend sets her alarm at 5:30 AM so she can have her cup of coffee and read the morning paper in peace and quiet. I’m impressed! For me, I do try to get up before 6:00 or 6:30 to get my workout done and out of the way. I find that when I wait to workout, it just doesn’t get done. No matter what time I get up I’ve committed to myself that I’ll be done with whatever I get up early to do no later than 7:30 – this leaves me time to attend to getting myself and get the kids ready in plenty of time before we have to leave.

3. Dress Before Breakfast This simple rule has made a world of difference with my daughter. Breakfast becomes a motivator – and goodness knows that we (and she) need motivators in the morning. Not only does leaving breakfast for the last part of the morning work as incentive to get her moving more quickly, but on the mornings when she just can’t get moving we can always eat breakfast in the car as a last resort. (It’s harder to do that with other morning chores.)

4. Use a Morning Checklist (Routine) I know I’ve blogged on the importance of morning routine before – but it’s so important that it’s worth mentioning again. If you don’t already have a morning checklist created, do this first. Checklists can come in all shapes and sizes – they can be words or pictures (or both), they can be lists and even cards. See the picture above, these are my daughter’s checklist cards. The traditional checklist I used with my son just didn’t work for her. My hunch is that the checklist, with all the chores listed together was overwhelming. When she got overwhelmed she couldn’t decide what to do next and the process paralyzed her. Instead I came up with a different strategy – checklist cards – one card, one chore at a time. With the checklist cards she can focus on just one thing to do at a time and put the cards in a “done” pile as she completes each task.

All of these strategies have helped me tremendously to work toward smooth and less stressful mornings. They are not cure alls – we still have tough mornings. But I find that the more I stray from what we know works, the more we struggle.

What strategies and tips work to make your life easier in the morning?

I love houzz.com.

This week houzz.com is featuring an article about getting motivated to clear some clutter - always a great topic in my mind. Read it for yourself here.

My favorite tip is #4: Less is More! More stuff = more to maintain. Most of us will admit that we already have more than enough stuff to maintain and reducing the load would be a relief.

Believe me, I know what you’re thinking:

“But I’m going to need that someday.”

“What if I regret giving it away?”

I have these thoughts myself. And I do regret what I give away sometimes – but not nearly as much as I feel relief for what I let go.

True story. Tonight I said (out loud), “I wish I hadn’t given away those old sleeping bags – we could have used them for the kids.” And I do regret giving them away. But for every one or two things that I might wish I had back every now and then I know I’ve given up nine or ten other things that I’ll never miss. That makes up for it all. Yes, I might have to buy a couple of new sleeping bags – but I’d rather do that then live everyday in a house filled with items I might use someday.

Happy New Year Everyone!

I hope you had a wonderful holiday season. Mine was very nice. I spent quality time with my family and friends, helped my sister moved into her new home (and I’ll get to help decorate it a bit too I hope!) and tried to just take it easy and relax some.

The best gifts of the holidays are seldom “things” anymore. But I did receive two “things” for Christmas this year that really made me smile.

The first was a total surprise out of the blue – or more like, out of the mail. A few days before Christmas I got a package I wasn’t expecting. Turned out there was a lovely card inside from Angie Graham co-owner of Love Your Earth at 41st and Tennyson in Denver and creator of these fabulous cards. Aren’t they amazing!?

Thanks so much Angie! I just love them – especially the gift tags. Thank you for thinking about me and reading my blog. I can’t wait to visit your store next time I’m near the Berkeley area.

The other gift I really enjoyed this year was from my husband and my dear friend Adrienne. Adrienne is a fabulous artist and owner of Bebe and Boo. She transforms “old” jewelry into new. I commissioned her for a couple of pieces for my sister a couple of years ago. She took a necklace from our great grandmother and created the most beautiful modern interpretation.

These are a couple of pieces that my husband commissioned for me this Christmas. I absolutely love them, don’t you?

With gifts like these what girl wouldn’t be clicking her heels and singing I feel pretty, oh so pretty…?

The refrigerator is probably the single most important appliance in our kitchen (maybe even our entire house!). Anyone who’s had one go out on them can attest to this.

It can also be the biggest pain in the butt to clean – but it doesn’t have to be. Here’s my regimen for keeping my frig looking, functioning, organized and smelling just right.

Weekly: Clean out old food and wipe down spills. I make this a ritual along with weekly grocery shopping. Either before shopping (as I’m taking inventory and making my list) or more likely after I’ve shopped and I’m putting away items, I take a few extra minutes and pull any expired food, toss old leftovers and wipe down any spills. Because I’m doing this every week it only takes a couple of minutes and food doesn’t pile up. This also helps make room for the fresh food I’ve just bought.

Every 2-3 months: I change the Arm and Hammer baking soda box in the frig and the freezer. I date the outside of the box with a Sharpie marker so I know when it’s time to change the box. This keeps everything smelling fresh.

Every 4-6 Months: Two or three times a year I do a thorough washing and clearing out. I remove all the food and condiments as well as all removable shelving and purge anything that’s passed its prime. I wash the entire inside with soap and water, rinse and dry. Then I replace all items, keeping in mind the “areas” I’ve established inside already – condiments and peanut butter in the door; bread and tortillas on the second shelf – to the right; eggs to the left; cheese and meats in the deli drawer; fruits in the left produce drawer; veggies in the right. And so on…

Two or three times a year: Vacuum the refrigerator coils. A handy-man I know told me this is the single most important maintenance activity we can do for our refrigerator. When he originally informed me of this I had NEVER vacuumed them and the refrigerator was already more than five years old. Keeping the coils clean helps your refrigerator to run more efficiently and prevents overheating.

If you need a refresher on how to clean the coils you can watch this short video.