Organized Home

Ready or not, here it comes: the 2011 Organized Christmas Countdown begins on Sunday, October 23 at sister site Organized Christmas! It's fun, it's free--and it'll see you into a calm and stress-free holiday season.

Beginning Sunday, we'll start the six-week Christmas organizing Countdown. Week by week, we'll break down holiday prep into easy-to-complete checklists, build a printable Christmas planner, and read inspiring daily messages to keep us motivated and in tune with the holiday spirit.

Led by editor Cynthia Ewer, we'll work together to create a calm, stress-free holiday season for ourselves and our families. Organizing Christmas preparations into small, easy-to-finish tasks, the Countdown will see us to the first weekend in December, prepared and ready for Christmas.

To make it easy, follow the Christmas Countdown on Twitter or Facebook, or via our RSS feed.

Ready to get organized for a great holiday season? Here we go! The 2011 Christmas Countdown starts on Sunday, October 23 ... see you there!

Ready for Christmas with the Christmas Countdown    More »

It's Autumn.

Pumpkins glow in golden fields. Shorter days, crisp mornings signal winter's approach.

Can the holidays be far behind?

Use Autumn's brisk and breezy days to conquer deep-cleaning chores for a clean and comfortable winter home, and wrap up summer's outdoor areas.

Our Fall Cleaning Chore Checklist will help you prepare home and hearth for the coming of winter:    More »

It was exactly ten years ago today when the phone call came.

Like most of America that morning, I was sitting in front of my television, transfixed and horrified by the images playing out on the screen.

I could barely tear my eyes away from the smoke rising in the blue skies of New York City as I took the call from my son, Ryan.

A 20-year-old Marine corporal based on Hawaii, he had been roused from his barracks before dawn as the news of the attack spread. He wanted me to know he'd been called in for duty, and did not know when he'd be able to contact family again.    More »

In my years as worker, mother and home manager, I have experienced a full range of life’s little organizational challenges.

I have run a business from a home shared with two tiny children and moved cross-country (and back). I've merged two cluttered households into one small city apartment, and lived for eighteen happy years with a card-carrying packrat husband.

Home schooling a child beat them all hands-down, organizationally speaking.

How do I count the clutter? The books. The papers. The biology experiments on the kitchen window. The adult-sized child sprawled on the floor, reading. The record-keeping. College admissions and testing and letters from the correspondence school.

Homeschool families, like Tolstoy's happy ones, are all alike: drowning in a sea of clutter! Whatever the organization arena--time, space, money, computer access—-homeschool families have it worse. They have more stuff, less time, more distractions, less money, more chores and less space than just about anybody else. How do you get organized for homeschool?

Don't despair, homeschoolers! Here at OrganizedHome.Com, we've assembled the best tips, ideas, resources and links to get your new school year off to an organized start.    More »

Labor Day weekend ahead! School bells are ringing, football fills the airwaves and September looms. Will the holidays be far behind?

Sure, you're dreaming of the perfect Christmas--then you open your eyes to reality. Looking around the house, it's hard to imagine how to cut the clutter, manage fall cleaning and prepare for Christmas all at once.

How will you bring the current state of domestic chaos into holiday readiness: clean, organized, prepared? You need a holiday plan!

This Sunday, it's time to kick off the Houseworks Holiday Plan and Holiday Grand Plan at sister site Organized Christmas!    More »

What's for dinner? It's the question of the hour! Too many home managers look for answers in the supermarket at 5 p.m. Harried, harassed by by hungry children, they rack their brains for an answer to the what's-for-dinner dilemma.

Three meals a day. Seven dinners a week. From supermarket to pantry, refrigerator to table, sink to cupboard, the kitchen routine can get old, old, old.

No wonder we hide our heads like ostriches from the plain and simple fact: into each day, one dinner must fall. What's the answer? A menu plan.

Menu planning doesn't have be complicated! Planning meals ahead requires a small investment of time, but can reap great rewards:

Move over, summer--a new school year is coming!

With the start of school, families face new organization challenges. School bells ring--and so do early-morning alarm clocks. Paper piles swell as hand-outs and homework stream into the house.

Shorter autumn days bring a hectic round of sports, activities and events, and calendars fill with cryptic notes. Can the holidays be far behind?

Get organized now for the best school year ever! Use these ideas to prepare your home and family for the busy days ahead:    More »

Morning Madness! Only the pre-dinner "Arsenic Hour" comes close in the "Calgon, take me away!" category. Bathroom fights, soggy cereal, and the ever-present, "Mommy! I can't find my . . . !" Getting the family out the door in the morning can make any parent want to pull the bedclothes up and hide.

One small concept can go a long way to taming the morning beast: the family Launch Pad. Just as a spaceship must have a dedicated structure to support liftoff, so family members need a Launch Pad to stabilize them as they blast out the door.    More »