Audra Lowe: How often do you find yourself rummaging through those piles of papers, searching for all those lost items whether it could be the keys, phone chargers, what else? You have a house that’s missing.
Organizing expert Jodie Watson is here. She says life doesn’t have to this hectic or disorganized.
She’s here with some fast and easy tips to get you and your family all set up and organized, ready to go. Welcome Jodie.
Jodie Watson: Thank you.
Audra Lowe: Your house must be like really in order huh?
Jodie Watson: It has as semblance of order to it.
Audra Lowe: Setting by example. You know, but you’re disorganized, you can not only go crazy but you’ll also lose money, right?
Jodie Watson: You really will. The cost of disorganization is really going to add up in your life. It will cost you time, it will cost you money. But like you said, most importantly, it is going to cost you your sanity.
I mean, how frustrating is it when you have to is it when you have to search and waste time looking for things that you’ve misplaced.
Audra Lowe: Especially when they’re right under your nose.
Jodie Watson: Exactly and they usually are or you’re rummaging through piles of paper. You’re missing deadlines and appointments. So, being organized can definitely reduce your stress and give you greater peace of mind.
Audra Lowe: We like the peace of mind. Now, this is what Jodie calls the family organizational center right?
Jodie Watson: Yeah. This is everything that you would need for a family organization center.
Audra Lowe: So, let’s start over here. You got labels for every single person in the house over there.
Jodie Watson: Right. Yes. Definitely you want to set up in your family organization center a file system for your household and by categorizing, you can have labels for each member of the family and then also for categorizing your house like medical, or household, that type of thing.
You want to clearly label them so that you can identify them. It is no good having great files but you don’t know what’s inside them. And then when you need to find a specific document, important document, you can go right to it and find it.
Audra Lowe: No rules, you can color code, you could do whatever works for your family.
Jodie Watson: Whatever works for you, whatever colors you want, but just give the assigned color for each person or each category.
Audra Lowe: Now, I like this section over here because you have a pre-stamped envelopes, is that correct?
Jodie Watson: Well, yeah. This here is an area to keep all the bills and everything that you would need to pay them in one place.
Audra Lowe: Got it.
Jodie Watson: So, yes. You would want to have pre-printed address labels, return address labels. I use ivory because their labels are such good quality and they have a great variety. Then, you want to have stamps, pens, obviously a place for the bills so you can even keep your checkbook in there.
Audra Lowe: Okay.
Jodie Watson: So, late fees, a thing of the past. You can keep them all together.
Audra Lowe: And I see you’ve got a whole sheet full of labels. You don’t have to keep going back and re-print them over and over and over again.
Jodie Watson: Yes, absolutely. Yeah, pre-printed labels of the names of your family members, and you can use them.
Audra Lowe: And then over here, what I really like about this is that you can just throw things in there and you can come back later again right.
Jodie Watson: Right. We’re so busy, we’re coming through the door, and we’ve got the mail in our hands. It’s like you don’t want to just dump it down on to the table. If you just take them in it to set up a container for each member of the family, something that you can label. It could be any container. I’m using magazine file boxes here. In they go. You put it in to the person’s name. Then when you’re looking later for so and so is my magazine and I don’t know where it is. Just look in your box and there it is.
Audra Lowe: And one other thing that I forgot to mention too, who does not have a million of these lying around? Cords and you actually labeled this one here. What is this? So dad has to pick it up and do something with it?
Jodie Watson: Right. Well, because there are so many different electronic gadgets for each member of the family, label them. Use your spool label from your pre-printed sheet, put in on there, who does it go to, you can even put what it goes to. So, is it for the telephone? Is it for his camera? And then wrap the cord around, the little lighten and tangle cords are a thing of the past.
Audra Lowe: A routine that works for you and your family.
Jodie Watson: Absolutely.
Audra Lowe: Thank you so much Jodie.
Jodie Watson: You’re welcome.
Jodie Watson: Good to have you here.
And if you guys want to get other tips and tricks to keep your family organized, you can find them on our website, BetterTV.com. We’re going to have a link there and all the information will be there as well.
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