Truly Organised

I always read the blog of Laura at Move to Portugal. Laura is the kind of organised that I am striving to be and you can see it in her progress towards her families goals (which incidently are speciific and measureable, making them more attainable that my own vague desires.)
Here are some of Lauras ideas for keeping on top of things.

Lizzie from Lizzies Homeworld gave me the idea for this week's organising post. Having seen the photos of my house she assumes that I clean a lot, lol, oh if only you new the truth Lizzie :)

I don't clean a lot but I am very tidy. I'm very ruthless about clearing the clutter as soon as it hits the house. I spend about ten minutes in the morning before work, after the kids have finished their morning rituals, and then ten minutes before bed at night. The only cleaning I do mid week is a quick wipe down of the kitchen and bathroom. At the weekend, usually Sunday morning, dh and I both spend an hour cleaning the whole house, he will hoover and dust upstairs while I sweep and dust downstairs, dh will then clean the floors downstairs while I blitz the bathroom.

Once every three months we 'spring clean', this means go behind cupboards and beds, hoover the blinds, clean the windows inside and out, clean out all the kitchen cupboards etc. This takes about 4 hours.

To keep paperwork clutter down I deal with the post delivery daily, I sort it and put it on the dresser for dealing with on a Sunday morning.

This routine works for us and keeps the house reasonably clean. It also never takes priority over doing something else ;)

This is the simple method I use to keep all our paperwork/bills organised and paid.
When anything arrives in the post during the week it goes on top of the boxes under the pig, then once a week on a Sunday morning I pay it, file it or shred it.

We have a file for each personal account, a file for the joint account, a box for insurance policies etc and a box for the children's finance stuff.

There is also an A4 book that I use for keeping a written monthly budget, this also has our annual goals printed at the front.

We have gone paperless on most bills but not all companies offer this service. I like to be organised, it saves time and it can save you money. Who wants to pay late payment charges to a bank or company?

This is a a level of organisatioin that I aspire to. Maybe I need the building work finished first ( excuses, excuses...)