My favorite place to look is the DOLLAR GENERAL. It’s true.

Last year I bought several spools of fall-colored cloth ribbon on clearance at the end of the fall season. This year I scored a couple of $1 packages of shimmery silk leaves in a variety of fall colors from olive green to gold to eggplant to deep red. The leaves were just what I needed to make-over my dollar store wall art! (I’ll show you later.)

Other things I scored at the DG this year:

• A little pumpkin about 6 inches tall that says “Give thanks to God”
• A free-standing 4 inch ‘plate’ that reads “Welcome Fall” (Yes! Welcome! Please come in!!)
• A cute little cornucopia (you could see that in my first day of school pics)
• A little package of pumpkins and squash – little ones, 2-3 inches in diameter, so cute.

I’ve just started getting things decorated but it’s already starting to look a little bit like fall around here. Now if it would only start FEELING like fall as well!

Works for Me Wednesday is hosted by Kristen at We Are That Family!

My mom would tell you to always keep your inbox empty. Read it. Delete it.

I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t always work that way. Canna getta witness?

Recently I’ve seen an increase in important incoming emails and an increase in responsibility answering those emails. The number of mis-placed, forgotten, and buried emails cried out for a solution. I FOUND ONE.

My solution is my ACTION folder.

(Somebody in the back row just hollered “Duh!!” Please bear with me and the others who have yet to learn about the greatness that is the action folder!)

This solution is something you can implement immediately, right now, regardless of where your inbox stands. I promise. Whichever email system you use, go into your system right now and create a folder called “ACTION NEEDED” or if you prefer, just simply “ACTION.”
From now on, every email that comes in that requires any kind of action (ANY KIND!) whatsoever that you can’t or don’t have time to do right that very second — move it to the action folder. Immediately. Do not dally!

• If you need to reply to that email – send it to the action folder.
• If you need to add that phone number/email address/info to your contacts/phone/mailing list – send it to the action folder!
• If you need to look at that again tomorrow so that you will remember to email or call someone else – send it to the action folder!
• If you need to print it, store it, forward it, edit it, download it, copy it, cut it, paste it – send it to the action folder!

I promise this will make your email life so much easier. BUT.. this is a multi-part tip.

Once you send it there, you can’t forget it.

Set aside a time (preferably routine times, in the morning and at night, on your lunch break, whatever) to go through the action folder and DO the actions. It’s a habit you need to develop but it’s an easy one to develop and get the hang of.

When I check my email for the first time of the day, I send action emails to the folder and once I’m done I open the folder for a quick review of the items inside, in case I need to be reminded of anything particularly urgent. Later in the day while the kids are working on school work that needs less of my assistance I go through my folder and clear my action items. Sometimes I get a chance to go back through before bed, but if I don’t it’s okay because I will do it again mid-day the next day.

Because all of my action items are in one place, nothing gets lost, nothing gets overlooked, and I actually save myself time. Depending on what the actions are I may be able to get through them in a few minutes to half an hour’s time. And I get the added benefit of looking a whole lot more responsible, too!

There’s also a third step to this system I’m using: Categorized folders.

I already had a handful of folders I was (kinda) using but without a system, I wasn’t using them well. Before I had an action folder, I might file both an action and a keep email into a folder, but I wasn’t able to stay on top of that. Now as I go through my inbox if there’s an email I need to keep that doesn’t require action (I get some of those for my produce co-op for example) I can file it straight into that folder.

After going through the action folder if I still need to keep it, I can file it, if not, I can delete it. It’s a better way of ensuring I don’t keep emails I don’t need and making sure I can find emails I do need later. Periodically you need to browse through any folders to see if you have things that can be purged, of course.

This is the kind of tip that anybody can use, regardless of how many “important” emails you get coming through your inbox in a day. Even if you share an email account with someone. Or maybe, ESPECIALLY if you share an account with someone. ; ) And since “Action” starts with A, you have a good chance that it will be the top folder in the list making it easy to see, remember and stay on top of. I can’t take credit for that, but it helps. I suppose if you had a LOT of action emails coming through you could break it down into multiple action folders (“Action biz, Action personal” or “Action blog, Action store, Action homeschool co-op” for example.) I bet that would work.

If you have an e-mail organization tip, please share it in the comments. I’m open to improving my system even more if I can. But for now, this is REALLY working for me!

Now. If only I could organize my digital photos so quickly and easily…

And if you have a Works for Me Wednesday tip of any sort, head over to Kristen’s!

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/idogcow/ / CC BY 2.0

I used to sheepishly tell people or not admit to it at all, but it’s true. And recently, I’ve been finding some online validation that if you do, in fact, wash only in cold water (and wash brand new reds and blues separately the first few times just in case) that this really is okay. Really really.

Phew! What A LOAD off of my chest. ;0)

It’s a good thing, because I didn’t really have plans on changing any time soon. Because this whole “not sorting” thing? It works well. Really well.

Why not sort?

Each of the kids has their own laundry basket that doubles as a hamper. When they are full, their entire load of laundry can be washed – all together – dried, and returned to THEIR basket, handed back TO THEM, folded BY THEM and put in their dresser. BY THEM. And if your child is old enough – and my older two are – they can even do the washing and drying THEMSELVES!! (They’re supposed to turn clothes right side out, check for stains and set aside if they have something that needs to be pre-treated for Mommy to deal with later.)

This is a good thing.

Another reason: I can wash all of my husband’s work clothes together in one or two loads and KNOW without a shadow of a doubt that I have enough of everything clean to keep him going to work fully clothed and looking good. (Oh how I hate looking in the closet to find that nothing clean matches!)

If you have good water, as in not overloaded with an abundance of iron, you can go ahead and separate out bleaches. Otherwise, bleach actually binds the iron to the clothes and makes it worse. Yuck-O. It seems the iron staining is worse when washing in hot water, too. So if you’re in my boat you can just stick with cold water, skip the bleach, maybe add some Oxi Clean or Borax or something. We’ve just resigned ourselves to the fact that we’ll have to replace our socks a little more frequently.

Now of course, I like to wash jeans together, and keep towels together. But after I’ve washed the kids clothes individually, pulled out all of Big Daddy’s clothes from the bathroom hamper (except for his jeans) and then followed up with a load of my own clothes… there’s nothing left but jeans and towels anyway. (Well.. you know, on a good day when I am caught up on laundry. When you’re behind on laundry, well, “not sorting” is a great way to jump in and just start washing whatever is closest!)

Not sorting. Works for me. What works for you?

Works for Me Wednesday is hosted by Kristen @ We Are That Family.

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ingorrr/ / CC BY 2.0

You’d think. And yet I’m drawing a big, fat, blank. It might be the backed up laundry and dishes distorting my view, just sayin’.

We’ve been sick, though. The kind of sick that gets ya run down, makes ya dog tired and affects your Want To and Care To. YOU KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT. So maybe I’m not putting in the work to get those other things done but I’ll tell you what HAS worked around here the last few days, to make sure that food gets cooked and people have clothes to wear.

Pretty Much All That’s ‘Workin’ For Us This Week:

1. When we got sick we were caught up on housework, dishes and laundry because we were doing our necessary daily upkeep – that’s important to note.
2. Making sure that we get a minimum amount of work done each day, so that even if we still get behind we keep things moving. Basically at least a load of laundry a day and a load of dishes a day will keep us with things to wear and eat on until we can get caught up again.
3. Focusing on what we can do, not what we aren’t getting done, so Momma doesn’t stress out.
4. Taking at least 30 minutes (setting a timer) for picking up around the house to make sure that we don’t get buried under clutter and things that didn’t get put away because we “didn’t feel like it.”
5. Not focusing on all the things that didn’t get done, worth repeating.
6. Resting, drinking lots of water and eating healthy foods, so as to HOPEFULLY get out strength back soon!
7. Did I mention not focusing on everything that doesn’t get done?

You may have noticed a theme there. Get done what you can get done. Don’t worry about what you don’t. Take care of yourself so you can get better.

I’m bummed that we’d been doing well with KEEPING the house cleaner and now it’s not, but I know that we got there once and we can get back there when we get our energy back.

It seems that there are several things going around our town right now, and not just our town but people in other places, too, if Facebook and Twitter are any indication. It’s a no brainer, but if you’re under the weather, too.. this is my advice to you. Especially the “don’t fret” part. Sometimes we just need a reminder.

So this is what’s working for me – what’s working for you? Tell me. And if you wrote a post, leave a link. And link up at Kristen’s. Next week I plan on feeling better and you never know, your tip might be something I’d interested in.

I do well with lists and writing things down so a few weeks ago I put two and two together and *duh!* I bought myself a notebook just for blogging. It’s about 5X7 and an inch thick, but the best part is that it’s divided into three sections, allowing me to separate my note taking into 3 different task categories: Blog Maintenaince, Blogging, and Monetization.

As I think of things to write about, or things that I need to work on, I jot them down in my notebook. Later when I have time to write or work on the blog, a quick reference of the notes can get me started in the right direction in just a few minutes.

Also every few days I can intentionally set aside a few minutes to work on some kind of blog maintenance or monetization issue and since I have them all written down, I can knock 2 or 3 tasks off the list in a minimal amount of time.

Streamlining is good.

What tools do YOU utilize to stay on top of blog tasks or writing topics? Or if you’re not a blogger, what kind of projects do you work on that might benefit from a handy dandy 3-subject notebook?

Works For Me Wednesday is hosted by Kristen @ We Are That Family!