Are you ready to get your family organized and start moving forward toward achieving your goals? I’ve got your back!

This post is for parents that need an extra boost to get things organized in their homes which can so easily slip into disarray.

Honestly, even if you don’t have kids, you can totally benefit from this post as well! Life is hard and it helps to have systems in place that make things just a bit easier to keep track of important tasks, to ensure that the important things don’t slip through the cracks.

I don’t know about you, but, at any given moment, I have a million balls up in the air that I am juggling, attempting not to drop, and, for me, it’s good to have tasks tied to certain events to ensure I remember them.

For instance, I always schedule my yearly exams around my birthday. Also, my husband’s birthday sets off the chain reaction in my brain to start planning the rest of my family’s birthdays. We have a “season of birthdays” clustered over a couple months and so my husband’s birthday sets me into party planning mode because his is the first. The spring elicits a spring-cleaning checklist to appear and, similarly, the fall signals a time to purge and prepare for winter and the holiday season.

Another big event on the calendar for me happens at the flip of the calendar to a new month. The changing of the month is a simple signal to my busy brain to get out my monthly checklist.  It’s a reminder to accomplish a few simple tasks that should truly be done monthly and help keep me and my family on track to achieving our goals, growing into a productive year.

Read on for my monthly checklist to keep your family organized and moving forward toward achieving your goals and having the best year you’ve had in a long while!

Monthly Organizing Check List

Deep Clean the Car

Go for a car wash, vacuum (inside of your kids’ car seats too!), dust, wipe down the insides of cup holders and anywhere else that may have been neglected after a minor spill.

Maybe, if you don’t have children, you can stretch the time between deep cleaning your car. But for my family, we could honestly do this every week, so managing to do it once a month is a win for us.

Leaves and dirt from hiking adventures always seem to get tracked into the car. Car seats collect bits of cereal and trash seems to collect due to my inability to grow extra arms to handle all the little things I need to carry around in addition to a small child.

Because we are ALWAYS pressed for time, I’ve relegated this task to be done once a month because well, at least it gets done that often!

Trust me, a clean car feels so good and will help you start the next month with a clean slate and feeling ready to tackle new adventures together!

Track Your Finances

How much did you spend? How much did you put in savings? Is there anywhere you fell short? Is there anywhere you could improve – eating in more, spending less in a particular area, reevaluating your streaming services or phone services?

Goal-Set for the next month – either post your goal where you will see it often or if you’re a planner-person (like I am), write your goal in your planner where you can see it OFTEN and go back to it intentionally throughout the month.  

They say “a watched pot never boils,” well “NOT watched finances NEVER improve.” So take a look at your finances and see what’s happening and KEEP LOOKING so that you don’t slip back into old, unhealthy financial habits. This one isn’t easy. It takes a bit of bravery to start this process and it is vital to keep fighting the fight if you want to really learn to manage and take control of your finances.

You’ve got this though! Normalize looking at your finances! You won’t regret it.

Deep Clean your refrigerator

I do a weekly clean out of my refrigerator, but every month I try to do a deep clean. This practice not only keeps your refrigerator clean but helps you to know what items are about to expire so that you can use them up the following month, ensuring you don’t have as much food waste or money waste.

You’ll also avoid the buildup of mold and grime. Having a clean kitchen is one of the top priorities in our home. Even if the rest of the house becomes a cluttered mess, our kitchen is top priority.

Having a clean kitchen not only keeps you from getting sick but it sets you up for success when it comes to preparing food at home. Nobody wants to cook in a dirty space or spend twenty minutes cleaning before even starting to cook their next meal. Remove all obstacles and make sure you always have a clean, tidy kitchen that is ready for action!

Update Your Calendar

I’m a paper planner kind of person. I enjoy the tactile experience of putting pen to paper. I have a personal planner that holds all our family information and sometimes it feels like half my brain as well. My planner is a place where I brain-dump my ideas and once my thoughts are there and written out, I forget them! It leaves space in my head for the thousands of other things I think about on a daily basis!

I also have a wall calendar that I update and change each month, so that my family gets an abbreviated version of what to expect for the month and maybe a small glimpse into the chaos that is my brain.

I look at my planner probably every day, but update it at least weekly and monthly. This is my list of what to include in your monthly update to keep your family growing together. Be intentional and schedule out time to be together and apart to build relationships and maintain your mental health.

  • Schedule: date nights with your partner-in-parenting, one-on-one times with your children, personal time for both you and your partner-in-parenting, and quality family time
  • Add in special occasions like family movie night or family game nights, and birthday parties, etc.
  • Reflect on last month’s goals and set new goals for the upcoming month to write down in your planner.

Take Donations to the Donation Center

Often, I feel like I’m the curator of “stuff” in our home, taking care of and maintaining a trillion items from toys to clothes to kitchen supplies.

As if by magic, superfluous items seem to always be accumulating in our home and I’m always trying to manage the clutter.

I use empty diaper boxes to collect quality items to donate, items that someone else could get good use out of but have no place in our home. These quality items get taken to the donation drop off center each month so that they can be used again and benefit someone else and are no longer taking up valuable space in our home.  

It’s a wonderful thing to let things go and free up space in your home! Personally, it gives me a sigh of relief when these donation items leave our space. I feel refreshed and ready to tackle new challenges when I see the open floor space free of clutter where the donation box once was. It’s like all those little items that were in the box are forever checked off my to do list. I never have to tidy them again. I never have to clean, dust or organize them again! For me, it’s invigorating.

This practice has made me want to be incredibly intentional about the items I do allow in my home. I want to only bring in new items that have purpose and add value to our lives. Items I WANT to care for and won’t just end up taking up space and becoming clutter and another donation box to have to haul away.

Keeping up with this work will help you realize just how much work it is to take care of stuff and will definitely help with your mindset around spending and all the stuff that occupies your life.

DONE

That wasn’t so bad, was it?!

By going through this checklist each month, I feel prepared and ready to tackle a new month’s set of challenges. It’s easy to see, when I reflect back on the year so far, that this system has helped me to keep my family organized and growing together towards some really big goals.

Unlike in years past where New Year “good intentions” have come and gone out the window by February 1st, having this simple monthly to-do system in place has allowed our goals to remain in focus throughout the year and to help lead us toward living more intentional lives. We’ve been able to create new habits and generate big changes in our home. I hope you can find some inspiration from it and figure out what works best for you!

Happy organizing from Big Love Small Moments! You’re not alone! You’ve got this!

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