Lately, I’ve had a bit more time than usual, with the rain and the girls out of school, but I’ve squandered it away. I already feel like summer is starting to slip through my fingers. Last week may have been the only completely unscheduled week of the summer and I spent it doing not much of anything, really, except hanging out with friends, trying to dodge torrential downpours and puttering around the house, watching it get progressively more cluttered and chaotic.
Usually, focus is not an issue for me. As most moms will tell you, if a window of time, however tiny, miraculously manages to open up, it is immediately filled with any number of things from my omnipresent to-do list. But these days that to-do list is so looming, so large, so completely un-to-do-able that I have found myself floundering, aimless. I need to focus. Because there is too much to do, and too much at stake, for me to do otherwise. My fuzziness has always been my downfall, although when I am on a task, I am extremely focused. I just have to know what that task is.
So this is my summer to get it together, and I’ve enlisted the help of more organized minds. My friend Darlynn Nangano of Little Blog Dress swears by Remember the Milk, while one of my husband’s business associates uses Evernote. I am going to explore these and some other options for getting organized, and my first stop is Digitwirl, another site that Darlynn told me about featuring the very smart and funny Carley Knobloch. Digitwirl gives you the scoop on all the latest tech gadgets and sites that can help you organize your life, your home, your money, even your family. I loved this clip of Carley on the today show!
I spent quite a bit of time on Digitwirl tonight, and left with loads of great tips and suggestions. Here are some of my faces:
1. GroceryIQ: A handy app that lets you keep track of your grocery list on your computer or on your smartphone, categorize it for handy shopping, scan completed boxes of items straight into your list, and even syncs up with coupon sites to put savings directly into your smartphone. Genius!
2. CouponSherpa: By most accounts, the best deals on anything and everything, when you need them.
3. Milo: Slightly less useful in smaller markets like mine, Milo is still one of the best ideas I’ve heard of. If you find something online you love, but need it right away and don’t have time to wait for shipping, it will scan local stores to find it for you!
4. ThredUp: Kids consignment gets an update. Simply send all of the clothes your kids have outgrown in one of their handy, free shipping bags, and ThredUp sends you a check. You don’t even have to wait for them to sell.
5. Lemon: This app lets you scan, organize, and track receipts and spending, so you can throw away all those little slips of paper at the bottom of your purse.
6. Alice.com: Do your grocery or household essentials (paper products, cleaners) shopping on this site, and it automatically includes discounts from manufacturer’s coupons, etc. and ships any order, $40 and up, for free. Yippee!!!!
7. Cardstar: I have experimented with a few ways to keep my store loyalty cards on me, from a key ring to a special card wallet that I keep – and forget – in my car. Problem solved. Cardstar is an app that lets you scan all those loyalty cards and store them on your smartphone. Love!
Thanks Digitwirl! With some luck, I might just be able to get organized life by the end of the summer!
mother.wife.me says
I am on a major mission to keep focused to. Not easy when full-time parenting a tinkerous toddler, plus trying to start a business!! Hope all your new found tips help you, only wish I could use them, but I think that being based in London renders most of them not for me.