Let me tell you a little story and see if you can relate……….
About 30 minutes before we leave anywhere, I usually tell my kids to get dressed, either for soccer, church, wrestling, or whatever it may be. It’s great! They listen and go and get dressed. It is not until we are headed out the door, 5 minutes early, when I begin to hear these last minute frantics………..
“Mom I can’t find my cleats!”
“WHERE are my shin guards!”
“Mom I don’t have any black socks, and I can only find one Sunday shoe!”
Whatever specialty item they lost, it is now lost in a household with 5 boys and a mama that might burst at any minute! As I’m trying to control my temper, I spend the next 10 minutes helping them find what they need. Meanwhile, the other kids who were in the car, have now escaped, starting the loading process all over again! By the time we leave we are now 15 minutes behind and flustered as all get out!!
Does this sound familiar? If so, I have discovered this one trick in eliminating the 10 minute hustle before we leave somewhere! Before I figured this trick out my mud room looked a lot like this…..
Shoes of EVERY KIND: shoes for play, sunday shoes, soccer cleats, wrestling shoes, flip flops, and a nice pair of shoes (so my child doesn’t look homeless when they leave the house). If we add all of that up, we have 5 boys with 6 pairs of shoes! 3
That is 30 PAIRS OF SHOES PEOPLE!!! WHAT???
60 items that are constantly thrown around my home and constantly picked up! That doesn’t include my husband and I!! This picture doesn’t even show them all. There are at least another dozen out in our kitchen/main living area! All you need is one word to describe this!
MAYHEM!!!
It took me a couple years of madness, but this is what I did to fix this problem!
STEP #1 –
I was so tired of picking up shoes all over my house that I decided to get a bin/bucket (like these) for each specialty item. One bin for soccer, one bin for sunday shoes, one bin for wrestling and I added even made a swimming bin too.
STEP #2 –
I made a pile of all those shoes in my mud room…..
STEP #3-
I took out the soccer cleats and shin guards and put them in one bucket, and sunday shoes in another bucket!
Look how small my pile became! In the soccer bin, I also put soccer socks, shin guards, goalie gloves, and whatever else may need to be in there for soccer. In the sunday shoe bin, I put black socks in with the shoes. The wrestling bin I put their singlets and wrestling shoes. This way when they are getting ready for whatever, it is a one stop shop! This one trick has almost eliminated our ten minute hustle before we leave!
My boys have learned to put them away in these buckets so they can find them easily again. When laundry is cleaned and folded, the socks get put in their designated spot that is right in the laundry room! IT IS WONDERFUL!
It is also great for traveling. If you need your sunday shoes packed for church, a funeral, or a wedding, I grab our sunday shoe bin, and everything we need for socks and shoes are packed!
It’s also great that my boys have a straight shot, as they are running to the urinal, without the hazard of millions of shoes to trip on!!
WARNING: This is not a fix all for the “10 minute hustle”. Your kid will still have to go to the bathroom, or a diaper will still need to be changed, or you notice your kid is half dressed. This trick however, helps eliminate more mayhem!
HAPPY ORGANIZING!!!