Scrapbooking.

There’s something truly wonderful about that concept, isn’t there?

The idea of gorgeous volumes, one for each major family event (or year), standing spine-to-spine on a shelf in the living room for all to enjoy is simply wonderful to imagine. Too bad reality gets in the way of those memory-curating fantasies, right? Most people are months, if not years, behind where they think they should be when it comes to organizing their pictures and mementos of good times spent with family and friends. One woman we spoke with recently figured she’s at least 6 years behind and many more still hadn’t sorted through and organized the thousand or so pictures they snapped on their last family trip.

If you’re behind, don’t despair. We’ve put together a step-by-step guide for getting your memories organized.

Start Small

We humans will always put off projects we think will be painful as long as the downside of avoiding the task isn’t more painful. In the case of organizing photos, digital or analog, the downside is too vague to cause us any real agita. And so – we keep putting off dealing with it.

By starting off with a small photo project, you will all get an early “win” that will motivate you to keep on keeping on through the more boring, but essential organizational tasks. In addition, simply going through the process of creating a photo project (like putting together an album or gallery wall) actually forces you to organize and classify photos you have accumulated. So, in a way, a small photo project actually serves as a Jedi mind trick you can play on yourself so that you get a start on the organizational work you don’t think you want to do.

Step Away from the “Inspiration”

While gazing at inspiring layouts and ideas in magazines and online can be fun, it can also be paralyzing. Social scientists who study how we make decisions have found that having too many options actually keeps people from choosing a path forward. In addition to what those social scientists have found, we have seen too many well-intentioned people become so intimidated (i.e. “I wish I could make my album look like that, but I wouldn’t even know where to start.”) that they give up before they even start.
Bottom line: as long as you are looking at what others have done for inspiration on how to create a “perfect” album, you aren’t really making any progress.

Pick a Preferred Medium

Some people prefer to see their memories organized in photo books, others love actual photo albums or scrapbooks with physical prints, and still others want digital albums that showcase their memories in real time on digital frames. How you choose to organize and display your memories doesn’t matter; that you do it does.

It’s much easier to make headway when you pick one medium to work within. As you gain experience with it, the time and effort it takes to create additional projects will diminish. So, for example, the more photo books you design, the more quickly and easily you will be able to create them in the future, and the more likely you will be to make one each time you upload photos from a major event. It’s a virtuous circle that keeps you a step ahead of the photo chaos.

Establish a Habit

Organizing photos will require much less time and effort if you just take some simple steps every time you upload or print photos. Step one: label what you are uploading or printing with the date and the name of the event the photos are related to. Step two: delete any duplicate or unfortunate photos that aren’t worth keeping around. Step three: merge any photos you have just printed or uploaded into bigger organizational buckets as it makes sense. For example, you may have a folder for each year, with sub-folders for each major event, such as a birthday party.

All in, it takes about five minutes to do that as you upload or print. But if you wait until you have to do the same for thousands of photos, it becomes a monster.

Use Tools That Make the Project Easier

Sometimes in our quest to do things “right” we make it harder on ourselves than it needs to be. Look for tools that can help you simplify your photo projects in any way. For example, if you’re trying to dig out from under an avalanche of photos, try using a service like the one offered by 1000Memories.com, which scans up to 600 photos for you and uploads them into a virtual album. If you just want to display photos physically, get a simple album with plastic sleeves so you don’t have to think too hard about what goes where. If you store your photos digitally, make the switch to photo books as you can skip the steps of printing photos and putting them into albums.

Are your photos organized? How do you prefer to keep your memories – in photo books, in photo albums with actual prints, or in virtual frames?

My alarm didn’t go off on Saturday morning at 6am as I had programmed it to.

Darn it.

After a full week of working until 1-2am each night and, of course, staying up until 11pm on Friday dreaming of all the personal assistants I could hire if my Mega Millions ticket was a winner, I was simply in no state to wake up on my own accord.

I scrambled out of bed, attempted to wipe the bleary from my eyes, threw my hair up in a ponytail, pulled on a fleece and sprinted down to the kitchen.

Why such a tizzy on a Saturday morning?

You see, by 10am all kindergarten moms had to deliver a cake to room 109 or risk excommunication from the PTO. The cakes were slated to be prizes in a cake walk game at the school fair, an event that raises a big portion of the funds that make our school such an awesome place.

My hectic insane week meant I had no cake already made. Although I did have a few Pinteresting fantasies of what I could have made.

Like this gorgeous rainbow cake from Sweetapolita, for example.

I looked at the clock. 7:20.

In the words of Eminem: Oh! Snap back to reality. Oh! There goes gravity! Oh! There goes Rabbit but he won’t give up that easily.

I knew how to make cupcakes. And although the instructions specifically called for a cake, I figured I could put 6 together on a plate in lieu of a cake. If I made 24, I’d be able to contribute 4 cakes. Super Mom bonus points!

Being a kindergarten mom, I hadn’t a clue where room 109 was, but I figured if I pulled into the parking lot by 9:53, I could find it in the nick of time.

Now, cupcakes generally take 45 minutes to an hour to bake and 15-20 minutes to cool enough to put icing on…so you can see why I wasn’t happy about the alarm failure.

Nonetheless, I put on my Super Mom cape and went to work, barking at any poor soul who got in my way.

In the two minute break I had after the icing was made but the cupcakes were still baking, I panicked. The instructions said cake. What was I thinking, going off the brief and making cupcakes?!

I looked up “delicious chocolate cake” on Pinterest and found this gorgeous confection from My Baking Addiction staring back at me.

I went for it.

Cut to 10:10am. Chocolate cake was complete, but left abandoned on my counter top. After I read the small print on the school flyer, I realized that it was unsuitable as the chocolate powder I had used to make it was made in a factory that also handled nuts.

NUTS! Back to Plan A.

I skidded into room 109 like Kramer from Seinfeld, hair askance, fleece spotted with flour, icing, and a few sprinkles. I breathlessly hand over my cupcake “cakes” to a volunteer who looked at me sympathetically (or was that derisively?) and put my clearly handmade goodies on some risers amidst a sea of gorgeous, store-bought cakes.

Now why didn’t I think of that?

On my race back home to shower and dress so that I would be ready for my volunteer shift at 11:00, I pondered the lessons from my rushed, stressed-to-the-max morning.

I came up with these seven signs it’s time to fire your inner Super Mom.

You’re Muttering to Yourself Under Your Breath

When you start repeating what you have to do next under your breath like Rainman, it’s time to hang up the cape. Definitely. Definitely. Time to hang up the cape. Yeah. Time to hang up the cape.

You Feel Put Out

My husband has a little noise he makes, sort of an annoyed-sounding, breathy “eh-eh” that pretty much sums this one up. If you make that sound. Hang it up, sister.

You Make/Bake Something from Scratch When Scratch Doesn’t Matter

Yeah. No kid in the world cared if the cake they won was homemade or not. In fact, they probably preferred the professionally made ones. My morning would have looked a whole lot different had I just raised the white flag and run to Stop & Shop to pick up a ready-made confection.

You’re Barking At Your Family When They’re Just Being Normal

Enough said.

You Don’t Have Time to Shower Before Heading Out the Door

Yep. It sort of ruins the whole Super Mom image, now doesn’t it?

You Start Comparing What You Do to What Your Spouse Does

This, along with barking at your family for being normal, is the real death trap of Super-Mom-itis. Just because you agreed to bite off more than you could chew does not make your spouse a slacker.

You Feel the Need to Go 80 MPH in a 40MPH Zone

Think of the children, okay Super Mom?

Any other “Super Moms” out there? Can you relate? What warning signs did I miss?

Last night we received a heartfelt post on our facebook wall. It was such an important question that I didn’t want to dash off a quick or glib answer or be limited to the character count allowed by Facebook. So I’m answering it here on our blog. Our reader asked:

I am beyond hopeless when it comes to getting organized and I do NOT want my two children to end up being that way. Is there anything I can do that can help me get them started now? They are two and seven.

It’s a question I’ve pondered myself many times since the arrival of my two little guys (remember I’m the recovering yo-yo organizer of the buttoned up bunch!). I can’t promise to have the complete answer, but it is an issue I am intimately familiar with and for which I have tested work-arounds to in my own life.

The Roots of Chronic or Yo-Yo Disorganization

My battle with organization started when I was young – I shared a room with my highly conscientious little sister and we literally got to the point where we had to draw a line down the room to mark our “territories.” My side was strewn with discarded clothes (I never was good at going with the first outfit I tried on in the morning) and the usual scholastic debris. My sister’s side, on the other hand, was neat as a pin. If my crap ever strayed onto her “side” of the room, she could confiscate it. Lord knows how many Esprit tops I lost that way!

Every few weeks I’d hit a visual disgust threshold with my side and force myself to spend an hour or two whipping it into tip-top shape. The perfection would last a day or two and then I’d start the slow slide back into chaos again.

My disorganization wasn’t just limited to my stuff. I struggled with big projects that were designed to be done over weeks, months, or worse, a semester. I was forever doing them at the eleventh hour. Pulling all-nighters and trying to believe the phrase I constantly muttered under my breath: “Diamonds under pressure baby…we create DIAMONDS under pressure!”

If only.

It sometimes felt as though, even though I wanted to stay organized, stick to my diet, drive more slowly, or do that project bit by bit over the semester rather than cramming, I couldn’t make myself. My brain knew what I should do, but that wasn’t enough to get me to do it.

I devised work-arounds like study buddies and weight loss groups to help myself stay on track. And those kinds of things did help. But the yo-yo pattern was still there under the surface.

And it made me feel like a failure. A high-functioning one, but a failure nonetheless. I knew I was capable of so much more.

Then, in my years on Madison Avenue and eventually as an entrepreneur and co-founder of Mindset Media, I had the opportunity to take a deep-dive into the world of psychology. One of the most fascinating things I had the opportunity to study was something called the “Five Factor Model,” which is a robust construct devised by academic psychologists to describe human personality. There are five factors or “domains” that serve as the fundamental building blocks of our personality: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Each of those five factors is comprised of six facets or sub-traits.

We all express various positive or negative degrees of each of the big five factors (and their sub-traits). If you’re curious, you can take this free personality inventory survey anonymously to get a sense for your personality thumbprint. Nothing to worry about as the data collected benefits academics.

I guessed that the trait most linked to my kind of disorganization was conscientiousness. And in fact, I found I scored rather low on that factor, meaning I have trouble persevering. Perseverance refers to an individual’s ability to remain focused on a task that may be boring or difficult – and the ability to stay the course in the face of distracting stimuli.

The reason I bring all of this up isn’t to bore you with some academic chalk-talk, but because viewing disorganization through the lens of personality helped me make a life-changing shift. Once I was able to view my behavior as an expression of psychological wiring, I was liberated. Rather than berating myself for being such a “flake,” I started looking for ways to mitigate the trait I just happened to have (focusing on the topic of organization 24/7 for Buttoned Up sure doesn’t hurt!)

The objective, academic personality classification meant I could stop taking my organizational failures so personally. I wasn’t a failure who would never get organized. I simply happened to score lower on a personality domain called conscientiousness. It took the sting away, which in turn freed me to focus on finding more effective, preventative work-arounds and turning those work-arounds into habits. I stopped saying “I am hopelessly disorganized,” and started saying, “I have this trait (kind of like you’d say I have hypothyroid), and I have to take steps to treat it.”

When my boys were born I started to wonder just as you are, if they, too, would struggle with the same issue. I read that your level of conscientiousness is influenced both by heredity (49% heritability) and by environmental factors, so I figured there was a good chance that they’d be afflicted. I watch carefully as they play, looking for signs of impulsiveness. I don’t always love what I see, especially for my oldest. But it’s hard to tell. The pre-frontal cortex, which (I’m pretty sure) regulates this tendency isn’t fully developed until the late teens or early twenties.

Either way, since environment plays a significant role here, I decided I would do anything to help them hardwire as many conscientious habits as I could before they fly the coop. Below are a few of the strategies that have worked for me or that I’ve used to good effect on my sons.

Six Simple Strategies

Objectify the Impulsiveness:
Blame and shame are a waste of energy; they do no good and keep you (or your kid) trapped. If you notice impulsive behavior in yourself of your kids, do yourself a favor and depersonalize/destigmatize it. Call it by name (low conscientiousness) and reiterate to yourself, or out loud to your children, that this just means you have to work a little harder to prevail, but it doesn’t mean you can’t. Just as a dyslexic person adopts strategies for reading, the person low in conscientiousness can adopt strategies to get (and stay) organized.

Instill One New Habit Every 6 Months:
One of the best strategies by far is to develop habit sets that keep chaos at bay. Young brains are learning machines, so instill habits early and they are likely to stick (effortlessly) for a lifetime. Start with something like a morning routine as I describe in this post, using rewards and praise to cement the good habit. Don’t let them “get out” of even one day. By the end of six months, it should be as ingrained as brushing teeth and you can add another habit to the repertoire.

Engage Them in Organizational System Problem Solving:
Ask them to solve an organizational challenge in the playroom, such as where and how to keep the Legos, the trains, and board games organized so they enjoy their toys more. Encourage ones over the age of 5 to research good options (maybe go online with them to search Pinterest), pick out their own containers, decorate them, and put them in place. Resist the urge to do it for them. This not only is a great way to teach them the basics of solving organizational problems, but the more invested they are in them, the more likely they will be to adopt them without a fight.

Actively Foster a Link Between Organization and Joy:
Look for ways to link the emotion of joy and pleasure with being organized. The stronger the positive emotional link, the more likely they are to do it. So make a big deal out of their organizational successes.

Involve Them in Organized Sports:
I’m convinced that the structure, the accountability to my teammates, and the scary coaches who demanded I follow through all helped build my discipline muscle. And that paid huge dividends in other areas.

Talk to Their Teachers:
Let the teacher know that your child may suffer from disorganization (and that they’re leaning on a weak stick in you). Ask for a heads-up on big projects that need to be done over many weeks, ask about any strategies that work when it comes to building organizational muscles, ask frequently how your child is doing.

I’d love to hear what you think. Have you been stuck in the thought pattern that you’re either organized or you’re not? Do you find this construct helpful? If you have a disorganized child but you, yourself are organized – have you tried any of these strategies? Let me know!

As I settled back into my routines this week, I had a fleeting thought: did the holidays even happen this year?

One glance at the playroom confirms it most certainly did. And good GAWD, this momma needs to learn restraint! The onslaught of toys has completely overwhelmed our rather simple organization system consisting of two bins. Time to upgrade.

I went looking and found 15 organizational tools and hacks that would help any overwhelmed parent deal with their toy tsunami & thought I’d share.

What about you, Did you go a little overboard on the Holiday gifts without having done a little toy purging in advance? What’s your favorite trick for corralling the toys?

{Feature Photo Credit}

Today we salute the incredible men and women who have bravely served our country. As we do, let’s also consider the powerful lessons the military teaches us about getting organized.

Teamwork

From their first day in boot camp, recruits become members of a unit. In training, it doesn’t matter who crosses a finish line first or who crosses it last; it matters that everyone crosses. Part and parcel of teamwork is the understanding that you are only as good as the weakest link in your platoon. So members cheer each other on and support one another as they are put through their grueling paces.

The concept of teamwork has the potential to radically improve both your work environment and your family unit. Consider asking how you can encourage and support your team members — and how you might lean on them to help you in areas where you are not as strong.

Respect

Each massive branch of the military functions as one, single team. They can do so because everybody from top to bottom understands that each member has something to contribute.

Do you let others around you contribute enough? Or are you limiting yourself and everyone around you by trying to control how tasks are done.

Duty

Every person in the military must fulfill their obligations within the context of a highly complex operation. The military progresses by building one assignment onto another, but it wouldn’t get very far at all if individuals in the chain failed to carry out their assigned tasks or took shortcuts that undermined the integrity of the final product.

In that spirit, the military drills its recruits over and over again in the basic skills like pressing uniforms, making a bed, and keeping a pristine locker. Soldiers have to do each task just right, and they often have to do them in a matter of minutes.

These drills aren’t done capriciously. They ultimately over time develop a soldier’s discipline and attention to even the smallest details. In addition, it enables many men to comfortably live in a confined space – and keeps their space clean so they can focus on more important matters.

These lessons are absolutely applicable to civilians. Establish habits and routines for dealing with the details that, if left undone would distract and undermine your confidence.

I’m sure there are many more “buttoned up” lessons we could take away from the military. If you have any, please share them with us!

We owe each Veteran (and their family members) an enormous debt of gratitude. From everyone here on the Buttoned Up team – thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Mornings are hectic. Having to get kids up and ready for school makes it even more so.

But they become a whole lot easier once your child learns how to adopt a positive morning habit…and do it on autopilot.
Use this chart to reinforce four simple behaviors with your child. The routine can be done before or after breakfast, whichever comes more naturally for your family. Reward your child with a sticker each day he completes his routine successfully. After five or ten consecutive days of success, celebrate with high-fives and a special treat.

Click here to download the ONE WEEK chart

Click here to download the ONE MONTH chart

Routines are by definition second nature – effortless.

And if there’s one thing you want as a parent, it is to make organizational routines absolutely effortless for your children. Teach them when they are young how to master the fundamental organizational task of planning their day or week ahead of time – and they will thank you for it later. This simple printable schedule is designed to help them build just that planning and organizational “muscle.”

Click here to download

Winging it as a parent

For the past five years I have been like 99.9% of parents on the planet: pretty much winging it. While I have read my fair share of books on parenting, I never took an in-depth parenting course. I gleaned what knowledge I could from teachers, other moms, and from occasionally catching tips from a parenting expert on TV or in a magazine.

I knew that my general goal was to raise happy, well-adjusted boys who loved to learn. I have a plan when it comes to enriching their lives with activities and helping them achieve major milestones. But I had never really mapped out a plan for becoming the kind of parent I needed to be in order to raise children who fit that bill.

Honestly, I never really saw the need. Yes, I was flying blind through this incredibly important job. But, I figured I had a great role model in my mom, and felt as long as I stayed close enough to her approach, my kids would turn out okay.

Sure there were many days when I couldn’t remember what my mom would do in a certain situation, or felt frustrated with my own short fuse, or guilty that I could have handled a scenario better. But there was no crisis, if you will. My boys are very active, but generally well behaved, loving, and decently well-adjusted.

A Webinar That Should Be on the “Required Reading” list for Parents

And then a few weeks ago my good friend Aviva introduced me to Amy McCready. She is a Today Show parenting expert and the founder of Positive Parenting Solutions.

Aviva invited me to sit in on a free webinar Amy was giving that afternoon on getting kids to listen without shouting or nagging. I was a little skeptical at first. Would she share useful information, or would it just be a big advertisement for a more expensive program (I’ve been on those kinds of webinars before and avoid them like the plague)?

My friend assured me it would be worth attending.

It was probably the best hour I’ve spent in a good while on anything.

I sat riveted in my seat alternating between the stomach-dropping realization that “ohmyGOSHIamCOMPLETELYyscrewingupmykids” to the uplifting “oh I see what I could be doing differently and I could totally do that.”

While it was sobering to realize that I had been pretty darn random when it came to discipline, especially how confusing that randomness must have been for my boys (particularly for my oldest), I also felt like I got some insights that would enable me to adopt a more proactive, positive approach going forward.

In fact, I took notes like a crazy person and that evening got my husband to commit to making the same changes I was going to. In just a few weeks, we’ve noticed a significant drop in yelling chez nous. Even better, spontaneous hugs and kisses from our oldest, Will, are on the rise.

I was so impressed with Amy and her content that I had to figure out a way to share it with our readers at Buttoned Up. We connected and I am thrilled to announce that she has agreed to partner with us to bring her webinar content to you.

So on Wednesday October 19th, you will have a chance to attend the same life-changing webinar that I did.

Topic: Get Kids to Listen without Nagging, Reminding or Yelling!

Date: Wednesday, October 19th at 9pm Eastern Standard Time

Access: All you need is a computer with a speaker to hear the presentation. When you RSVP Amy will send you the log-in instructions.

RSVP: Webinar seating is limited due to technology so, you need to reserve your seat — and I’d do it early as I have a feeling it will fill up quickly. Click here to register and participate. Trust me, you won’t want to miss this.

How It Works: Once you register, you will receive an email confirmation with the link to access the webinar. When you “enter” the webinar, you’ll see the session slides on your screen as well as a video box to see the presenter – but Amy won’t be able to see you! You can use the chat box to type questions or make comments. She runs these webinars in a very interactive fashion, so if you have a specific question, she is very likely to see it in the chat and answer it directly.

Bottom line: if you want to be a better parent, taking the one hour to attend this webinar is an absolute must.

Disclosure: I am such a believer in Amy’s program that we have decided to enter into an affiliate relationship with her – our first ever. If you end up purchasing her program (which I did and have been bowled over by) we will receive a commission. We would certainly not even consider doing this if we weren’t 100% convinced of the incredible value of this program.

1. Establish a homework time. Getting your child on a regular schedule will make getting them to start their work every day much easier.

2. Set up a homework station at which your child can work in peace.

3. Ease their stress by assuring your child that you’re available to answer any questions they have with their work.

4. If they can’t find the motivation to focus, turn homework into a “beat the clock” game, in which they’re given a set amount of time to complete a task.

5. If your child has an assignment with multiple components, try to break it down into smaller, more manageable parts. Lessen their stress by allowing them short breaks between each part.

6. You child’s peers can be helpful in keeping your child on task. If they all get together to work on an assignment together, the mindset will already be there that the work must get done at that particular time.

7. Make your child write down each assignment that’s due, so their tasks are laid out in a concrete form.

8. Letting your child partake in physical activities, such as soccer or basketball, allows them to burn off their excess energy, later helping them focus on the task at hand.

9. Whatever the most dreaded assignment is, take on first. If your child hates English homework, have them do that first while they’re fresh.

10. Play into what type of learner your child is. If they’re more visual, for example, get out a few small pieces of candy to teach them division. If they learn through doing, guide them as they work.

11. Reward your child for a job well done to improve their motivation. If they complete their assignments in a timely manner, allow them video game time. If they complete a large project, take them out for ice cream to celebrate.

12. Have your child do one thing at a time, at all times. Multitasking does not help when it comes to retaining information.

13. Encourage your child to take notes. It’s an easy way to reinforce the information after your child has first read and processed it.

14. Take time to apply what your child is learning to real life. If they’re learning about systems of measurement, have them measure their height, or the area of their bedroom floors. It will make it more interactive and fun.

Only a mom with kids bringing home artwork by the ton could have come up with this genius idea!

These stylish, plexiglass frames by Wexel Art use magnets to hold artwork and pictures in place. We recommend it as an organizer for kids’ artwork as follows: Hang one frame per child in a central location – like the kitchen, front hall, playroom, or family room.

Once a week or once a month, sit down with your child and select ONE piece of art their stash to display. When a child helps selects their best piece, they usually have much less angst when the others are tossed. If you struggle to toss the remaining pieces, set them aside in a bin to be used as holiday wrapping paper.

The frames come in a variety of sizes too. Check it out here.

Have any other great ideas to use these frames for? Share below!