Courtesy of Care 2.

By Heshy Shayovitz, DivineCaroline

Doing everything with quality increases your chances for success, enhances your reputation, and saves you time in the long run. People typically equate quality with skill, but quality is a by product of time, thoughts and systems.

Here are twenty-one ways to assure quality in everything you do. See where you can apply a couple of these rules to your life. In a few weeks, review the impact.

The 21 points are:

1. Review Everything
2. Review Contributions of Others
3. Review Your Mistakes
4. Review Accomplishments
5. Control Your Task List—Don’t Drop Anything
6. Control Your Commitments: Just Say No
7. Control Your Understanding
8. Control Expectations
9. Control Yourself
10. Learn from Others
11. Learn Through Research
12. Learn Through Education
13. Relearn
14. Commit to Quality
15. Brainstorm
16. Envision Success
17. Be Proud of Your Quality
18. Solve the Problem, Not the Request
19. Think Big Picture
20. Don’t Wait for Deadlines
21. Exceed Expectations

Read full article here.

Related posts:

1. How do YOU Measure Success?
2. 8 Ways to Beat Sibling Rivalry

Parents, please show this to your teens. It’s graphic, but it gets the point across!

I’m going to try and secure the full 30-minute version to post here.

No related posts.

We all learn through experience what we may need (or not) for our unschooling journeys. I’ve found that the following items are essential for a smooth-running household that has become the centre of a child’s learning environment.

1. Workspace

Do your children have a place where they can do their work? The kitchen table works for most of us, but if you’re working on a long-term project, it’s not a good location to leave things lying around.

If you don’t have a good spot for your children to get their work done, consider buying a table with collapsible legs-that way it can be easily stored when not needed. Also useful are TV tables and lap trays, like the one here is very useful! I use mine all the time and the girls love being able to sit on the couch to do some colouring!

2. Dictionary

Access to a solid print dictionary is a great place for a child to explore a world full of words, and to look up terms when needed. We can’t always have access to a computer, and by having a child-appropriate dictionary allows a child to understand words at his/her level.

Some children’s dictionaries with good reviews:
Merriam-Webster Children’s Dictionary
Scholastic Children’s Dictionary
(These dictionaries target children in the 9-12 year-old range.)

If you’d rather have an online source, try these:
Yahoo Kids Dictionary Search
Wordsmyth Fact Monster

3. Internet Connection

As Shakespeare mentioned in his play The Merry Wives of Windsor, the ‘world is your oyster.’ With the Internet, we have so much information at our disposal, that we’ll never live long enough to even begin to make a dent in it. Use this to your advantage to search information and resources for whichever activity you and your children are working on.

4. Website

Many people think that setting up a website is a waste of time when, in fact, it’s a great place to track what you’re doing for your homeschool and for use as a creative output (this is what prompted me to begin this blog).

If you have a blog you’d like to try, a website your children want to build, a good site with a reliable host is needed. I have a great host and some recommended ones which I’m not going to list here, but should you be interested, please drop me a note.

5. Library Card

As with the Internet, libraries are treasure chests full of information, stories and lessons to be learned. Check your local libraries schedule for activities such as story times or Dungeons & Dragons groups.

6. Arts and Craft Supplies

Need to get some work accomplished? Vacuum before your mother-in-law arrives? Keeping a stash of arts and craft supplies on hand is a great way to keep children busy when you need those few minutes of ‘you-time’. I purchased a large plastic briefcase-like bin and keep it stocked with dollar-store craft supplies. These are things that the children beg me to have access to, so when I pull it out, it’s almost guaranteed to keep them busy for a while.

7. Attractive Pencils, Paper and Notebooks

If unschooling, keeping an interesting-looking supply of these on hand are a great encouragement for children to use them to write things down or draw pictures. If homeschooling in a more traditional way, they have the same effect. I’m an adult and I’m still in love with stationary!

8. Journal

Keep a running tab of your activities in a journal. A few quick notes jotted down every day about your children’s activities is all you need, and should anyone ever challenge your right to homeschool, you have documented evidence of what you do from day to day.

9. An Open Mind

Homeschooling/unschooling requires that you constantly think outside the box. Are your children obsessed with playing ‘house’ all day? They are learning valuable skills in sharing, cooperation, getting along and how a family is run. Little Johnny is playing with Legos and not doing anything else? He’s learning about colors, math and physics…not bad lessons to learn for a typical day. Be flexible and remember that our children will learn in spite of us. By giving them the tools to explore their world, they can do so in a way that is fun and exciting!

10. A Copy of This Blog Post

100 Essential Web Tools for Homeschoolers has some awesome links that homeschoolers will find both useful and valuable. Go ahead and explore!

11. Calendar

This is an obvious one, but somehow, a lot of people seem to miss it. Keep everything in order with a good old-fashioned calendar. Always make a point to write down everyone’s appointments, play dates and field trips. Just as important is to be sure to check it daily to make sure you’re not missing anything.

Looking for some neat calendar ideas? Try these:
The Home Schooler’s Journal
Kids Art 2010 Wall Calendar Draw Your Own Picture

12. Your State/Provincial Home Laws

Know your responsibilities and your rights as far as your state/province/country is concerned. It’s of utmost importance if you wish to homeschool your children with as little hassle as possible. Beginning with Alberta, I’ve recently started a section on this blog called ‘Homeschooling Around the World.” If you’d like to contribute as a guest blogger, please contact me through the ‘About‘ page and let me know which part of the world you’d like to cover.

13. Outside Socialization

For a healthy upbringing, it’s of utmost importance that your children have contact with other people. Bewing holed up in the home 24/7 is depressing for the best of us, don’t let your children shrivel up! They in no way have to play with children of the same age, but they should be out and about in the community meeting other people and getting a chance to interact. This is what happens when they are alone for too long.

14. Petty Cash Fund

“Mommy, Aleena and Carrie want to go the library to check out some DVDs, can I come?” It would be really cool if your daughter could join them, but there’s one problem with that…you don’t have any cash for her bus fare and a snack. Don’t be caught short-changed (pun intended), keep some cash on hand for unforeseen expenses that will otherwise have you getting into the car and heading to the bank–though the girls will probably score a free ride out of the dilemma!

15. Imagination

This goes with the whole thinking-outside-the-box routine. Encourage your children to think about what could be. Many a great person started off his/her life imagining seemingly-impossible things.

16. Support Group

Get in touch with other homeschoolers. They aren’t only a great opportunity for your kids to play with like-minded kids, sharing your fears, worries and successes with parents in the same boat is a great way to help each other along.

17. Time

Spend time with your children. When they watch a movie or TV show, don’t just let them sit while you go about your own things, but sit alongside them and watch it together. When they want to try something new, sit with them and learn together. There is nothing more priceless than the time you spend with your children and the time you spend with them makes the things they learn all the more valuable and meaningful.

Sandra Dodd a well-known radical unschooler drew up this graph to illustrate how much time a parent should spend with a child. I suggest you pay good attention to it…I believe this to be the key to successful unschooling.

18. Storage Shelves

I have yet to meet a homeschooling family who has not amassed a huge collection of books, craft supplies and equipment. Don’t get to a point where you are disorganized to where you’re living in a disaster zone. Invest in some heavy-plastic storage shelves. They are cheap (around $35-$45), easy to assemble, and an easy way to keep the clutter down.

19. Storage Bins

With the same logic behind the storage shelves, invest in some storage bins to keep your supplies in check. There are hundreds of styles available and how you use them is only limited by the imagination!

I have a large tote bin for our monster Lego collection, and then keep their craft supplies in a briefcase-like bin, and their paper in a scrapbooking box.

Here are some sites that sell storage bins:
School Outfitters
Ergo in Demand

20. Patience

This is something that many of us, myself included, need to work on. Children will make messes, destroy your possessions and get in trouble as long as we are in existence…no use crying over spilled milk. With the “spend time together” philosophy in mind, just go with the flow and clean it up as a family.

21. A PC and Printer

Most people own a personal computer these days, but not as many own computers. Invest in a good laserjet printer (the cost of ink in terms of printed pages/cartridge is much less than with other types of printers), and when you find useful resources, experiments, worksheets, etc online, you’ll just have to click the mouse to have a copy (or two, or three) for your children to use.

22. Recycle Bin

I don’t know a single homeschooling family who doesn’t go through copious amounts of paper, newspaper, etc. Keep a recycle bin on hand from an early age so that children grow up knowing the importance of recycling. I like to use my paper twice. Once for whatever activity was planned with it, and another time as scrap paper for colouring or painting. After that, it gets tossed into the recycle bin.

23. Monkey Platters

A monkey platter is a platter of finger food made available to the children throughout the day. Kids like to graze and by having healthy food choices available to them, they always have a place to go to grab a nibble. Read more about making money platters here.

These are the essentials of my home when it comes to schooling my children. What are your homeschool must-haves?

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Related posts:

1. Living Simply: The Ultimate Guide to Decluttering your Life.
2. A Day in the Life of a SC Homeschool Family
3. 101 Reasons #11: No Fear of Grades

If you’re like most homeschoolers, organization is not a big part of your busy life. The kitchen table doubles as the schoolwork area, filled with experiments and yesterday’s art. Your bookshelves are overflowing with books and miscellaneous papers, while your CD collection looks like it was just used to build a card-house. Sometimes I wonder if we simply have too much stuff?

“Be content with what you have, rejoice in the way things are.  When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” - Lao Tzu

Article by Leo Babauta. (Follow me on Twitter.)

For many years, I was a packrat, clinging to possessions like a safety blanket, like trophies, like you might cling to the past. My life was filled with clutter, from my closets to my living room to my countertops to my desk at work.

That changed about a decade ago, when I realized that I simply had too much stuff.

I was owned by my possessions, and they were no longer making me happy. I wanted to conquer my clutter.

And so I did, one heap at a time. I think I saved the closets for last, because they were way too intimidating. But slowly, I made progress, and simplifying my possessions was (and is) an ongoing project.

Today I’m pretty happy with the way I’ve simplified my home (and workspace). I’m pretty minimalist, and while clutter still does accumulate when I’m not vigilant, I tackle it head on every now and then to keep things fairly clutter-free.

I’m not saying everyone needs to be as minimalist as I am. Take my minimalist workspace, for example — I don’t expect anyone to reduce clutter that much, nor do I think they’d even want to. Everyone has their ideal level of simplicity — what matters most is keeping what’s essential to you, and getting rid of the rest.

And so today I’ll take a look at how you can conquer your clutter, no matter what your goals are or how bad things are now. Note: I’ve written about this topic a number of times before, but I thought I’d gather together the best strategies and tips into one powerful guide, useful both for those who have read previous articles and for those who haven’t.

First: Why Should You Simplify?

What’s the problem with clutter? Well, nothing, if that’s the way you like things. Everyone lives differently, and I’m not saying the decluttered lifestyle is better than the cluttered one.

However, I’ve found some benefits of decluttering from my decade or so of experience with this issue:

• Less stressful. Clutter can be a lot of visual distraction and mental stress. It’s basically a bunch of things you have to do (put away clothes, file papers, pay bills, get rid of junk, etc.) that you’re procrastinating on. While you don’t want to think about them, in the back of your mind you know they’re there.
• More efficient. I don’t know about you, but I work much better in an uncluttered home or workspace. There aren’t as many distractions, which means I can focus better.
• More peaceful. I can really relax in an uncluttered home. It’s just serene.
• More attractive. When you’re trying to sell your home, real estate agents will tell you that decluttering a home will really increase your odds of selling at a good price. That’s because people think uncluttered homes are more attractive. The same applies to when you have visitors — they will think your house is nicer just because it’s uncluttered.
• Saves time. Clutter comes with a time cost — you have to look for things, move things, store things, take things out of storage. Decluttering takes up some time, but in the long run I’ve found it saves a lot of time.
• Saves money. Clutter comes with a price tag as well — you need a bigger home and bigger closets and other storage space for all the clutter. Sometimes people buy extra storage space in other facilities to store all their stuff. Moving is a big hassles too, and costly. Other people will buy or build a shed or other storage structure in their own home.
• Frees up space. Less clutter means more space for living and playing and working. A garage is a good example — some people have so much clutter that their car(s) don’t fit in the garage, meaning they have to park outside. But declutter your garage and you have room for the car, or maybe a home gym instead.

Fundamental Simplicity Principles

Before you tackle your clutter, there are four basic steps to decluttering to keep in mind. Let’s take the example of decluttering a single drawer. These are the fundamental steps:

1. Collect. Take out everything and put it in a pile. Empty the entire drawer, and pile it all on a counter or a table. Take everything out, down to the last paper clip.
2. Choose. Pick out only the few things you love and use and that are important to you. Just sort through the pile, picking out the really essential stuff. Be very selective. Put the important stuff you pick out into a separate, smaller pile.
3. Eliminate. Toss the rest out. You know you’ll never need those manuals again. Don’t be sentimental with this step. Either throw everything into a big trash bag, or find a new home for some of the items if you think someone might have a use for them � donate them to charity or give them to a friend who would love them. And yes, you have to toss out all the chopsticks.
4. Organize. Put back the essential things, neatly, with space around things. Clean the drawer out first, of course, and put the very small pile of things you chose back in the drawer, grouping like things together and leaving space around the groups. Having space around things makes everything look neater and simpler.

This process is repeated for every drawer, shelf, table top, counter space, floor, closet, or any other area you’re trying to declutter.

10 Ways to Get Started

When you first decide to tackle your clutter, things can be overwhelming. Don’t let that intimidate you! Just get started, and tackle one small thing at a time. Don’t worry about the entire mess — focus on one area. Just that one area. It could be a countertop. It could be a drawer. It could be just a little corner of a room. It doesn’t matter what you choose — just start small.

Here are some different strategies for getting started — choose one and give it a try. If it turns out to be too hard, try another. It doesn’t matter which one you choose — what matters is starting.

1. Start clearing a starting zone. What you want to do is clear one area. This is your no-clutter zone. It can be a counter, or your kitchen table, or the three-foot perimeter around your couch. Wherever you start, make a rule: nothing can be placed there that’s not actually in use. Everything must be put away. Once you have that clutter-free zone, keep it that way! Now, each day, slowly expand your no-clutter zone until it envelopes the whole house! Unfortunately, the neighbors don’t seem to like it when you try to expand the no-clutter zone to their house, and start hauling away their unused exercise equipment and torn underwear when they’re not at home. Some people don’t appreciate simplicity, I guess.
2. Clear off a counter. You want to get your house so that all flat spaces are clear of clutter. Maybe they have a toaster on them, maybe a decorative candle, but not a lot of clutter. So start with one counter. Clear off everything possible, except maybe one or two essential things. Have a blender you haven’t used since jazzercise was all the rage? Put it in the cupboard! Clear off all papers and all the other junk you’ve been tossing on the counter too.
3. Pick a shelf. Now that you’ve done a counter, try a shelf. It doesn’t matter what shelf. Could be a shelf in a closet, or on a bookshelf. Don’t tackle the whole bookshelf �� just one shelf. Clear all non-essential things and leave it looking neat and clutter-free.
4. Schedule a decluttering weekend. Maybe you don’t feel like doing a huge decluttering session right now. But if you take the time to schedule it for later this month, you can clear your schedule, and if you have a family, get them involved too. The more hands pitching in, the better. Get boxes and trash bags ready, and plan a trip to a charity to drop off donated items. You might not get the entire house decluttered during the weekend, but you’ll probably make great progress.
5. Pick up 5 things, and find places for them. These should be things that you actually use, but that you just seem to put anywhere, because they don’t have good places. If you don’t know exactly where things belong, you have to designate a good spot. Take a minute to think it through � where would be a good spot? Then always put tthose things in those spots when you’re done using them. Do this for everything in your home, a few things at a time.
6. Spend a few minutes visualizing the room. When I’m decluttering, I like to take a moment to take a look at a room, and think about how I want it to look. What are the most essential pieces of furniture? What doesn’t belong in the room but has just gravitated there? What is on the floor (hint: only furniture and rugs belong there) and what is on the other flat surfaces? Once I’ve visualized how the room will look uncluttered, and figured out what is essential, I get rid of the rest.
7. Put a load in your car for charity. If you’ve decluttered a bunch of stuff, you might have a “to donate” pile that’s just taking up space in a corner of your room. Take a few minutes to box it up and put it in your trunk. Then tomorrow, drop it off.
8. Pull out some clothes you don’t wear. As you’re getting ready for work, and going through your closet for something to wear, spend a few minutes pulling out ones you haven’t worn in a few months. If they’re seasonal clothes, store them in a box. Get rid of the rest. Do this a little at a time until your closet (and then your drawers) only contains stuff you actually wear.
9. Clear out your medicine cabinet. If you don’t have one spot for medicines, create one now. Go through everything for the outdated medicines, the stuff you’ll never use again, the dirty-looking bandages, the creams that you’ve found you’re allergic to, the ointments that never had an effect on your energy or your eye wrinkles. Simplify to the essential.
10. Pull everything out of a drawer. Just take the drawer out and empty it on a table. Then sort the drawer into three piles: 1) stuff that really should go in the drawer; 2) stuff that belongs elsewhere; 3) stuff to get rid of. Clean the drawer out nice, then put the stuff in the first pile back neatly and orderly. Deal with the other piles immediately!

The Next Steps

Once you’ve gotten a start, here are some other steps you can take to keep your momentum going:

1. Tackle one spot at a time. After doing one or two spots in the section above, choose another. Just do one spot at a time — don’t worry about the rest of the house. Each time you tackle a spot, you’re making another uncluttered space. Set aside a little time each day to do this, or big chunks if you can find them.
2. Designate a spot for incoming papers. Papers often account for a lot of our clutter. This is because we put them in different spots � on the counter, on the table, on our desk, in a drawer, on topp of our dresser, in our car. No wonder we can’t find anything! Designate an in-box tray or spot in your home (or at your office, for that matter) and don’t put down papers anywhere but that spot. Got mail? Put it in the inbox. Got school papers? Put it in the inbox. Receipts, warranties, manuals, notices, flyers? In the inbox! This one little change can really transform your paperwork.
3. Create a “maybe” box. Sometimes when you’re going through a pile of stuff, you know exactly what to keep (the stuff you love and use) and what to trash or donate. But then there’s the stuff you don’t use, but think you might want it or need it someday. You can’t bear to get rid of that stuff! So create a “maybe” box, and put this stuff there. Then store the box somewhere hidden, out of the way. Put a note on your calendar six months from now to look in the box. Then pull it out, six months later, and see if it’s anything you really needed. Usually, you can just dump the whole box, because you never needed that stuff.
4. Create a 30-day list. The problem with decluttering is that we can declutter our butts off (don’t actually try that — it’s painful) but it just comes back because we buy more stuff. So fight that tendency by nipping it in the bud: don’t buy the stuff in the first place. Take a minute to create a 30-day list, and every time you want to buy something that’s not absolutely necessary (and no, that new Macbook Air isn’t absolutely necessary), put it on the list with the date it was added to the list. Make a rule never to buy anything (except necessities) unless they’ve been on the list for 30 days. Often you’ll lose the urge to buy the stuff and you’ll save yourself a lot of money and clutter.
5. Learn to file quickly. Once you’ve created your simple filing system, you just need to learn to use it regularly. Take a handful of papers from your pile, or your inbox, and go through them one at a time, starting from the top paper and working down. Make quick decisions: trash them, file them immediately, or make a note of the action required and put them in an “action” file. Don’t put anything back on the pile, and don’t put them anywhere but in a folder (and no cheating “to be filed” folders!) or in the trash/recycling bin.
6. Teach your kids where things belong. This only applies to the parents among us, of course, but if you teach your kids where things go, and start teaching them the habit of putting them there, you’ll go a long way to keeping your house uncluttered. Of course, they won’t learn the habit overnight, so you’ll have to be very very patient with them and just keep teaching them until they’ve got it. And better yet, set the example for them and get into the habit yourself.
7. Set up some simple folders. Sometimes our papers pile up high because we don’t have good places to put them. Create some simple folders with labels for your major bills and similar paperwork. Put them in one spot. Your system doesn’t have to be complete, but keep some extra folders and labels in case you need to quickly create a new file.
8. Have a conversation with your SO or roommate. Sometimes the problem isn’t just with us, it’s with the person or people we live with. An uncluttered home is the result of a shared philosophy of simplicity of all the people living in the house. If you take a few minutes to explain that you really want to have an uncluttered house, and that you could use their help, you can go a long way to getting to that point. Try to be persuasive and encouraging rather than nagging and negative. Read more about living with a pack rat.
9. Learn to love the uncluttered look. Once you’ve gotten an area decluttered, you should take the time to enjoy that look. It’s a lovely look. Make that your standard! Learn to hate clutter! Then catch clutter and kill it wherever it crops up.

Keeping It Uncluttered

Once you’ve tackled most of your clutter, you want to keep it fairly uncluttered from here on out. And trust me, clutter will come back if you let it. You have to make decluttering a continuous process — not necessarily every day or week, but something that you regularly revisit. More importantly, create systems and habits that will keep the clutter from overwhelming you once again.

Here are some ideas:

• One in, two out. Make it a rule: for every new item that comes into your life, you need to remove two. That means gifts, clothes, shoes, books, magazines, anything. It’s great to have a place where you put things you’re going to get rid of � whether to giive to other people or to donate to charity or to take to a used book store. Then you can just grab the stuff on your way out to do errands.
• Limited storage. I like this rule because it fits in with my philosophy of self-set limitations: don’t allow yourself to have tons of storage space. The more storage you have, the more stuff you’ll keep. Instead, have limited storage and if stuff doesn’t fit in there, get rid of it. That forces you to make choices. They key is making those choices � if you don’t, you’ll end upp with clutter.
• Clear floors and flat surfaces. Keep them clear. A room looks so much cleaner if all flat surfaces, from the floor to tabletops to countertops, are clear of clutter. Remove everything from these surfaces except perhaps one or two decorative items (don’t clutter with knick knacks). If you find stuff making its way here, clear it out. Clearing surfaces once a day or every couple days is a good routine.
• Designate a home for everything, and be fanatic. When you find stuff on flat surfaces, or draping over a chair, it might be because you don’t have a designated spot for that kind of thing. If you don’t, designate a spot for it immediately. If stuff doesn’t have a home in your home, you need to get rid of it, or it will forever wander around the house. The other problem might be that you have already designated a spot for it, but you’re just not good at putting it away. In that case, take a month to build up the habit of putting things where they belong immediately. It’ll make a huge difference.
• Regular decluttering sessions. Put in your calendar. Even the best of us need to declutter regularly. If you’ve decluttered your home, things might be great now, but you’ll need to do clutter maintenance. Put it in your calendar: perhaps once a month, once a week, or once every few months. Experiment to see what interval works for your life.
• Reduce your desires for more. If clutter is coming into your life at a rate that’s too great for you to handle, you might need to look at your buying habits. Do you go shopping for clothes or gadgets or shoes or books every week (or more)? Are you always buying stuff online? If so, is it out of real necessity, or do you just like to buy stuff? It’s important that you take a look at these desires, and see if you can address them. Reducing your desires will go a long way to reducing your need to fight clutter.
• Change your habits. Clutter didn’t create itself. It’s there because you put it there. What habits do you have that created the clutter? There may be many of them, some of them already mentioned above: you buy a lot, you don’t designate a home for things, you don’t put things away, you buy but don’t remove things � you may have other habits that create clutter. Change those habiits, one at a time. Take 30 days and focus on a clutter habit, and see if you can create a new habit that will reduce your clutter.

“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” - William Morris

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