Organized at Home
An e-mail newsletter from Organized Home Online Magazine
http://organizedhome.com

Volume 1, Issue 2 - June 17, 1999

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IN THIS ISSUE:

1. Magic Minimum: Household Help for Busy Times
2. New! Organized Home Takes On Family Cooperation
3. Organized Home recommends: Chore Wars
4. New Features at Organized Home
5. Subscribe to or unsubscribe from this newsletter.



1. Magic Minimum: Household Help for Busy Families
By Cynthia Townley Ewer

Summer days are long and lazy? Not for today's busy 
families. Between
work, childrens' activities, and summer vacation plans, 
even long June days
don't seem long enough to get everything done at home.

There's a solution for busy times. Just as your body 
needs a "minimum daily
allowance" of vitamins and minerals, an organized home 
needs a minimum of
maintenance and attention to keep running smoothly.

Think of this as a Magic Minimum: a short list of 
essential household
tasks. It's a bottom-line list of chores and activities 
necessary to keep
things running at a basic level. With a working Magic 
Minimum plan, the
household stays afloat, even when time is short.

What's on the list? Every family has slightly different 
needs, but most
Magic Minimums provide for these functions:
basic accounting chores: bank deposits and bill-paying
meals and menus: clean dishes, grocery shopping
laundry: necessary clean clothing
home management: once-a-day pick-up, weekly cleaning of 
bathrooms and
kitchen
To make your own Magic Minimum plan, list the rock-
bottom essential
maintenance chores necessary to keep the household 
clean, fed and on time.
A sample list might look like this:

Every day:
Load and run dishwasher
Tidy kitchen
Run one load of laundry, fold and put away
Family pick-up time

Every week:
Review checkbook and pay bills
Shop for groceries
Clean bathrooms
Next step: delegate! Assign one or more minimum chores 
to each family
member. Every family member has a stake in keeping the 
household
functioning, so everyone should be expected to help with 
the chores.
Working together, everyone will be free for summer fun 
in record time.

Finally, post your Magic Minimum list in a public place. 
Time-honored
choice is the refrigerator door, but use whatever area 
is central to your
family. The written list aids accountability, because 
everyone knows what
must be done before that trip to the water park.

Give your household a Magic Minimum to maximize your 
family's summer fun!

For more ideas and inspiration, visit us at:

http://organizedhome.com.


2. Organized Home Takes On Family Cooperation

Judging from our e-mail, family cooperation is a hot-
button issue. How do
you get spouses and children to pitch in with the 
housework?

We can help. Check our new Feature Index, Family Ties, 
for information and
resources for family cooperation:

http://organizedhome.com/family/index.html

You'll find a feature article on children and chores, 
information about
marriage and housework, and lots of Web links and 
resources.


3. Organized Home recommends: Chore Wars by James 
Thornton

Beset by arguments over housework? Author James Thornton 
can help with
Chore Wars: How Households Can Share the Work and Keep 
the Peace. Find ou
r review of this excellent work on family cooperation 
here:

http://organizedhome.com/booknook/bookreview10.html


4. New Features at Organized Home

With a new and bigger server comes new and bigger 
features at Organized Home
Online Magazine. Share problems and solutions with other 
home managers at
Organized Home's Message Board:

http://organizedhome.com/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgi

In the weeks to come, we'll be inaugurating more 
interactive components, as
we work to make Organized Home the "best little home 
organization site on
the Web!"

Organized Home Online Magazine
http://organizedhome.com



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