Best organizing apps for your Smartphone

As a part of my blog series Getting Organized, I will share some of my favorite smartphone apps for organization. First, let me clarify that I own an Android OS phone (Sony Experia z3), so there may be far more Apple OS apps out there for organizing, but I have no experiences with those. Since most of us today own and use smartphones, why not use them to organize and simplify our lives? 

Organizing tools of the trade: Time management

I can organize a drawer with the best of them, but time management and organizing my time are not always my strong suits. Like many people, I'm very good at wasting time or just simply doing a poor job of managing my time. I've gotten significantly better at this in recent months, and I'll happily share some of the things that helped me become better at managing my time. As always, I'm not an expert. I've still got a lot to learn. If you have things that have worked well for you, please feel free to share them.

1. The Home Binder-

Back to school...back to school...

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A week from this Friday, this girl is headed back to work. I have to say I'm not completely ready to give up my summer vacation yet. It just seems like summer goes by A LOT faster than it did when I was a kid.

We've had a great summer and we've surely accomplished a lot. Our daughter "graduated from" pre-school level swim lessons. She attended Vacation Bible School for the second year. We went to WV to visit my grandparents, did a lot of swimming, and she participated in our local library's summer reading program- she read 76 books! *proud English teacher mother moment* Around the house, we painted and started working on our nursery, we finally got a dining room table, and we finally got our closets organized. No wonder I am so tired!

Now, though, comes the hard part. It's time to get back on schedule. Time to get back in routine. After examining our usual school year routine, I found that we are not only rushed and strapped for time, but we do not get enough sleep. Here is what a typical day during this school year will look like for our family: (*Note: We have church on Wednesday evenings and gymnastics on Thursday evenings, so there is a little variation on those days).

A little AWOL, but for good reason

Hey, all! No, I didn't fall off the face of the Earth. I just went back to work. My students come back on Monday, but teachers started back last Friday. Since I have been either working or prepping for work for the past two weeks, the blog kind of ended up on the back burner.

We have been busily trying to perfect our back-to-school routines to make the transition easier. We do not have a school aged child yet, but she is in pre-school. She is also beginning gymnastics for the first time, so we have a little hustle and bustle to factor in as well.