I’m thrilled to be posting the very first guest post here on Treasuring Home! 

Author: Esther Aardsma

{My comments are in italics. Everything else is from her.}

About Esther: Married to my brother Matthew. Mother of four, ages 5 (almost 6), 4, 2 and 2 months. Currently in the process of moving from one state to another as Matthew nears the completion of his doctoral degree. Esther enjoys homemaking, sewing, spending time with her husband, and playing Memory with her kids.

If any of you ever have to move, I have developed a system that I think will work really well. I have kept my main packing supplies in one bin so when I have a couple minutes I can pack a box. I bought some different colored post-it notes and each color is for a different room. It saves reading every label when moving boxes and trying to figure out where it goes. Then the dots are for marking priority. Pink dots will be unpacked first, green dots last.Here it is in action with our first load we brought on Sunday. They are easily grouped by color and then all of one color will go in one room. I have also been using index cards to label what is inside each box. The round stickers are stuck on the post-it note and then the post it note is taped on.I made a little improvement to the color coding system by hanging little cards with the proper color on them from the ceiling above each pile of boxes.One concept that has really revolutionized my thinking about organization is that every decision takes energy. If you have a lot of decisions to make in any given day or event you will be exhausted. This is why shopping can be so exhausting…you have to make a decision with every item you buy. The best organization is one that makes the majority of decisions ahead of time. Looking at a box and deciding whether to unpack it yet or where it should go…those are decisions I’m minimizing with this system.

Did you catch that simple yet amazing principle? The best organization is one that makes the majority of decisions ahead of time. I think this applies to many areas of homemaking, and of course with the fog of the holidays that lies before each of us, there are even more decisions than usual to (hopefully, if possible) make ahead of time. Happy planning! And thank you for sharing, Esther. ♥