Cora and I promised we'd help you streamline your schedule for the upcoming school year. This organization focuses on watching our portfolios with one eye while we keep the other eye on stray shoes, pencils, and schoolbooks. While this practice might make us a bit wall-eyed, at least we won't lose our cool in the process.

First we'll tackle the kids. I've learned from my organizational mismanagement that the following list helps me walk out of the house with panache every morning:

1. Make sure all clothes, shoes, stockings, socks, etc. are picked out and ready to wear the previous evening. Don't wait until morning to find a blouse that needs ironing or a pair of trousers that need washing.
   
   
2. Make sure all homework is done. This doesn't mean that you do the homework for your kids. This means they've done the homework, it's really done, and they really understand what they just did.
   
   
3. Put the homework in a backpack or book bag along with all other necessaries for the next day and stash it all on a high shelf or on top of the fridge, away from dogs, cats, and kids under age five. This way, nothing will be amiss in the morning.
   
   
4. Plan meals for the next day and make sure all ingredients are available. I like to plan two to three days ahead so I don't have to visit the store more than once for missing items. If you can plan a week ahead, you're a much more organized person than I. More power to you! This organization might include a school menu survey. If you need to pack lunches, the night before is a great time to handle this chore. Keep the food in the fridge and label the bags or containers so there's no mix-up in the morning.
   
   
5. Maintaining a calendar on the computer is great, but - trust me - there will come a time when your computer refuses to give it up. Keep a large calendar with equally large squares for the days of the month in a conspicuous place. At the beginning of the week, go over the upcoming week with your kids and make sure no appointments are forgotten. Each night at dinner, ask if anything came up during the day that needs a spot on this calendar.

You may even have some tricks of your own to add to this list, especially if you have more than one child. But what happens when you add a portfolio or two to this mix? How do you keep organized with school, work, and portfolio management? Here are a few tips to help maintain your cool amidst all the end-of-summer changes:

In the meantime, keep all those goals that you and your children developed at the beginning of summer in a prominent place. These goals, hopefully, will help you focus on what you really want in spite of clashes in schedules and responsibilities. When we focus on our goals instead of daily news and chart fluctuations, we can relax. After all, we created our portfolios so we can reach those goals, not because we intended to obsess with financial trivialities. Right?

Right.

Until Next Week,
Linda Goin