Guest blog on Lubbock Neighbor!

I Love Anything You Can Color Code!

Hello! My name is Julie Bates and I am the mother of four darling children, owner of SeekingSitters in Lubbock and Amarillo, and a child psychologist. Whew! That is a mouthful. My title: Crazy-Busy Person! Sometimes it feels that way and I wonder how it all gets done without something suffering. I get asked all the time how I do it all; how I keep up with it all. Probably people really are asking WHY I do it all! It does seem too much at times but it rolls smoothly most of the time. When I was asked to guest blog, I begin tossing around lots of ideas of what I would like to talk about. We have so much going on with the kids and raising them. Then there is our babysitting business and exciting new things there. But the thing that has been most on my mind and that I’ve been meaning to blog about on my own site is ORGANIZATION. I think it’s so key to my existence that I just have to talk about it! So, I am going to refer you also to my own blog for more information in the future about fun things like Babysitting Clubs for your neighborhood (www.lubbocksitters.blogspot.com), and then I’m going to dive into the uncertain realm of organization!

I love to be organized. I love to plan, run, figure out, and solve. In almost every group I am involved in, I find myself fixing, changing, suggesting, and organizing. As I grew older, I tried to learn to do this in a non-bossy obnoxious way! Or so I hope! As a kid in school, I color coded every folder and book cover. Geeky, but I always knew which folder and book to take and never got to class with the wrong things! When I was a part of a book club as an adult, I organized our meetings, sent out reminders, ordered books for everyone, sold back books for everyone on Amazon.com, and kept a running tab of who owed me money of vice versa. I had a friend visit from Dallas one weekend and observe all my spreadsheets and mass emails and mass book ordering with astoundment. “WHAT are you DOING?” she asked. “Are you even having fun with the book club?” But I loved it. It kept it running smoothly!

I think other than the jobs I am doing, my favorite job would be to be an Imagineer for Disney. That is an amazing job!! Those people just sit around all day figuring out how to make things run better. I LOVE it! They plan everything from getting people on and off rides quickly to baby centers with everything moms would need. And it all runs so smoothly all of the time! So that would be my next favorite job. I try to see myself as an Imagineer in my own job. How can babysitting run smoother for families? What would be the most efficient way to match sitters to families in a seamless way? We’ve had some bumps in the road, but that’s where the organization comes in! I interview sitters, background check sitters, contract with sitters; families sign up and I talk with families, learn about their kids, figure out the style sitter they like and off we go! Babysitting clubs seems like the next interesting option to me because then families can split the cost of a sitter and go out together (or alone!) and the kids get a fun playdate in the process. But like I said, that’s another blog!

In my own home, I look for what doesn’t run well. Laundry drove me crazy. I would fold it on the couch in piles then carry the piles to the kids’ rooms. No good. So fold it on the table, then into laundry baskets then to their rooms. Blah. So, now I have 4 baskets that I line up on the table and fold clothes into each kid’s individual basket and then off to their rooms. Much better!! And now the bigger kids can even take their basket to put the clothes away on their own. Even better! If the baskets were color coded it would be perfect! When I had trouble telling my two girls’ socks apart, I marked all the littlest one’s socks with a blue dot on the bottom.  Worked great! I think the key to keeping things running smooth is finding these types of tricks for yourself.

I love to watch other people do things well too. We were in Jason’s Deli for lunch one day and they were preparing box lunches for what looked like a million people. I was fascinated to watch how organized and seamless the process was. They flew through those lunches. I had to take a picture because this blog on organization was already percolating for me. And who isn’t impressed with the organization of the drive-through at Chick-Fil-A!! That place is amazing. I entered them into a contest for best fast food restaurant once because I am so impressed with how they thought out every detail.

I know this may all seem crazy, but things just go so much better when they’re organized. So how can you not appreciate that? Don’t get me wrong. Some days I don’t feel so organized. Some days I end the day feeling like my To Do List definitely got the better of me. But, hey, there are other priorities there too. Sometimes I just spend the day sitting on the couch with my kids watching silly shows, or rocking a sick baby all night long, or having a quiet dinner with my husband, or going out with friends for coffee and easy conversation. I know these things are more important than the lists, or baskets, or color coded folders. But hey! I can have both, right?!



Julie Bates

Mother of Evan, Erin, Ryan, Reagan
Owner SeekingSitters (www.seekingsitters.com)
Crazy-busy, but Organized Lady!