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Frequently Asked Questions
If you're new to our products there's lots of questions that you may have. Below, we've tried to include the ones we're asked on a week to week basis. If you have any others, just let us know what we're missing and we'll up date it.
Click on a Question below to find the answer
- Why do your products last for sixteen months, isn't that a waste?
- How can you keep your prices so low?
- How do I best use the Life Book or Family Life Book?
- How do I use my Organised Mum Calendar to the full?
- I've got some really good ideas for products, would you buy them from me?
- I'd like to have my new product stocked in one of the stores you supply, can you send me the buyers' contact details?
- Would you sell my product on the Organised Mum website?
- What's the story behind Organised Mum?
- Who works at Organised Mum?
- Which diary should I choose - what's the major differences?
- I've got a suggestion that I'd love to see you incorporate into your products, how do I let you know?
The Sixteen Months Question - why do our products last for sixteen months, isn't that a waste?
We created 16 month diaries and calendars to offer our customers a greater choice in when to start and end their current one.
The idea is to only ever use one at a time (replacing it every 12 months). I would recommend transferring over to your new calendar or diary when it suits your lifestyle.
Our dated products run for 16 months for the following reasons:
- Some customers prefer to run their calendars or diaries through the school year (Sept to Sept) while others prefer the actual year (Jan to Dec). Organised Mum's dated products can be used either way, allowing the customer to decide when they want to move across to the new diary or calendar
- There is a longer lap over period to transfer all the information from one to the other and to prevent you from having to carry two diaries or to keep two calendars running on the wall.
- Using a traditional calendar or diary, when you are given dates in November and December for the following year there is little space to record them. However, if you have already swapped to the 2009 version earlier in the year this won't be a problem for you.
With our products you have plenty of space to record appointments up to 4 months in advance.
I used to buy one of your competitors' products but they're so much more expensive and don't have the features that yours do, how come you can keep your prices so low?
This is our very favourite question, and before you wonder, we do get asked it quite frequently! We have always understood that the majority of our customers are women with young families, many of whom have to watch their budgets very carefully. Because of that, we've worked hard to ensure that our products are great value and packed full of features that make them unique. In fact some of our best selling products have never increased in price in the last four years! We promise to work hard to ensure that we remain great value even under the pressures that are mounting on us with postage charges and freight costs.
How Do I use my Organised Mum Calendar to the full?
The Weekly Planner and Home Planner family calendars have many features not normally found on wall calendars and they are all there to help you become better organised.
We would suggest that the first things you do are:
- Copy on your yearly events such as birthdays, anniversaries and such like that will not change.
- Find all those bits of paper with things like the dates the recycling lorry comes and copy those onto the calendar.
- When letters come home from school/nursery with term dates and information on about school trips, put them on straight away. If you haven’t got time, put the note in the pocket at the back of the calendar or diary so you cannot lose it.
- Use your stickers to highlight the important dates and to help you see the ‘wood for the trees’ nice and easily.
- Sit your partner down and explain that he needs to put his own information in too. There’s no point having a family calendar if you’re the only one that fills it in.
- Fill in the most important telephone numbers and doctors’ details in the back.
I’ve filled in all the information I have to hand now, what do I do next?
If you have bought one of our calendars, It would be a real shame if your calendar fell out of use because it wasn’t put in a location where it could be seen by everyone. We have ours on our Kitchen wall, some suggest it should be near your telephone, near your fridge or wherever everyone will see it. You’ll know the right spot for it in your home, just make sure that it goes up there and always gets returned if its taken down for some reason.
Other Suggestions
How about attaching a pen to the top of the Home Planner so you’ve always got something on hand?
If your children are older why don’t you ask them to write their own commitments down so that they feel responsible for time planning?
Extra Stickers
We have packs of additional stickers, not just for when you have run out of the ones that come with the calendar and larger diary, but we have stickers for you to track important events in your life and for trying to keep in control of things like school routines. We also have the family stickers for flagging up which appointment is for which member of your family. These are fantastic for older children who can simply look at the calendar to find out exactly what they’re up to.
We also have stickers designed especially to help you to encourage your children’s good behaviour - and they may even persuade your kids to leave your calendar / diary stickers alone!
Which diary should I choose - what's the major differences?
For the first time, we now have three diaries for you to choose from. We all know that choice is great but it can also be a touch confusing!
Here's the main differences between the three products:
- The Life Book diary has large spaces for each day, giving you space for all your appointments and things you have to remember.
- The Family Life Book has a gridded system for each day with up to seven squares a day. These are flexible and can be joined together or kept separate. However, the Family Life Book has all the same month to view pages, budgeting and tear off shopping lists as the standard Life Book.
- The Pocket Life Book is the smaller version and will fit into any pocket or bag. New for this year are the extremely popular leather covers which make this just a lovely product to carry around. The major features you're missing from the Pocket Life Book over the Life Book is, obviously, space. As this is a slim line diary there's a lot less space for everyone's appointments and to do lists. However you still get space for to-dos, notes and shopping lists. They're not perforated as your book should be small enough to take to the shops with you without a problem. Remember, because it's ring bound it will fold back on itself.
How do I best use the Life Book or Family Life Book
The Organised Mum Life Books and Family Life Books can truly help revolutionise a busy mum’s life.But the key to becoming organised is to invest a little time in making sure the Life Book works perfectly for you.
First take the colourful Life Book stickers and mark out everyone’s birthday for the year ahead. Also make a note the week before each date to buy presents and cards.Next mark significant dates such as term times, school holidays and half terms.
Now spend five minutes finding all your important paperwork and make sure car tax renewals, MOT dates and tax return deadlines are all marked out with the handy Organised Mum stickers. Don’t forget important reminders such as dental check-ups and annual eye tests. At the same time use your paperwork to fill in the first Budget planning page in September. Make sure you note down all the essentials such as mortgage payments, council tax, telephone, electricity and gas bills and it will make budgetary planning a whole lot easier in months to come.
Dig out your address book and transfer all the important details of friends, families and colleagues to the back of the Life Book. Make sure you have the address of everybody whose birthday you have listed to make posting cards as easy as possible. The next job is to turn to the sizes page near the front of the Life Book and fill in the clothes sizes for all the family. Ensure children’s sizes are entered in smaller handwriting so you can alter the information as they grow.
Turn to the Weekly Routine pages at the front of the Life Book and assign a page for everyone in the household – including the adults. Finally enter in any other important reminders such as out-of-school activities and reminders to pack PE kits/swimming bags/musical instruments for the school term ahead.
One last tip, which was sent in from Organised Mum reader, Nicole. She said: “ I keep my Life Book on a recipe book stand in the kitchen - not in a drawer - so that it is to hand and you can tuck things behind the book without losing them!” Now all Life Book owners should be ready to tackle the year ahead with a little more organisation.
Organised Mum’s Family Diary, the Family Life Book
This might be the first year that you’ve used our diaries or you may have moved over from the Life Book to the Family version. It is proving very popular so I’m sure that many of you are considering just how to use it to get the very most of it.
It’s unheard of to have a diary with space for up to seven people. But you don’t need to be my friend Michaela with her tribe of five kids to use this to its very best potential. If you’ve got a lot of events going on for committees or charities that you’re involved with or would like to include some space each week for your work commitments, this can make an excellent way to split the space between your different commitments.
The other idea is to use one column to plan the weekly meals and then transfer the ingredients you need to the shopping list.
But we did design this family diary to be as flexible as possible, allowing you to combine two or three columns to allow a huge space for very busy family members or simply to ensure that you could use every inch of the space to its very best potential.
I've got some really good ideas for products, would you buy them from me?
Thank you for thinking of us, but we are unable to purchase product ideas. We have a huge list of things we'd love to do but we're limited by time and finance more than lack of ideas.
I've got a suggestion that I'd love to see you incorporate into your products, how do I let you know?
You're very welcome to email or call us! Our customers are always pleased that we really do listen to customers' comments and have altered products many times to ensure that they stay fresh and include the most regularly requested additions. We're not a company that stands still or just produces the same old product year in year out.
Would you sell my product on the Organised Mum website?
I'm sorry but we do not sell anyone elses products on our website. We are a publishing Company first and foremost so we use our website to show case our own products.
What's the story behind Organised Mum?
Ooh, a long story! Sarah Sadler started the business in 2004 as she found life after having her second child extremely difficult. Whilst she says that keeping a calendar and diary hasn't made life perfect, it really has helped to write everything down. In terms of the business, it has grown rapidly and now there's a team of six of us, including Kevin, Sarah's husband.
Here's a few facts about the business:
- Organised Mum was started in 2004 by Sarah Sadler. Kevin and Sarah have two children now aged 5 and 8.
- This is the first business Sarah has ever started and had no prior business training - she used to be a Town Planner!
- In the coming year, approximately 200,000 individual Organised Mum products will be sold worldwide.
- Organised Mum now has six employees, some of whom work from home, juggling the demands of their personal and business lives just like many of our customers.
- The lady in the Organised Mum logo is nicknamed Edith.
- The business is run in a converted stable block, on the Fonthill Estate, near Hindon in Wiltshire. The estate is owned by Lord Margadale.
- This year a crane and an agricultural forklift were required to unload all the stock!
- Organised Mum products are now sold across the world, including in David Jones Department Stores of Australia.
- Prices for many products have been held since the business was started in 2004. The increase in volume each year has allowed prices to remain static. (We don’t know for how much longer we will manage this as the cost of freight is becoming frightening).
- During the main season, the Royal Mail collect two to three times per day - the Company has never outsourced any element of its dispatch process to ensure customers the best service possible.
I'd like to have my new product stocked in one of the stores you supply, can you send me the buyers' contact details?
Rather than getting the details from us, the very best thing to do is to ring the Company concerned directly. Or you can always send samples and they'll get forwarded to the right people. This is the way we did it so I can promise it does work.
If you think we're being mean, perhaps a good way to look at it is that we never divulge our customers' details, whether they buy one calendar a year or many tens of thousands.
So, Who Works at Organised Mum?
Jo is our newest employee and is just back from a long stint living in New Zealand. It’s Jo who manages our customer service and mans the phone.
Rebecca is in charge of our blog and e-zines. Based in Oxfordshire she works around her two children and husband, Dave. She’s a real flexible worker, dreaming up ideas for new polls or articles whilst out and about with the kids. Rebecca and her family have recently left Dorset - Sarah and Rebecca first met in the park and have roughly the same aged children.
Jess is our lead designer, spending most of her time behind her mac, ensuring that Sarah’s ideas become reality.
Sally is in charge of dispatch and ensuring that orders go out right first time - an incredibly difficult job especially when we’re very busy.
Kevin, Sarah’s husband, left work as a sonar software engineer to join the business full time. Little did he know just how full time it would be! If he’s not organising dispatch, he’s keeping on top of the accounts and running the fundraising scheme. He also helps in customer service and is particularly involved in ensuring that the website runs perfectly.
That just leaves Sarah! Spending an awful long time on the telephone and behind the computer, she tries to ensure that the company continues to grow year on year by providing customers with products that they want and to ensure that products get better year after year. She loves talking to customers and to our stockists, hearing about their ideas and comments on the products that they’ve received.