by Sherrie Le Masurier
Are you unhappy with the disorganized state of your home?
Do you find yourself too busy to conquer your clutter and clean
your home too?
Does the thought of getting your home under control overwhelm
you?
If you answered yes to all the above then you're in good
company. Many working parents find keeping a handle on their
work and home lives a daily challenge.
Things are further complicated by the fact that not all of us
can justify the cost of hiring out our household chores.
So if your budget doesn't allow for a professional organizer or
cleaning help what's a busy parent to do?
First starters, you can learn how to organize your home by
learning how to deal with your feeling of being overwhelmed.
Stop, step back and look for a solution. Don't give a cluttered
basement or messy child's room the power to become an obstacle.
Instead look at it as an individual challenge you WILL overcome.
The next step in how to organize your home is to schedule in a
little organizing time each day. A daily 30 minutes should do
it. The trick here is not to try to fit in some organizing time
around everything else but to schedule it first.
So block out 30 minutes of organizing time during the week and
then fill in your other activities and appointments around those
times. If you're serious about your commitment to get organized
forget the pencil and write your daily 30 minute sessions in pen
or permanent marker.
Remember things won't change unless you're serious about
learning how to organize your home. Make organizing a priority.
Make your 30 minutes of weekday organizing just as important as
anything else on your calendar.
Seek and/or accept help when needed. Sometimes we can't see the
forest for the trees. This is when someone else's perspective
may shed some necessary light on the situation.
I am certainly no stranger to accepting help. While I can
effectively organize someone else's home, it's a totally
different story when it comes to my home and the emotional
attachment I have with my own stuff. I recently did a basement
purge and reorganization thanks in great part to the assistance
of my mother who was quick to remind me that it wasn't necessary
to save all three Jell-o jiggler egg molds since I didn't even
use any last Easter. I then had to remind myself that three
molds made 12 individual eggs and my children now 10 and 12
respectively don't even like Jell-o.
Focus on one organizing project at a time. Write specific
projects on your calendar. On Monday you could attack the piles
of bills or papers that clutter your desk, Tuesday could be the
day to de-clutter your front closet, Wednesday could have you
re-organizing a pantry shelf and making note of anything you're
running low on, Thursday could find all those unworn shoes in
your clothes closet donated to charity etc.
Create mini goals. If you can't realistically tackle your
project in 30 minutes or less you need to break it down into a
series of mini-goals. The 30 minute approach is only going to
work if it's realistic. In other words, if organizing the
contents of your clothes closet can't be done in 30 minutes then
break the project down into smaller more focused sessions.
A mini-goal for day one could be purging articles of clothing
you no longer wear, putting them into a donation bag and placing
the bag in your car for drop-off to a local charity or recycling
depot. Day two could be spent focusing on your shoes and
accessories and deciding what to keep and what to get rid off.
Your day three project could be organizing your closet by color
or clothing type etc.
Another advantage of focusing on one thing at a time or
concentrating on individual parts of a bigger project is that
you'll accomplish larger tasks faster than if you were to spend
similar amounts of time on random acts of 'surface' organizing.
While surface organizing gives off the appearance you're
organized it does little to make your home function better.
Another how to organize your home idea includes implementing a
one hour organizing project every weekend. Involve the whole
family (everyone over 5 that is). Make it fun by creating a
theme e.g. clothes or toys for charity, re-organizing the garage
or basement, taking 'stock' of your kitchen etc. With bigger
room projects like a kitchen you may wish to assign everyone
individual tasks - cleaning the fridge, de-junking the junk
drawer or re-organizing the spice rack.
Keep an ongoing to do list. By making note of things you want or
need to get done you will be able to stay focused on what tasks
take high priority over others. Keep a notebook handy to jot
down tasks when they first come to mind. At the beginning of
each week prioritize the tasks that need doing.
Don't expect miracles. Learning how to organize your home takes
time and effort. A mere 30 minutes a day won't give you a
perfectly organized home but it will give you greater control
over you home life and your family's belongings. And if it frees
up some time you would otherwise spend hunting for your car keys
or searching the house for a pencil and eraser so you child can
finish his homework then it's time well organized. (Note the
same 30 minute approach also works well for cleaning.)
About the author:
Sherrie Le Masurier is a freelance writer, an organization
consultant, and member of Professional Organizers in Canada
(POC). She is also co-owner of
http://www.decorating-kids-rooms.net a site geared to organizing
and decorating children's rooms and
http://www.familysanitysavers.com a site featuring smart
solutions for busy parents.