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Get Started Organizing
By CoffeeMom | January 12, 2010
After tackling my desk yesterday in honor of National Clean Your Desk day, I discovered something! I’ve always known I am easily overwhelmed by a lot of little tasks. I see the big picture before me and everything begins to blur into one big glob and I’m easily lost in the ginormous proportions of the task at hand.
It is so easy to let disorganization and clutter take control of a house. It can be overwhelming.
HERE’S THE KEY: It didn’t get chaotic in one day; it won’t get cleaned up in one day.
It has to be taken one step at a time. But sometimes its the getting started that is the hardest part! It’s also important to remember that PERFECTION is not the goal. CONSISTENCY is the goal…
It is important to make a plan on how to get your house organized. Walk through the house and make notes of what needs to be done in each room. Once you have a list, make a goal to complete at least one thing off the list each day. Keep the list where you can see it.
Start with small projects, things you can see improvement in quickly. Try organizing just one closet. Sort through it and get rid of things you don’t need anymore. You can donate them, get them ready for a yard sale, recycle them or just throw them away. As you make more room in your closet, think about ways to maximize your storage space. You can add shelves, baskets, and other closet organizers.
As you move through the list, you will see that some projects may take more than a day. That is ok. You just have to make sure you keep working on it until it is finished. Take about thirty minutes in the morning and thirty minutes in the afternoon working on your list. Set a timer and work until it goes off and then move on to something else. That can be hard for a perfectionist messy like me – but it can make a huge difference in actually seeing a project through to the end! Before you know it, you’ve gone through the entire house and organized it.
The trick now is to keep it organized…
Every day, focus on maintaining your newly organized home. The key is to not get into the “I’ll do it later” mindset. Instead, make this your motto: A place for everything, and everything in its place! If you have something that is in the wrong place, take the time to either put it away right away, or have a designated area on each floor, like a box, to put things that need to go to another floor. Then at the end of the day or some other set time, everything in the box gets put away.
Another idea to help keep the house organized is to establish a schedule where each room of the house gets a thorough cleaning one day each week. It may take awhile to get in the new routine, but if the family works together, it will be easier. If everyone remembers to put their own things away, that will help. remember to be patient when encouraging every member to put their things away – and be sure to remind them gently, without nagging.
If you set up a checklist, similar to your original goal list, you can keep on top of the things that need to be done around the house. Whether you assign each family a specific area of the house to help keep organized, or assign them things to do every day in each room along with you, everyone’s contributions will make a big difference!
I’m working on this with my daughters – ages 4 and 2. I can simply tell my 4 year old how to do something and watch her attempt to do it. I’m learning to relax and allow her to fold her own clothes (NOT perfectly) and put them away. I have to break things down in very simple terms for my 2 year old by asking her to put one shirt in her shirt drawer and then pants in the pants drawer, and so on. This is one way for her to learn how to put her own things away.
While it takes time and a bit of effort, it will be worth it once the house is clean, neat and everyone can find what they’re looking for when they need it.
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