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 the above then you’re in good company. Many working parents find keeping a handle on their work and home lives a real challenge.
The problem is 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 need 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 CAN overcome.
Organize 30 minutes everyday. The trick here is not to try to fit in organizing but to schedule it first. Block out 30 minutes of organizing time each weekday and then fill in your other activities and appointments around those times. Remember, things won’t change unless you make organizing a priority and you view your organizing time as being just as important as anything else on your calendar.
Focus on one organizing project at a time. On Monday you could attack the piles of bills or papers that clutter your desk, Tuesday could be a de-cluttering of your front closet, Wednesday could be spent 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.
Another advantage of focusing on one thing at a time or concentrating on individual parts of a bigger project is that you’ll accomplish large tasks faster than if you were to spend similar amounts of time on random acts of ‘surface’ organizing. While surface organizing is good it does little to make your home function better.
Add a family project. In addition to your weekday 30 minute sessions consider implementing a one hour organizing project every weekend. Include 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 assign individual tasks – cleaning the fridge, de-junking the junk drawer or re-organizing the spice rack etc.
Don’t expect miracles. A mere 30 minutes a day won’t give you a perfectly organized home but it will give you greater control over your home life. 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.)
Published by Sherrie Le Masurier on March 12, 2006 07:17 AM
