|
Welcome to the Plan-and-Organize-Life.com Newsletter. I hope you enjoy getting the newsletter and that it helps to keep you on track with your organizing goals. Remember, you can get a lot done in only 10 minutes of decluttering and organizing! Table of Contents -Introduction
Introduction I don’t know about you, but I’m running a little low on cleaning and organizing steam these days. It’s amazing how at one point we can all feel so inspired and excited to rebuild our lives and our homes. And then, naturally, as with all things, we ebb and flow. I swear I’ve lost my juice because of the crazy cold and wet weather we’ve been having here where I live. We should be enjoying invigorating warm sunny weather. But whatever the cause, it’s time to jumpstart things. Did you know… The earliest date known is 4236 B.C.E., the founding of the Egyptian calendar. The ancient Egyptian calendar was 365 days. And yet, the calendar went through many modifications over the years with varying days and finally to what we know today. Where would we be without our calendars in this day and age? We rely on them so heavily to organize our days! For some interesting calendar facts, you can visit: Interesting Calendar Facts The Monthly Mission – Calendars and Meal Planning A family calendar is a great tool to help keep the family schedule running smoothly, making sure everyone is where they’re supposed to be on time. Another great life organizing skill is meal planning. It saves time, money and frustration to plan your meals ahead of time. To read more about both calendars and meal planning, go to the June monthly mission
here. Recent Site Additions Here are some of the more recently added pages to the website you may have missed. Where Did This Clutter Come From?! First, let’s remember that keeping organized is an ongoing process. We can’t organize our home in one weekend and expect things to stay that way forever. Just as with pulling weeds from the garden, they always come back. So we must maintain our gardens and our homes regularly. As with anyone, my cleaning and organizing ambitions can slow down. And it seems to have done so recently. In the past few days, I’ve been noticing a lot of little things around the house that need to be taken care of. They are not big things, which is probably why they’re simply put off until another time. But when all of these little things add up, they turn into one disorganized home. I don’t like walking around a home filled with too much clutter. (We all have our tolerance levels.) One, it just doesn’t feel “nice”. I love walking into a hotel room or a nice home for sale and get that nice orderly feeling. Of course, I don’t live in a hotel or a model home, so I expect there to be some chaos in my family of four with two kids, but there should also be a little more order than there seems to be sometimes. Secondly, seeing all these little things that need to be tended to are quite distracting and annoying. "Ugh, I should really do that", and “this really needs to be taken care of”, etc. Our “to do” lists will never end. They will continue to fill up with new things to do. But it would be nice to handle the daily to do’s in a home that isn’t overly distracting with clutter or disorganization. So, where did this clutter come from? Here are the three main reasons I’ve come up with: 1) Not Putting Things Away. I’ve noticed that most of the stuff lying around cluttering up every room in the house are things that simply didn’t get put away. Things like clothing, shoes, jackets, papers, toys, toiletries, tools, etc. You name it, if it isn’t put away, it’s messing up the house. The simple act of going around the home and putting everything away would make a significant dent in cleaning up the home and making it feel organized again. Why don’t we just put things away in the first place? Well, perhaps we were just being lazy, we were tired or sick, or really busy. One big reason I noticed recently is a break in routines. Something happened and the normal routine went out the window for a couple days, and chaos took over. And then I was tired dealing with the chaos and simply didn’t feel like picking stuff up. And in my case, I’m still working with getting the kids to pick up after themselves. 2) No Home for Things. “I don’t know where it goes.” That’s one of my daughter’s favorite excuses for not cleaning up after herself. But she certainly has a point. If something doesn’t have a home, it’ll likely float around until you give it one. Every day new things come into our homes from the groceries to the mail to the latest pair of shoes, toys or gadgets we bought. And they all need a place to call their own to be put away in when they’re not being used. There are some things in my house that need a home. Some are newer things, others are things that lost their home while making changes in our living space. Once those items get a home and get put away, along with all the other stuff that didn’t get put away from #1, I imagine the house will look pretty darned tidy. 3) Too much stuff. You’ve done the first two steps and you still have stuff that you can’t find a home for, or things are still just too cluttered. Then you have to consider that you have too much stuff. You can only put so many books on the allotted book shelf, or so many clothes in the closet, or so many things in a house of a certain size. It’s a matter of space. Therefore, what’s left over that you don’t have room for must go. Yes, more decluttering. This is where you can decide what you want to keep and what you want to part with, but you need to keep in mind how much space you have and what’s realistic to keep. Take some time to walk around your home and take care of the first two categories of things listed above. You’ll be off to a great start. I’ve been working on just that, trying to just put things away as I notice them, instead of “later”, and starting to get things back into order again. Be an example for the rest of your household to put their things away when they’re done with them. Later, you can set aside some time to declutter that excess stuff that you simply don’t want, need, or have room for.
Until next time, happy organizing! Sincerely, Tracy Greene
P.S. Sometimes links to website pages get broken. If a link doesn't work, you may need to copy and paste the entire link into your browser.
|
