Table of Contents

-Introduction
-Did you know?
-Monthly Mission – Bedrooms and Closets
-Check Out These Pages! – Relevant pages and new site additions
-Don’t Let Chores Pile Up (as much)

Introduction

And just like THAT, it’s February! I’m lucky to live where the weather is mild, and February is sort of like that last hurdle of winter before the weather starts to get really nice in March. My neighbor’s trees are starting to bloom which means Spring will be coming soon. I really look forward to that.

We’re also starting to get flyers for summer camps in the mail, crazy huh?! So we need to take some time to sit down and plan out our summer break. That gives us something to look forward to, to help us get over this winter hump.

Click the logo above to learn more!

Did you know…

The average person gets only 1.5 personal letters each week, compared to 10.8 pieces of junk mail. Collectively, that adds up to 4.5 million tons of junk mail produced each year! 44% of all junk mail goes unread and directly into the trash. - Native Forest Network

Let’s work on our bedroom and closet. If that’s too much for you, don’t stress out, just pick ONE area to focus on… one bedroom, one closet, one shelf in a closet, whatever you’re able to do. It’s still progress! To read more about February’s monthly mission, click here.

If you’re in a hurry to put some order back into your home, perhaps Mimi Tanner's unique method will give you that jumpstart. Check out her method at Declutter Fast: How To Get Your Home In Order Almost Immediately.

Here are some pertinent pages on the website you may have missed along with any new pages.

Home Filing System - Keep all your paperwork in order so you can find what you need at a moments notice, and learn what to keep and what to toss.

Declutter Home and Life - Getting organized involves a lot more than just tossing some extra possessions. Read more about organizing beyond just your home.

Closet Organizing Ideas - If you're looking for some ideas to help organize your closets, check out this page.

To Do Lists Library - Got all your to do lists together? Here is a little help.

Organize Bills - Read up on how to organize your bills so they don't get lost but do get paid on time.

Time Savers - To help streamline your life, here are some daily time savers.

This is a reminder to you as well as myself… don’t let chores pile up.

After the new year, I took a little time to go through some papers on my desk in my “to do” folder. I hadn’t realized that I had put off about 9 months of credit card statements to be balanced in my computer software. Yowza! I know how it happened… I would pay the bill and tell myself “I’ll balance it later when I have more time.” And then, out of sight, out of mind. (I also blame getting distracted on the computer instead of actually working sometimes. Darn that Facebook!)

I got it all caught up, but it took me a bigger chunk of time than I had expected. And it got me to thinking about how easy it would have been if I had just done each statement when I got it. I also started thinking about other things I let pile up because “I’m too busy to do it right now” or simply “I hate doing this, I’ll do it later”.

I hate hand washing dishes. I tend to put that chore aside until my husband starts to complain, even though in reality, it only takes about 5 – 10 min. to do it if I wash the couple of items every day. Email is another problem for me. I skim through them, delete what I can and will come back to read what I kept later, but by then, there are more emails to skim through, delete, and come back to. Do you see a pattern here? Laundry could potentially be another problem, but I don’t hate doing it that much, so I tend to do a load every day, keeping up with it pretty easily.

We all have our areas in which we do better than others, and areas where we could use some improvement. It’s not really realistic to say “Just Do It” and wash those dishes every day. No one can change on a dime and have it stick in the long run. Think about quitting smoking cold turkey… super hard to do. You have to really want to make the change, and if you do it slowly, there is a better chance of it becoming a good habit.

Making Small Changes

Here at Plan and Organize Life, we’re working toward improvement, not perfection. So perhaps on those areas where we tend to avoid doing those chores, we can try to make a small improvement. For example, instead of waiting 5 days to hand wash those dishes, try to do it every four days, and then every three days and get it to where you feel more comfortable and everyone is content. With laundry, maybe you’re not a “load a day” person, but maybe you can do a couple loads every other day. We just need to keep up with our chores enough that they don’t become completely overwhelming, out of control and we want to give up completely.

What are some things you’ve been putting off? Can you tackle them today, even for a little while? Think about what you’re able to accomplish without feeling overwhelmed and start there.


Until next time, happy organizing!

Tracy Greene
Plan-and-Organize-Life.com