How To Get Organized
Over the past couple of weeks I have received a surprisingly large amount of mail from readers very similar to this message that arrived a few minutes ago:
“You sound like a super organized lady and I envy you. I want to be organized but I don’t know how. I have small children. My house is usually a mess and I’m never caught up with the laundry. Meals are the worst time of day. I’m very discouraged. Can you help me?” –Name Withheld
I have been responding to each message individually, but I have decided to start a series of posts discussing some of the points that people have asked me about. I’m certainly no expert at organization, and at times my life is completely disorganized too, but I HAVE learned some methods that help me cope, and I will be happy to share my ideas. Tell me what areas you would like to see covered in this series… what you find the most difficult to deal with on a day to day basis… where you feel you need help. Please use my contact form with a subject line of “Organization” so I will be sure to see your message.
Written by Shirley | Filed Under Personal Development, Organization Series
Comments
Comment by Hope:
My biggest problems are laundry and dishes. I never am finished with either one. I wake up in the morning with the best of intentions but the day never works out the way I think it will. Looking forward to the series and thank you.
Comment by Mrs. Mordecai:
I’m always caught up with laundry and usually with dishes, but I just don’t feel organized. I think it would make a big difference if I could just somehow feel that.
Comment by Krista:
Well I’m kind of a combination of the first two commenters because I’m not caught up with the laundry or the dishes and I feel very disorganized all the time! One of my biggest problems is something unplanned always happens. I have my tasks for the day all laid out but then something I didn’t plan for comes along and I don’t know how to adapt to it. Any advice you could give on THAT subject would be greatly appreciated.
Comment by another amy:
I read Julia Morgenstern’s books on organizing time & organizing things, and they are great. I also read Make Time for your Life by Cheryl Richardson which I think everyone on earth should read! These books helped me go from being disorganized, late, and in constant disarray to getting my act together. One point that is made (in one of those books, but I can’t remember which) is to make a time schedule of your life for a week. You split each day up, and then each hour. Include EVERYTHING in there. Here’s a quick example of a Monday morning: Wake up. Hit snooze button twice. Get up and eat breakfast. Iron clothes, do hair & drive to work.
Ok, so right there, I see that if I got up on time and had my clothes already ironed the night before, I could save myself the trouble in the morning when I’m pressed for time.
Now, if you make the time calendar for the whole week, you may see that some tasks are getting no time allotted for them, yet you frantically try to squeeze them in every week. Do you allot time for laundry? Time for grocery shopping? Time to chat on the phone when a friend calls? Now here is the cool part: build in time for emergencies. Add 45 minutes or more of “padding” time, a buffer zone so that you will not be running late even IF something pushes your schedule back because you planned for this. Like, one of you kids forgot that he needs poster board and glue for a project due tomorrow. Now that you have a weekly schedule, you can plan to rearrange things to get the poster board and still not be running behind your other plans because the emergency is built in to the overall plan.
It sounds easy on paper, but it has helped me immensely in real life. You will start to notice where you could make changes so that you are more efficient with getting things done.
Please leave a comment!