Happy Tuesday everyone!
So last week & this week we’re looking at the reasons why people struggle to start and get organised! I looked at five reasons last week, which you can read here:
https://www.organisedchaos.ie/10-reasons-why-people-avoid-organising-part-i/
And this week, here’s five more organising hurdles you may encounter when trying to clear the clutter at home…
REASON #6: I can’t get any help!
Ah yes, this is a classic one where you are left to do all the organising and all the tidying up yourself. Uncooperative partners can be a real barrier to getting your home organised.
Besides the fact that you’d love some help to organise the house, it can be very frustrating if you’re trying to maintain the organisation and others in the home either can’t or won’t co-operate.
What to do:
Bedrooms:
With your children and teenagers bedrooms, I’d encourage a once a week tidy up – on Saturday morning for example. After that if that can’t keep their space organised in some shape or form, then keep the door shut so that their things are not spilling out either physically or visually onto you’re landing.
Storage bins:
Place storage bins on the first few steps of the stairs or in strategic places around the home. If family members can’t stretch to putting their things away, then maybe they’ll get as far as popping them into these catch all bins. Then when it’s full, they simply move around the house with the bin and place their things back to where they properly belong. All they have to do is remember to return the bin to where it belongs too. For younger children, you may even like to get different coloured storage bins for each child.
Compromise:
Keep shared space in order. Within the home, agree with the family that while they can keep their own rooms – be that a bedroom, a den or an office – a mess, shared spaces must be kept as organised as possible. Rooms such as the living room and kitchen are not only important shared spaces for your family but they are also the rooms where visitors are brought. So a compromise to keep these areas in order might solve some of the problem.
Stick to the Golden Rule:
Make sure that there’s one rule everyone in the family follows – keep the floor space clear. Once you start losing your precious floor space to clutter and disorganisation, it’ll be hard work getting it back.
REASON #7: I hate organising
I hear this ALL the time! And usually the reason people hate organising is because they think they can’t do it. “I’m just not an organised person” is a common belief and totally untrue!
Everyone organises. We all have a way of doing things that subconsciously involves organising.
A client of mine asked me to help her de-clutter her desk. One problem she had was how to keep control of all her receipts. I asked her how she dealt with them at present and she told me that she just threw them on top of her computer desktop. And true enough, just on her desktop were a load of receipts. Even though she didn’t realise it, she was actually organising her receipts. They were a mess, but they were all there when she needed to deal with them. Her process of thinking was that when she got a receipt & she placed it on her desktop as a “to-do” later. She just wasn’t tapped into her subconscious thinking!
So all we did was find storage that sat neatly on her desktop. The storage made sure that nothing else got jumbled up with them as might have happened before. The storage also kept good hold of the receipts so that they didn’t get lost somehow. She didn’t have to change her way of dealing with the receipts. We worked with her way of thinking and organising and just made it simpler and more organised.
What To Do:
Watch your habits and make things easy.
If you walk in through the front door, and dump the post on the floor inside the door, and the coat over the banisters, then this is a habit you have developed. So when you are organising your hallway – place a letter tray just at the front door for your post. And maybe place a few hooks along the wall for your coats. Even if you have a cloackroom for your coats, perhaps it’s time to rethink its use. If you’re not hanging your coats there, then place hooks where you do hang them.
Arrange the organisation of your home to fit with your existing habits and your way of doing things. Watch how you use the space in your home. And put good storage solutions in place to enhance the way you’re using it.
REASON #8: I’m not sure where to create a new home
A lot of people get caught up with this problem. They have de-cluttered their stuff and are now looking at re-homing or creating new homes for their things. But they’re not sure where to put the stuff.
This is a real problem of perfectionism. They get paralysed thinking they’re not doing it right or perfectly. And if they can’t do it right or perfectly then they’re not going to do it at all.
But the thing is, is that there is no right or wrong way of organising. And just because you decide today that the DVD’s can live beside the TV, doesn’t mean that tomorrow you can’t move them onto the shelf beside the couch. Just because you’re now getting your things to an organised state, doesn’t mean you are locked into that way of doing things for the rest of your life!
What To Do:
Don’t overthink things. Like with Reason # 7, watch your habits and how you use your things and space. Rehome items where you use them.
And stop striving for some sort of perfectionism. You want to get your home organised pronto, so make your peace with ‘good enough’. In a few weeks or months time, when you are happy with how things are taking shape, you can go nuts and really streamline things if you want.
But for now, the goal is to reduce your clutter and organise that which is staying into a maintainable system that encourages easy retrieval. Having the cd’s alphabetised – now that can wait until later.
REASON #9: I’m too lazy!
Not much I can do about this one I’m afraid. If you would like a more organised room, home, office space etc, then I’m afraid it’ll take work and effort to get it to a certain state that you are happy with. And then, keeping it that way will mean organising daily.
What To Do:
The easiest thing to do here is to remember these simple rules:
If you take it out, put it back!
If you open it, close it!
If it’s dirty, clean it!
If it smells, throw it out!
If it comes undone, fold it!
If you spill it, wipe it up!
And please, again, keep your flat spaces clear!
REASON #10: I can’t maintain it
Then chances are your system is not clear enough or you are not giving it enough time.
Have you let your flat surfaces fall under clutter’s control?
Did you buy storage but you can’t remember what’s inside it now?
Are you doing a little bit everyday?
What To Do:
When you de-clutter and you finally manage to give things a proper place in your home, it will take time for you and indeed the whole family to get used to this new way of doing things. So you have to make time every day to stay on top of it until it becomes a habit…second nature.
Label, label, label. Whether it’s handwritten, typed, coloured whatever…when you arrange your things into storage, make sure to label it. That might be anything from a plastic container in your shed full of tools to a folder in a desk drawer to polish sprays under your ktichen sink. If you think you won’t remember what you put where, then label it.
And once more for fun….Keep those flat surfaces clear!
Let me know over on Facebook or Twitter what you find most
difficult about starting to organise your home?
Sarah
