For Successful Home Organisation Planning is Key. Ok, but why is it so hard to be organised at home? Why, is it that even though, you’ve spent hours on-line reading, about getting the house organised, it isn’t? Before you start thinking of the same old excuses, or kicking yourself with negative self talk, I’ll interrupt and ask you to forget all that. I know the exact reason why, you haven’t yet been able to get organized at home. Planning is key, but there still are some other things, that must be also included. Let’s have a look at some examples from the most organized, organizers, on the planet. Are you ready to shift your perception of what home organization means?
This post is part 7 of 9 in our home organization series
Awesome! I’m here to teach you how to get your home organised, once and for all. First up, lets talk about why, the advice you’ve been reading on all the popular organizing blogs, hasn’t been working.
Why Organized Home, Organizing Junkie, Organization Wizard, Martha Stewart, Simple Living and all the other high profile organizing blogs, haven’t been able to inspire you, motivate you, or teach you how to get your home organized yet.
You’ve probably heard the saying. “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a life time.” That is in effect, what these sites are doing. Giving you a piece of advice about tackling a particular area of your home. These are the steps to organize the pantry, as an example.
Please, don’t insult me. Teaching me the steps to sort my pantry, really isn’t going to get me organized. They never worked for me. All they did for me, was, give me a pile of reading about doing tasks, which at the end of the day, would see me getting no closer to getting my home organized. Take for example, under organizing home, google search, the number one result is from organizedhome.com. The article titled:
Summer cleaning chore checklist : Good you say. It’s summer and my place needs a checklist to get it cleaned and organized. After reading the article, you find it suggests:
- furnace maintenance
- cleaning gutters
- a first aid kit
- emergency baby sitter
- sliding door track
- vacation packing list
- garage sale
You get the idea. Makes me tired just thinking about it. This might be a great list for someone who doesn’t want to write out their own list. But for those of us who are seeking a solution to our problem of learning how to get our homes organised , all that reading, is only putting you further behind. It’s the keystone principals, to organizing a home, that we, un-born organized people need to be focusing on.
I’m not saying don’t check out these sites. What I’m saying is, leave these sites until your organized. Until you have some time to waste, looking for a tip to help you save time. Eg: Use an extension cord, with your vacuum, so you don’t have to keep bending over plugging and unplugging.
Now you know what not to do. What about what you need, to-do to get your home organized
Think like a professional organizer
And how does a professional organizer think?
A pro organizer will think about the project by starting with the end in mind
Next they will think about the underlying principals that drive the result that’s needed. That is, the universal laws associated with the event, that will make it a success. What are the things that they can and cannot do? What are the things that they know without a doubt, are the very most important. What are the very first things?
Organizing the World Cup in Spain 2012
Home Organisation by Starting with the End in Mind
That means, beginning any project that you want to do, with a clear picture of the end result in your mind. Like seeing the picture of a jig-saw puzzle, in it’s box, before you begin putting the puzzle together.
Here are some other points which a pro organizer will use, to organize an event. You can easily organize your home, by following these important points too.
Organizing the Olympic Games 2012
16 Tips for Successful Home and Event Organizing and Planning
- Begin with the end in mind.
- Don’t try and do it all in one day.
- Don’t do anything before you’ve made a written plan.
- You can’t organize clutter.
- Remember the Pareto rule: 80% of what we do, use, even like, comes from 20% of what we own, go, see, even talk about. Generally, we wear 20% of our clothes, eat 20% of the meals that we know that we could have. Read most often 20% of our books, are in close contact with 20% of our family and friends. In business, 80% of our sales will come from 20% of our customers. Improve the organization of the main 20% of our homes and life will improve by 80%. : What this is saying is, focus on the important stuff and the rest will either follow or really isn’t even worth regarding. “Putting first things first“
- Choose one area to focus on organizing first. For ex: a laundry system. Make a plan of the steps required to catch up and keep up with your laundry. Decide that a load of laundry a day, will mean, far less to do on other days.
- A home is a naturally functioning entity. It’s run by underlying principals, (universal laws), which are unchangeable. For ex: make a meal, the kitchen gets messy. Fail to clean up once finished eating. You’ll have double the work to-do the following day. Stay on top of the tasks, which I call the keystone habits, and the rest will fall into place.
- Decide to clear the clutter. Only keep in your home the things that you love. If items have bad memories attached to them, get rid of them. You don’t need anything in your physical space that has bad feelings attached to it.
- Set up four boxes. To give away, to throw away, (keep a garbage bag in this box) to sell, and to put away in another place. Keep the system going until all your clearing out has been done. If you have a 2 story house, have the boxes set up on both levels. Commit to doing a certain amount of time, or a certain amount of space each day, until your finished.
- When you make a plan write down the day you will start and day you will finish by. No matter how small. A task will take as long to do as you have to do it, so give it an end time and you will get it done.
- If you need the extra cash, try selling things, you chose to de-clutter. Providing the item, is worth the time it will take selling it. If it’s not, donate it, if it’s in good condition. If not throw it away.
- If you hoard because of sentiments, make certain that the things you choose to hoard, are being displayed in your home, in the very best light. If there not, perhaps you have too many to appreciate them. Aim to choose your favourite pieces. Display or use them so you can enjoy them. You can photograph the others and keep pictures in a special scrapbook or photo album.
- Don’t hoard through fear of scarcity. Thinking that way is negative, and is more likely to make something bad happen than good.
- Think positive and think always in a manner of gaining. Know that if you ever need anything, somehow it will eventually come to be. Trust in God and believe it so and I don’t have to tell you that, what you wish for and think most about is generally, what happens. Generally, it’s what you get.
- Once you have begun getting organized, keep it up. A little each day will make it easy work.
- When your ready to start developing routines and habits for your housework: Use the organizing and cleaning your home series checklists. You’ll find all you need to know about creating your routines, eg: morning routine checklist along with daily, weekly and monthly cleaning.
Let go of the past and leave room for the future to come. Make plans to start getting your home organized. Decide on a result and work out the steps needed to make it so. Don’t be overwhelmed. Think of getting organized in a positive light and stop wasting time reading tips which, you know, you already know anyway.
Blog Challenge Day 32
For our blog challenge today, 90 posts in 90 days, Blogging while Angels Sleep, your to do a post, based on a series of pictures relevant to the topic your writing your post on. The pictures should be used to make a point about the topic.
In this case I’ve used pictures of events, that have been painstakingly orgainzed, (by the actual organizers), to show a point. The point being that, to be successful in organizing an event as large as the Queens recent Celebrations, for her Jubilee, or the successful running of an Olympic games, requires vast amounts of planning and organization, for the event to be a success.
It wont happen without written plans, preparation or deadlines. Without having a clear picture of the end in mind, by not being aware of the principals associated with the event. Lastly, by not putting first things first, and focusing on the top 20% of the actions required to make the event a success, the organizers of these huge world watched events, would fail.
In the same way, organizing a home will not happen, by reading posts about cleaning out your pantry cupboard. A written plan needs to be made. Preparation is needed for the steps to be done successfully and a deadline is essential. Choose the task to do first, which will result in the biggest positive impact, once complete. With these steps in place, anything, from a social days skating in the 1800s, to flying racehorses 1000s of kilometers across the world is possible.
As is, the much, much, less difficult task, in comparison, of home organisation.
With so many blogs now competing for position in the SERPs, it’s also a good idea, to remind your audience of your unique way of covering the topics, in comparison to the 100s of over blogs, essentially being written about the same thing. Always let your readers know, how your different, and why they have made the right choice in coming and reading your unique perspective on the subject. Have you worked out, how your blog is different to the other blogs in your niche yet?
I’d love to know how your blog or website is different, to the others in your niche. Please leave me a comment below. It’s really good practise to be able to answer that question. Really really well.
If you need any help with this challenge, don’t hesitate to contact me.
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As always, thanks for reading
By: Sharon Thoms