Day 31: Just Say No.

Saying "no" to stuff you don't really need slows the inflow.

Saying "no" to hanging on to old things you no longer want or need speeds up the outflow.

Saying "no" to tasks and activities which interfere with other tasks and activities you value (even "non-tasks" and "non-activities" like reading for pleasure, or sleeping), you create breathing room.

Saying "no" is sometimes the best way to stay true to yourself. It can be the way to be kind to yourself.

For when you say "yes" to one thing, given we have finite time, finite resources, finite energy and, even, finite health, we are indirectly saying "no" to something else.

Like everything else, make that "no" be up front, direct and intentional.


Thanks for joining me for the 31 Days of Staying Organized. It was a bit intense, wasn't it?
What was your biggest take-away?

You can catch all the posts in the series here.

A huge thank-you to Aby Garvey at Simplify 101 whose course called "The Secrets of Staying Organized" was the inspiration for this series. The course is being offered again in a week. I highly recommend it.

Day 30: Make Staying Organized Part of the Family Culture

You know of my struggles in this area with my own family.

While my grandmother gave me the example of keeping a house clean and tidy, my mom did not. My Mom is not my grandmother's daughter, but her daughter-in-law. But, as Mom tells the story, even her own mother despaired of teaching my Mom how to keep house, and so, unlike her sisters, she wasn't taught.

And I'm not sure that if she had known she would have taught me. She was a career woman while I was growing up--and for most of it a single parent. As I am learning now, it takes a lot of energy to teach kids to do things they'd rather not do. If I could turn back the clock, I would. If I knew then what I know now about habits, I would have persisted better when they were younger and not worried so much about the whole issue of rewards and internal motivation.

But things are changing. I am no longer the chief cook and bottlewasher in my home--well, maybe I am the chief, but I have a crew (motely though they may be) now. Thank goodness.

ETA: You can catch all the posts in the series here.

Day 29: Create Homes for Temporary Things

Do you work on projects and have them scattered about?

Or, do you stop yourself from working on projects because you have no place to keep them?

I used to do that.

Now, I have a sewing project basket here:

and some curtains I'm working on, here.

I need a better place to keep returns, though.

Have you got clutter because of temporary things?
Think about creating homes for them.

Christmas is coming. That's a huge influx of all kinds of temporary things. Not just gifts, (and the on-going process of hand made gifts, if any are on your lists) but baking items, pre-made food, part supplies, receipts, and so on.... If you think of places to put things, now, you'll have a much less cluttered Christmas.

ETA: You can catch all the posts in the series here.

Day 28: Speed up the Outflow

I'd been avoiding it.

 

But when my daughter announced that she had "cleaned out her summer stuff" I knew I had to go downstairs and tackle it.

 

 

 

"It" is our donation station which is one of the single most important things I've ever set up to help us stay organized.

 

This is the place where everything goes if it is going to leave the house. It is here, under my folding table, in the laundry room because most of what we donate is clothing. It's handy to just take it straight from the dryer and put it here.

 

We are on a local charity's call list. I try to always have something for them when they call to make a pick up--so, unfortunately, I do let things pile up a bit too much--but when it works, it works really well. Every time they called last year, I took it as a cue to declutter more and more areas of the house.

 

Now that I have some breathing room, I do my best to maintain the one-in, one-out rule. This is really effective with my daughter. Every time she asks for something new, I always ask her, "What are you going to get rid of to make room for this?" I am hoping that this will stop her pack ratting tendencies in their tracks some day.

 

Aby adds one more thing to the list of ways to speed up your outflow. She advises to stop looking for the perfect home for your things. It slows down the process too much.

 

So, how do you speed up the outflow?

1. Set up a donation bin.
2. Get on a charity's pick up list.
3. Follow the one-in, one-out rule.
4. Stop trying to find the perfect home.

 

Do you have any thing you are ready to donate/give away? 

 

ETA: You can catch all the posts in the series here.

 



Day 27: Slow the Inflow

Yesterday, we talked about how creating some breathing room in your home and in your schedule makes life easier.

Today. we'll talk about one way to do that.

To stay organized, you have to create habits to return things to where they belong before you cross your clutter threshold. When you have some open space in your home it's easier to get the stuff you already have back into their homes, and it's easier to find places for new stuff that comes into your home, too.

One way to create space quickly is to slow the inflow of stuff into your home--and speed up the outflow. Today, I'll concentrate on ways you can slow the inflow.

• Shop with a list.
• A list helps you distinguish your wants from your needs. You make rational and intentional shopping decisions and fewer emotional and impulse purchases. If you are buying something like storage containers or curtains, take your measurements with you.
• Scrutinize that shopping cart.
• Everything you bring home has a cost--even when its free. It costs you time and effort. You have to find a home for it, get rid of the thing it is replacing, you have to care for it, and eventually, decide to get rid of it. Do you have a home for it? If you don't have a place for it, bringing it home moves you further away from your goal to stay organized, not closer. Is it worth it?
• Cost.
• Is it in the budget? Can you afford it?
• Need.
• Do you need this? Do you already have something similar? Leave the "wants" at the store.
• Love.
• Do you love it? Really? Will you love it 24 hours from now? A week? A year? If so, pull the trigger, and go for it. As Aby says, it's not about depriving yourself, it's about being intentional.

If impulse shopping is a challenge for you, put together a list of questions you can whip out and go over at the store, before you spend you money.

Another tactic is to delay your purchase. Try to leave it in the store for twenty four hours or more. My husband and I have evolved a practice where we never buy anything (any more) without leaving to discuss it-- even if it just for coffee --even if we need it right now. For example, our stove stopped working Monday while cooking dinner. It is now Sunday. I will be ordering our new range, today. (Hooray!). Yep, it's that one up there.

ETA: You can catch all the posts in the series here.

Day 26: Create Some Breathing Room

Does life seem to go along all tickety-boo until it blows up?

You're doing really well with getting meals, and picking up, and staying ever so slightly ahead (but ahead!) of the laundry when boom! all of a sudden there's a trail of unopened mail, clutter on the counters, and laundry piled a mile high.

something like this maybe?

Most of us live our lives at full capacity. Whenever something "extra" happens--something comes up to crowd an already full schedule, or something is brought into your home and there's just no room for it (or worse, it's Christmas and both happen at once!) then the overflow looks like socks on the floors, bathmats moulding in the tub, and (as always) dishes on the counter.

What we need is to give ourselves some breathing room.

We need it in our schedules. Last year, my Mom, who is raising my five year old nephew, had them scheduled to go out four evenings a week. There was swimming and sign language and music and cooking class. It was much too much. There was no room for sniffles, no room to breathe. I read a book ages ago that advised that we limit our children to two activities at a time. Given we had two kids, that seemed like sane advice. It has been.

When I began work, I resurrected an old habit from an old friend of mine. He taught me that life would less stressed if I got up two hours before I had to be somewhere--even if it was to go for breakfast! It is a wonderful practice even though it means I am up very early in the morning, sometimes. But there's nothing like the quiet of the whole house to energise me. (Bonus: I can cook the mire poix for my frittata for about 20 minutes before I add the eggs. Michael Pollen says that's a good thing. It certainly has a lovely flavour.)

As for breathing room in the rooms of my house, I cannot stress its importance enough. Though I had the schedule thing more or less figured out, I filled my little house to the brim. I thought that was what you did.

But it put my life in total re-active mode. Every time something came into the house, it would cause a near melt-down. Christmas was overwhelming. Homeschooling--with it's influx of curriculum and materials-- was nearly unmanageable.

It wasn't until Nester's Tchotchke Challenge that I realised how cluttered my surfaces really were and how nice it is for them to breathe.

Prior to the Challenge in June:

 

 

 

As it looks today:

 

 

 



Creating breathing room gives you room to look after your self, your home and your time when things get busy or life gets full.

Go easy with your time and schedule at "stay-at home" night at least once or twice a week. Do things ahead of time, like make freezer meals (I've been thinking about this.) or do your gift shopping well in advance.

For your rooms, identify any space that is full or nearly full. Spend some time decluttering it. Do you want 10% breathing room? Twenty-five percent?

Whatever you decide, remember, the more room you create, the better you'll be able to accept new things into your life.

Do you need to make some breathing room? In your schedule, your rooms, or both?

ETA: You can catch all the posts in the series here.

Day 25: Write it Down

When it comes to writing things down, I rely on these two notebooks. The top, from the Martha Stewart Line at Staples I carry in my bag, the second, a planner, stays on my desk.

 

I sat there in teacher/parent conference with my daughter beside me while a teacher said, "oh honey, you've got to learn to make friends with a list."

And I thought to myself: I have not taught my daughter to make a list? I reached for my notebook in my purse to write down: "look up how to organize a teenager"--and I realised I didn't have a pen.

Making lists, writing things down is a fairly rudimentary task: and as I thought about it, I reaised my daughter has never really seen me make any--except for a the list of stores I want to go to when we run errands and, of course, the grocery list on the side of the fridge. I love this thing. Every time my son comes to me and says, "Mom, we need gala apples" or "Mom, we need bananas," (the boy loves his fruit) I answer him, "Go write it down."

The Benefits of Writing it Down:

• It helps you remember to do the right things at the right time.
• This is what my daughter needs.
• It helps you keep your commitments and so you can avoid letting down your teachers, your friends, yourself.
• (One of my daughter's friends needs to write things down, too.)
• If you write it down, you can put the "reminder" away.
• No need to keep the bill out in a stack of papers to remind yourself to pay it.
• It can help you stay focused and more efficient.
• For some reason, whenever I file paperwork, or fold laundry, a million and one things occur to me which need doing. I have a clipboard set up wih a blank piece of paper to capture my thoughts so I can continue to be on-task.
• It can help you create a batch of similar tasks.
• For example, a list of all the stores you need to go to, all the phone calls you need to make, a list of all the stores which may carry that extra hand-set for the phone you're looking for.

Select a System:

• Paper.
• Sticky notes, index cards, a notebook, a pad of paper and a clipboard.
• Electronic.
• Set reminders to check over your list.

Whatever you choose, make sure it is portable so you can carry it with you all the time.

Review Your List:

As my daughter said to me as she was heading out the door this morning, "How am I going to remember to check my list? I need a reminder for my reminders!"

She's right. She's setting up a new habit. Actually, she's starting several.
First, she'll have to remember to write things down as her teacher tells her things or she gets things. One of her biggest challenges is to remember to give me permission forms to be signed. I told her to write that down, "give permission slip to Mom."

Then in order to remember to check her lists, we need to incorporate it into her "after school routine." That is, we would, if we had one. So, I am going to create a checklist for her and post it in the front entry way for a while.

menu planning uses a lot of checklists

Make a checklist.

This is the next step in writing things down. Checklists are perfect for helping you learn to do new tasks or routines. They also help during times of high stress or for things you do infrequently.

I love checklists. I have one for the entire menu planning process, from what forms to run off to what websites to check for specials. (I used to do it once a month--infrequently enough that I needed a gentle reminder from time to time how to do it. As well, it was such a big job that I spread it over a few days: so the checklist kept me on track.) I have a check list for going camping: it lists all the gear, clothing, and other things we like to take with us. I update it every time we go camping! I also have a cleaning checklist which I print from the computer every Sunday.

Do you need to start (or re-start) making lists?
Would a checklist be useful?
What about an "organizing maintenance" checklist?

Edited to add: I just noticed: this is my one thousand and first published post. Talk about writing it down!

ETA: You can catch all the posts in the series here.