What do duct tape, gum and toddlers have in common? They all tend to be sticky. Sometimes you need something to be sticky so it- you know, sticks. Watch this video for concepts that will make your home organization tasks stick. If the task sticks, you are less likely to have to redo it. Which leaves you more time for chewing gum and chasing toddlers! 😉
(Click here to watch on YouTube if you can’t see the embedded player. Or watch the video at http://bit.ly/tcdsticky.)
Transcript:
Hi. I’m Lorie Marrero, creator of the Clutter Diet book and on-line program, and today I’m going to share with you how to not only get organized but stay organized. We’ve got seven concepts that really stick.
So number one is to be decisive. Your ability to get and stay organized is directly related to your ability to make decisions. So think about it. Everything out on your kitchen counter, on your desk, on your coffee table, all of those things represent decisions that haven’t been made or actions that haven’t been taken. So be decisive about those things. Donate them, sell them, put them away somewhere, give them to your sister, whatever you’re going to do, do it and move forward.
Number two, give everything a parking spot. So, I bet you if I ask you where your milk is in the refrigerator, everyone in your family can tell me exactly the spot where the milk goes. And the same could be said for your underwear. There’s a drawer for that. If I asked you where your underwear is, it’s probably in that place and everyone in the family has their own underwear drawer. Take that concept, and play that out through your whole house. Everything can have a parking spot. You can use labeling and you can communicate that at home to everyone who uses the space. So take that concept and use it throughout.
Number three, plan ahead. Planning saves so much time, that’s why we recommend Sunday planning for your family, looking at menus, grocery lists, and carpools for the week, and who’s doing chores. I have a whole video about just that. But planning saves so much time. We can’t anticipate everything, but we can try and we can help a lot to save ourselves the stress. And that is how you stay organized.
Number four, assume that laziness is the norm. Everybody in your family, my family, me included, we’re all lazy. We would so much rather put something on a hook than have to use a hanger and use two hands and hang it back up. So try to make all of your systems visible, easy, and obvious, as we talk about in some of our other videos, but make that laziness just baked in. Make it super easy for people.
Number five, store things at their point of use. So, here I am in a kitchen. There are so many examples of that. You want to have potholders near the stove and the oven. You want to have dish towels near the sink. You want to have drinking glasses near the refrigerator. So this concept can be used throughout the house, in your home office, wherever you need to apply that, and it will help you stay organized.
So, number six – this is a corollary to number five – that is, have duplicates when it makes sense. So if you’re storing things at the point of use (for example, scissors), so these are kitchen sheers and you’ve got, you know, these for the kitchen, but you’re going to have another pair of scissors somewhere else in the house because that makes total sense. You’ve got one for the home office, one pair for the kids’ homework area, and you may have one upstairs pair of scissors just because. So, having duplicates sometimes makes sense and that helps you stay organized since you’re not transporting that one item around for shared uses around the house.
Number seven, batch up your tasks. This is why the assembly line was invented. So, e-mail is a very important thing to batch up and do all at once. You can do filing in a batch. You can do phone calls and correspondence in a batch. Think about your efficiency, doing it in a batch rather than doing it continuously all day long. That can help you stay organized as well.
One of the things that helps you stay organized is accountability, and you can have that by joining our program and having access to our expert team. We answer all of our member questions seven days a week. You have access to our expertise, our experience, and most of all, you have to answer to us when you’re trying to do a project, and that can be a very powerful motivator. We love doing that. We love our members. We have such a good time in there. Come and check us out at clutterdiet.com/learnmore.
See you next time, and may you always be happy and grateful for having more than enough.
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