Thursday, December 4, 2008

Organize your life in just ten minutes a day!




With all that we have to do in a day- who has time to organize? I don't know about you, but I have a plethora of closets that if you came over to visit you would NOT be allowed to look in. I just can't ever seem to find the time to roll up my sleeves and tackle all these crazy messes. So recently, I implemented a new method of organization and it only takes ten minutes a day. Yes, just TEN minutes a day! Sounds kind of, "Act now and I'll throw in a pair of Ginsu Knives gimmicky" but I've been trying it and wow, it really works!!

I know all of us have the highest intentions when it comes to cleaning but after a long day it is honestly the last thing that we want to do! Especially if we had to cook, clean or do laundry. So here's why only ten minutes: ten minutes is easy to do. It's not a big commitment. Like the old adage goes, you eat an elephant one bite at a time. Since none of us have HOURS to devote to a closet cleaning frenzy- we simply don't tackle the whole closet. We tackle small, tiny, bite sized parts and there is only one rule to the whole thing: You can only clean for ten minutes, no exceptions!

Well, I am sure that you are thinking, "Only ten minutes? I'm jut getting into my cleaning rhythm in ten minutes! " I hear you, and I would have totally agreed with you at one point. However, if we refer to the tell-tale states our closet are in (and the numerous junk drawers that won't close) I'm sure we can all agree that our old method isn't really working for us.

A few helpful hints to keep in mind when organizing:

1.) Concentrate on very small areas. One box in the closet, one drawer, one shelf in the bathroom- you get the picture. Don't bite off more that you can chew. Keep your expectations very low and don't over achieve. The key here is slow consistency.

2.) Pull things out and sort them into "like" categories.

3.) Use a big trash bag and THROW STUFF AWAY! Be objective here. Sure we all need the plant food that came with the last bouquet of fresh flowers we got. But do we really need eight of them? If you don't use it, lose it.

4.) Be aware of finding "many multiples". Whenever I find multiples of an item in spread out in different places in my house it is a sure key to me that I must not have a really good place for it. It means that every time I need the item, I can't find it; so I go out and buy another. Find good resting places for items don't just shove them places.

It is amazing how much peace a little order can bring in your life; you know where things are, you learn to trim down excess in your life, to save and to simplify. It is the antithesis of our culture to learn to live with less, but there is something deep inside of us that longs for a simpler way of living. Robert Southey said this, "Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body, the peace of the city, the security of the state. Like beams in a house or bones to a body, so is order to all things."

Ten minutes can really make a big difference in your life. This doesn't just apply to organization, it really can apply to any area of your life that you want to see change in. Small things start adding up in big ways when you do them consistently.

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1 comment:

Michelle de Li said...

I don't know where I had heard this before but I have tried it and it really works. Thank you for reminding me, I got to start my 10 minutes now. :-)