It’s No Use, I’ll Never Get Organized!

Ladies, we thrive when there is order.

We don’t have to be slaves to it, though. And in those years of many children, busy schedules, we need to embrace the fact that orderliness may not be “the order” of the day! That’s OK.

I think we can admit, though, that when we are able to maintain some structure in the running of our homes, everything functions more smoothly.

So…while we are to give of ourselves to the task (or child) at hand, maybe there are some things we can tweak to help us gain more orderliness in-between times. And with a little more order in our lives on the outside, we can experience it more on the inside.

The following is an excerpt from Emilie Barnes’  More Hours in My Day

Do you look around your home, room, or office and want to throw up your hands in disgust and say, “It’s no use. I’ll never get it together!”

We can help! With a few simple tools you can be organized. When I (Sheri) met Emilie, I was hopelessly disorganized. She gave me many tools to use that made my life easier. These concepts can make the difference between a stressless, organized, functioning home and one that is in chaos.

I call them “Commandments for Organization.”

1. Break the big jobs down into manageable tasks. This may be a very difficult thing to do in the beginning for those of you who are “practicing perfectionists.”

This was a tough area for me (Sheri) because I always wanted to do the job perfectly and all at once, but since this isn’t a perfect world, I wasn’t able to do it perfectly. So instead of getting a small task completed, I wouldn’t do anything.

My home was a disaster. This was the rule that changed how I functioned at home, allowing me to go from “total mess to total rest.”

2. Do the worst job first. Once you complete what you consider the most difficult job on your to-do list, everything else will seem much more doable.

Get the worst out of the way, and you’ll be more relaxed as you take on the less overwhelming tasks.

3. Don’t put it down, put it away. This seems too simple, but you will amaze yourself at the time you save by following this rule.

If you tried to figure out how much time you waste picking up and moving the same objects from place to place and room to room, you would understand the magnitude of this simple tenet of organization.

And this is such a great thing to teach your children. Start when they’re young and be diligent and consistent. They will catch on quickly, and your workload will decrease.

4. Invest in a timer. This will be one of the best purchases you ever make. Again this may seem simple, but in the long run you will have more time if you use a timer to keep you on task.

I like to consider myself “spontaneous” when in reality I am just very easily distracted. I start out on a project but very quickly become distracted by something else–a phone call, finding something out of place and stopping to return it, etc., and soon I will completely forget what I was doing in the first place.

A timer keeps me on track. Timers will also help us get more jobs completed because many times we won’t start a project because we assume it will take more time than it actually does.

Working against the timer keeps us on task and motivates us to work quickly. Try it and see what a difference it makes for your home organization.

As you get small tasks completed, you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment, which will encourage you to tackle another project.

This is a great way to make a game out of picking up toys, books, games, or tidying rooms with your children. Set the timer and the first child to complete his or her chore gets a small prize.

Get creative and let the children learn the benefits of a clean and organized room. The old saying “everything has a place and everything is in its place” is a very helpful mind exercise and quickly became one of Emilie’s principles of organization.

Many times the reason we don’t put something away is because it really doesn’t have a “home.” A main reason we end up with too much clutter is because we purchase items but have nowhere to store them.

So let’s get organized!

(You may also like this related post My Rule of Life…)

“Be sweet to him. He’ll always be glad for a little of that. There’s such strength found in sweetness. And something not commonly found in our harsh world today. Be that refreshing, soul-stirring voice in his ear.” – Lisa Jacobson, 100 Ways to Love Your Husband https://amzn.to/2JZwLsY (afflink)

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The saints assure us that simplicity is the virtue most likely to draw us closer to God and make us more like Him.

No wonder Jesus praised the little children and the pure of heart! In them, He recognized the goodness that arises from an untroubled simplicity of life, a simplicity which in the saints is completely focused on its true center, God.

That’s easy to know, simple to say, but hard to achieve.

For our lives are complicated and our personalities too. (We even make our prayers and devotions more complicated than they need be!)

In these pages, Fr. Raoul Plus provides a remedy for the even the most tangled lives.

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