Appreciate Your Gifts This Christmas… But Don’t Let Them Become Clutter

My husband was teasing me the other day, come Christmas morning I am very methodical. I open a gift, look at it briefly, and am moving on to the next gift. I tend to do this regardless of how much I like it; oohs and aahs rarely come out of me. A friend we were with at the time commented that I was like a child, eager to see everything. On the other hand, I find my husband a bit of a dawdler; he spends what feels like a lot of time on each item. Along the same lines, after all the gifts have been opened, I am eager to get them put away! You can probably guess that my husband is the opposite; he likes to have them out for a while.

It is humorous to me that we are exemplifying the two extremes. Although I have obviously not been the best example, my philosophy is to find a middle ground between these approaches. With Christmas fast approaching, keep control of your home and avoid letting the new gifts become clutter while making sure you take time to appreciate them.

I recommend that you have a bag to gather all the wrapping paper as the gifts are opened. It is convenient to reduce the clutter since there will be all the actual items around, and having the ribbons, paper, and packaging put immediately into a bag will help eliminate additional stuff.

I was raised to write thank you notes, and find it simpler to pile the gifts according to the giver, and after the notes are written, I can begin to put them away. Depending on how eager I am to get things put away or how much I end up procrastinating writing those thank you notes, sometimes I will write out a list of the items based on the piles I’ve made. I have found the idea of recording the gifts for a thank you note as I go to be a distraction from engaging myself in the experience of the day.

In looking for a compromise between my rather perfunctory approach and my husband’s lackadaisical approach, we have arrived at some wonderful compromises. It uses the middle ground concept that I strive for, the balance between putting things away immediately and leaving them strewn about indefinitely.

The resulting compromise varies depending on what type of item. When we get CD’s, we put them all near the stereo where we can be reminded that we want to listen to the new ones. Similarly, the books are gathered together so we know what is new and can grab them, yet are not disappearing into the book collection. If it is clothing or kitchen items, we like to get them washed as soon as possible so that they can be appreciated more promptly.

Some organizers believe that for every item that comes into your home, something else must leave. I cringe at that idea if held that strictly. The concept holds some value, and Christmas can be a time to consider what you could part with since it is a time when you are likely to be acquiring a larger quantity of things. Our houses do not expand with our stuff, so we need to be able to get rid of things!

Consider the idea of removing some old items as you put the new things away. It is a great time to engage your children in deciding on some old toys to give away – they have just gotten all these neat new toys – and in keeping clutter down, teaching them that it is time to make room for the new things. This can apply to yourself as well, since you have new clothes, you could purge some other clothing that is getting older.

Valuing the experiences that this holiday brings would be minimized if we allowed the gifts to create clutter in our homes. Enjoy the gifts and find ways to maximize your pleasure at being so loved.

Revamping the Dumping Grounds in Your Home & Other Lost Rooms

Do you have any rooms or parts of rooms that have become dumping grounds? You know what I’m talking about – the dining room table that the kids use for backpacks and various sundries that spill out of them, or the guest bedroom that looks more like a warehouse than someplace your friends or family can use to spend the night. When I’m in someone’s home and find a dumping ground, I starting examining and questioning the function of that room. Does it have a clear purpose, or perhaps, does it have a useful purpose? If the purpose of a room is lacking, it can show with the amount of clutter filling it, though there are many possible reasons that a space is not orderly.

Trying to re-imagine what you are going to do with a space can be challenging. You need to be able to take a step or two back and get some distance. What changes do you need and want?

What needs do you have? Do you want a space for exercising? Or doing crafts? What about a place to relax? Or to curl up with a book or a movie?

If you have a space, utilize it to fulfill your needs if possible. Feel free to use the room to meet multiple purposes. We’ve all heard of people who use part of their kitchen for their mail center. Challenge yourself to be as creative as you want or need. If you enjoy crafts, give yourself a specific space that allows you the freedom to do that; I have heard of people setting aside part of their dining room for that since the table can function well for that. Whatever your needs and interests are, you can discover ways to implement spaces for those.

The biggest challenge is to wait until you have decided before taking any action. Sit in the area that you want to change, look around, think about your needs and wants, and if others share your space, talk with them. Sometimes inviting a friend over and brainstorming with them can provide a launch pad for more ideas. Don’t be so tempted by the first idea that you stop thinking and jump to altering the layout. Allow yourself the freedom for the possibilities to percolate. The best is when the concept for a space excites you and meets all the needs you have identified.

I have one such room in my home that my sister-in-law vacated over a year ago! It had been the computer and paperwork room and some of those functions still need to stay there. The computer peripherals, filing cabinets, and office supplies are best suited for this space in our home. Yet, we wanted to utilize it more than just for those things. We have been going back and forth with ideas, none of which grabbed us enough to take action while it slipped into a dumping ground, an easy place to drop things “out of the way.”

Happily, we have come up with a plan, which excites us and feels like it will accommodate some the dilemmas we’d been stuck on previously. I am taping as I go so you can see the process in stages, and eventually the final product.

Having made the decision about the space, the process can actually start moving. Yeah! Since it is large reorganization, I actually made a list, largely chronological, so that the actual doing can go smoothly and with limited chaos.

I will start with gathering the clutter together and dealing with what I can. The relatively little stuff, not furniture, needs to be contained and separated into similar categories. Some of the piles are my husband’s and he will need to go through them later, but I can get them altogether now. (A good post topic would be on sharing space and organization!) All the office supplies, from desk drawers and top of the desk, will stay together and need to be relatively accessible during the transition.

I am thrilled that we are going to be re-purposing items in our home so we will need to spend virtually no money. We have two double-sided library bookshelves up against walls, limiting their full usefulness. Both will be in this room by the end, providing considerable additional shelving as well as a way to divide the room.

Some furniture will be removed completely, freeing up considerable space to offer in the end, a secluded place to sit and relax by the window.

This is where I am starting. Stay tuned to find out what happens after this has been accomplished.

Loving What You Own

When was the last time you looked around your home with a critical eye? Do you truly love and value the things that you have out in your home? What about the items that you have in boxes?

The things that you keep take up valuable space, whether they are out where you can see them or if you put them into containers and rarely look at them. Too often, we become blind to the items around us, they fade into the background and we do not even think about them.

It is challenging to take that emotional step backwards to evaluate your belongings. Yet, if they are not dearly loved, is there a good reason to keep them?

You deserve to be surrounded by things that make you happy and content. The items that you decide to store need to be valuable to you, worth the space that they require for storage. More and more people are renting storage units as their homes are getting too filled with stuff. Do you want to be one of those people?

I have a memory box for some well loved items from childhood and adolescence. I actually review it periodically and make sure the things are still important enough to keep. It needs to stay a reasonable size though, and I make sure things are worthy enough to be in there.

It can be helpful to think of your things deserving love. This is anthropomorphizing, attributing personality to inanimate objects, yet if you think of it in this context, you could discover how much you are willing to part with. Someone out there would be thrilled to have this or that item from your home and actually need or appreciate it. Thinking about your belongings in this way can help determine whether it is something that is worth saving.

There are so many different options for finding new homes for your things, ways for them to be valued by someone else.

Charities and shelters are often grateful to receive items to support people who are struggling. There are many varieties in each city with their own policies and what items are most needed. You can check out the ones I’ve bookmarked for Milwaukee on my delicious site under donating.

Swap parties are growing in popularity as a way to share and help others in your community. I spoke at the Holistic Mom’s Network and they had arranged one, where the focus was children’s stuff, and toys and clothes were exchanged. Of course, if the goal is to not bring more stuff home, this may not be the way to go about it!

One of my favorite ways to give items away is FreeCycle. Their mission is about reusing and to help keep things out of our landfills, and who does not appreciate that! You need join (free) and make the effort to post your things, but the person you select is responsible for picking up the items. You choose who receives your things and it is obvious that your belongings are going to people who could use them and also likely that they can be re-posted later to go on to someone else who will appreciate them.

I challenge you to try to reevaluate the things you have in your home regularly since our feelings and thoughts about things are constantly changing and evolving. If someone you knew said they would really like such and such, would you mind giving it to them? If so, you likely do not need to keep that item and finding a better home for it would clear up your space in the process.

What are you going to find a better home for?

The Ever Elusive Time Part II

Last week I talked about setting the timer to find a distinct measure of how you are spending your time on tasks. Yet, this is only one side of the difficulties time throws at us. So often we feel that we just do not have time to work on this or that project.

Time is easily transformed by the feelings we have about how we’ve spent it. It can be our ally or the enemy that disappears without warning. Too often, it feels so fleeting that we have no idea what happened, it is just gone.

Our talent at procrastination can magnify the effect of time’s elusiveness. We’ll start that task in just a little while, but something comes along and distracts us. Maybe something that demands our attention interferes and since the task is a relatively low priority comparatively, that task easily falls by the wayside.

It is easy to tell ourselves that we just do not have the time to tackle cleaning out the closet, or whatever it is that we would like to find the time for, yet this is inaccurate. We fail to recognize that we can break things into smaller chunks, fitting it in when we have just a small amount of time.

Here we return to the importance of the timer.

Set the timer for an increment of your choosing and when it goes off you stop. If you feel you have more time to work on a project, great; set the timer anyway to make sure you don’t lose track of time. Be careful to not overwhelm yourself since there are alternatives to finding a day (or a weekend) to clean out the basement. Setting aside as little as 15 or 30 minutes every day to start working on your projects is a remarkably effective way to get things accomplished.

Many tasks that feel large can be broken down into smaller segments, where you can whittle away at them. You fit tasks into your schedule and do not feel controlled by them. That closet shelf (or even part of a shelf) can be sorted and purged in 15-minute increments.

If you enjoy watching TV, you can get up and work on something during the commercial breaks, and by the end of a one-hour show, you will have spent at least 15 minutes getting things accomplished!

Who does not have 15 minutes in their day to spend on something that will provide value for them? You will be amazed at what you can get done in those 15 minutes.

We all have things that we wish we had time for and yet somehow feel that there is not enough time. Even bigger or detail oriented tasks can be broken down into smaller segments. If you have a stack of photos you want to go through, but are convinced that you do not have the time to go through them, pull out a small pile and start with that. You can always pull another pile later.

This idea of setting the timer to help you track time can also be applied to ways to make time for any number of things you put off. If you wish that you had time to take a bath, time to luxuriate and relax, set the timer for that too. You can fill the bath and set the timer just before you hop in, then you can focus on enjoying that time and not worry about losing track of how long you’ve been in there.

Our time is immeasurably valuable. We can find ways to evaluate and appreciate how we spend it and maximize how we use it. It should not control us, and the timer is a wonderful way to take control of your time.

What are you going to do with your 15 minutes today? Tomorrow?

The Ever Elusive Time Part I

Time is this amorphous entity. On one end of the spectrum there never seems to be enough time and on the other end of the spectrum, it does not pass fast enough.

Everything I have ever read on time management addresses the idea that when we are planning, setting up schedules, we do not set aside enough time for the project. We easily underestimate how long something will take us to accomplish. I have heard of doubling and even tripling the time you think it is going to take you!

Of course, as soon as a project takes us longer then the time allotted, we are then off that carefully arranged schedule, the rest of the day is off. It is easy to see how this can contribute to people feeling overwhelmed and not in control of their lives.

Part of this struggle of setting up time frames for projects is that we desperately do not want something to take too long. We are determined that it can be accomplished with the ideal amount of time. We are reluctant to sacrifice more of our valuable time to this or that project.

My husband and I set out to paint the blocks along the basement wall and we both thought that working together it would be a few hours, eight hours later we were almost done! It appeared so straightforward and simple, but it still somehow was quite time-consuming.

It is obvious that there are a plethora of reasons how time can get away from us, more than just the ones I’ve listed. The elusiveness of disappearing time bothers people more than when time feels like it is dragging by.

My solution to the struggles with time is simple: a timer. Start timing how long repeating tasks take you. It will give you a concrete measurement for how you are spending your time.

Something as simple, yet pleasing, as making the bed can take as little as two minutes, with elaborate pillows. When doing your dishes, whether by hand or by loading the dishwasher, as long as you do not have a huge pile, can take less than 15 minutes.

Laundry, which takes time with the sporadic attention it requires, is not as time consuming as it seems if you look at just the specific time needed for your effort. The majority of the time with laundry is taken by the machines. How long do you actually spend sorting, filling the machines, folding, and putting away the laundry? If you knew that it takes no longer than 30 minutes altogether of your time, would you be less reluctant to start a load? Granted you need to be around to move the laundry, but if you don’t want to take time away from your children or away from your favorite TV show, the time required is minor and can no longer be a reason to put it off.

Get a real sense of time, how long things take you, and from that knowledge, you can make educated choices about how you want to use your valuable time. Without an actual timer, you too easily judge things by how it feels time-wise, but not based on factual data.

What about filing? If you dislike filing papers, would you rather spend 30 minutes doing it once a month or half a day sorting and organizing them so you can then file them? It is your choice, but think about the time and how you feel about the task. If you knew that it was only 30 minutes once a month, it lessens the weight of it, making it a minimal effort and takes it off your mind. On the other hand, maybe you would prefer taking half a day less frequently. Of course, it also matters whether or not you find yourself searching through piles to find a paper you need, which if you filed monthly would be simple to locate.

This is one side of the time puzzle. Next week I will discuss the other side of things.

In the meantime, are you going to use your timer to find out precisely how long things take you?

Love Doing? Or Love Having Done?

I heard a story of Ray Bradbury giving a lecture. He starts with asking the audience how many of them want to have written a book and virtually everyone there raises their hand. Then Bradbury asks how many of them want to write. Only a few hands lift this time.

I think of this story often, considering whether I enjoy the process of doing something or if I prefer the result of having done the work. As a professional organizer, I do enjoy most of the processes of organizing. Not many people I have worked with actually enjoy the process, but rather can appreciate the final product of having organized.

Then once you have the final product – the organized space – many people don’t want to think about how messy it was before they cleaned it up. Isn’t it easier just to forget about how bad it had gotten? After all, thinking about it could make you feel bad about yourself.

The challenge I present to you is to try to appreciate the hard work you did put in. I found that when I started to acknowledge the difference of the work I did, I actually felt more motivated to tackle some of those other areas that I was procrastinating! This also applies to many people I have worked with.

Try to soak up the effects of your hard work. You probably did not enjoy the process of it, but you can appreciate the results of it. The effect of having spaces cleared of clutter, knowing where many things belong (if not all of them just yet), and wanting to keep up the level of organization will help you keep the momentum up to continue organizing, even when you just want to call it quits.

We all struggle with degrees of procrastination, avoiding things that are unpleasant to us in some way. What is most important in the long run is what action we decide to take to deal with these counter-productive patterns. There are many ways to challenge these tendencies, some of which I discussed last week, and I’ll share more in the future.

Finding ways to give yourself credit for the work you have done is a great way to invigorate yourself to jump into other area that needs attention. Become your own personal cheering squad! Rah! Rah! It looks fabulous and feels awesome to have it done and off the list.

For me the best feeling is a quiet, contentment that fills me up; and I re-discover that feeling every time I go into one of those spaces that has been “re-done.” The emotional response applies to areas that I looked forward to just as much as the areas that I had dreaded working on. The difference was that I felt relieved and contented for a longer period.

We are a pleasure seeking society, and in wanting to experience that sense of quiet accomplishment, I found additional motivation to improve other areas. It is a double win, I would get things done that I wanted off my list and could feel satisfaction for a while at my efforts.

What are you going to do to help yourself accomplish the dreaded tasks?

P.S. I mention the story of Ray Bradbury and although I searched to verify it as more than an urban legend, could not find any information one way or the other. If you happen to have any information about the truth or falsity of this story, I would greatly appreciate any of it.

More Chores. Just Less Frequent.

Routines are something I advocate. Life is simpler when we have some in place to keep things running smoothly and more importantly gives our minds space and peace not having to track that additional data.

I already talked about the chores we need to do daily or weekly, but what about the less frequent, yet still regular tasks on our lists?

This is where the idea of routines I think becomes even more powerful. Those things we do every other week, once a month, or quarterly can easily become nagging worries. Do we remember when we last changed the oil in the car? Or changed the toothbrushes? Has the pile of paperwork that needs filing started toppling over?

When you set routines, combine the tasks that happen at the same interval together. It reduces the amount of thinking required of you and eliminates the worry about trying to remember them.

Be careful not to make it overwhelming though. You want to make it relatively simple. If there are a number of monthly tasks that could make it to your list; think about breaking them into two chunks.

I dislike filing and I am not a proponent of immediate filing (though it works well for some people), but find it makes a decent monthly chore. At that level, it is not overwhelming and quite simple and straightforward to accomplish. I also need to run vinegar and water through the coffee pot once a month (again not necessarily the frequency of anyone else) so I do these two things once a month.

Later in the month, I have several other monthly tasks that I do. I break up the filing from some of these other tasks since I do not enjoy filing and need to make it easier. Another monthly task is time consuming and becomes something that feels a little tedious, so that goes into the other group.

When was the last time you changed your toothbrush? I don’t know about any of you, but I would struggle to remember when I was supposed to change them again or even when I last changed them. My intentions were always good, but amidst all of life, it would slip my mind. The American Dental Association recommends changing them every three to four months depending on how the bristles are wearing.

By coordinating changing the toothbrushes with the changing of the seasons, it became something I no longer had to think or worry about anymore. I already put out seasonal decorations, so I just connected these tasks together and changing the toothbrush becomes automatic.

Setting up routines, whether for the regular chores or in coordinating your tasks, is about ways to make your life simpler. It also allows your mind to have that much less to try to keep track of and offer you the chance to focus on the things that matter to you.

What are you going to do to make your life simpler?

Chores. Ugh.

Let’s face it, nobody likes chores. The word evokes not-so-fond memories of childhood, with your parents as taskmasters, keeping you from having fun by making you dry the dishes, clean up after the dog, or clean the toilet. Yuck.

Now that you’re an adult, you know that they’re necessary to keep your household running smoothly, but that doesn’t make it any better.

I recently got some additional insight into chores.

You see, after several busy days, I had a full day to work on things around the house and time to run errands. I had planned the day to accomplish things. As I was working on those things, a friend called, inviting me to breakfast, and I decided to add that to my day, knowing I had the time. She found out that I had been working on chores and asked what was on my agenda. I listed a few of the items and she commented that then she did not feel bad pulling me away from them.

It struck me how she seemed to view the tasks I had set for myself as “chores.” She comments fairly regularly to me when we go out that she really should be running errands or working on things around the house, but she’d rather hang out with me. Her chores are burdens and she struggles with feeling them hanging over her head.

When you need to play catch-up with standard tasks is when they become tedious. Life in general can start to feel out of control and overwhelming when you know that there are so many things waiting on your action, especially chores. Then you make time to catch up, only to let them get out of control again. Laundry is always accumulating and dishes are always getting dirty again.

The solution for this is to create a system to keep dishes, laundry, or other chores from piling up, so they don’t have the power to overwhelm you, a process so you can keep up and avoid worrying about being behind.

Part of creating your system is making time for each task that can grow to become a burden, and think about what each task requires to keep it under control. How many loads of laundry would you need to do each week to maintain decent levels for your family?

That does not mean you need to do all those loads on one day, unless that is what works best for you. Yet, it does mean that you will know where you stand. If you have done only one load and it is Friday, but you have five loads you still wanted to wash, you might start to feel overwhelmed. While on the other hand, you have accomplished four loads, you can rest easy knowing that there is only one other load you wanted to get done. You can start to figure out how to integrate laundry into your schedule at intervals that work for you and your schedule.

I have found that actually assigning specific days for certain tasks can be helpful, but you want to avoid being too rigid about it, for then it can become a chore again. I know someone who chose two days a week to accomplish four loads of laundry. The days were specific, but the key is that she knows if one of those days does not end up working for laundry she just changes the day to another one that week that works better. She decided on a routine for herself and will know automatically that she will need to modify her laundry day when another appointment arises. She shared that by having this system and being able to modify it to fit her schedule without falling behind actually helps her feel more successful. She can be flexible with her routines and does not feel controlled by them.

Routine household tasks are not invigorating or exciting. However, by staying on top of them, finding a way to fit them into daily life, they do not become burdens. An amazing peace of mind and sense of tranquility can come from setting up routines for yourself.

How are you going to reclaim some control over your chores?