Overcoming Roadblocks to Organization

Once you have determined the reasons you procrastinate and have identified your organizing style, it's time to overcome your personal roadblocks and stop the excuses.

Failing to plan is planning to fail. If you don't plan for success based on your own personality and way of doing things, you will continue to be frustrated and disorganized.

 Sometimes disorganization or procrastination is the result of your circumstances (lack of time, lack of money, etc.)  Sometimes it's simply your personality.  Either way, you must determine what your personal roadblocks are and make a plan to overcome them.

The best way to fix a bad habit is to replace it with a good habit.

Your task for today is to do the following:

Take out a sheet of paper and divide it into two columns.  On one side make a list of the bad habits you need to change. On the other side write down the good habit with which you should be replacing each bad habit.  However, make sure the good habits are still in keeping with your own personality.  Don't try to make someone else's organizational methods work for you.

For instance, if you are a “Piles Polly”, always piling things around the house so you won't forget to deal with them, make a designated place to pile those things.  Use a basket or inbox to hold bills that need to be paid or other mail that needs to be sent.  Instead of  piling things on the counter or coffee table that need to be put away in another room, use a large basket to hold those items and carry it with you when you leave the room.

The “Basket Betty” can continue to use her basket methods with just a couple minor tweaks.  Instead of just keeping things in baskets to keep them out of sight, label each basket to hold one category (bills to be paid, items to be put away in another room, items to be donated, etc.)  Then you won't have to rummage through several baskets to find what you need.

“Neat Nelly”, who keeps everything hidden out of sight in closets, can continue to do so as well.  However, she should do a thorough de-cluttering, keeping only a few items.   To keep things neat and organized, you should keep much less in a space than what actually fits in there.  When you stack things one on top of another or have to reach behind things to get to something else, you end up toppling things over and creating a disorganized mess.  Once you've determined how much can fit into your closets or cupboards without stacking or layering items, do not allow yourself to add anything else to your collection unless you get rid of something else.

Once you've made your list, choose one (just one!) habit that you're going to implement this week.  Don't try to change everything all at once or you will get overwhelmed and give up!

Leave me a comment and tell me what habit you're working on this week!

It’s Time for Spring Cleaning!

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Dollar General. All opinions are 100% mine.

I was so excited when Dollar General gave me a kick in the pants to get started on my Spring Cleaning!  I had plenty that needed to be done around the house, and when they challenged me to shop for cleaning products and try them out in my house, I was happy to take them up on it.

Although I still have plenty of cleaning to do, here's what I got done in just a couple hours yesterday (a record for me since I usually get interrupted abot 4,682 times while I'm cleaning!)

The first thing I picked up at Dollar General was trash bags.  I do lots of purging while I'm spring cleaning, so I knew I would need lots of trash bags to remove trash, and to carry unused items up to the attic.

I honestly was a little bit skeptical of how the Dollar General trash bags would do.  I've purchased off-brand trash bags before and been pretty sorry about that decision.  But after I loaded up the baby's clothes that she has grown out of (sniff, sniff) into one of the bags, I realized that I would not regret buying the Dollar General bags.  Score #1 for Dollar General.

Next, I had quite a bit of scrubbing to do.  My daughter has been quite creative lately with the crayons, as you can see below.  The Dollar General super erasers took the lighter colors off without any effort.  The dark blue required me to scrub very hard, and I haven't fully removed it because my arm was killing me!  I'm not sure if the Mr. Clean Magic Erasers would take off the dark colors any easier than the Dollar General erasers did.  I think the best solution will be to make sure my little girl doesn't get ahold of crayons in her room again!

Then it was time for lunch.  While the kids were eating, I washed up a few dishes.  I had been using Ajax dish soap, which I hate, but my husband does the shopping for me, and he buys whatever is cheapest.  I like the Dollar General dish soap much better.  It was thicker and more sudsy.  It's not the best I've ever used, but it was much, much better than the Ajax, and still an inexpensive option.

After lunch, I headed to the bedroom to do some (long overdue) dusting.  I usually use a Swiffer duster because it makes the dusting go really quickly.  I actually thought the Dollar General duster worked better than the Swiffer brand!

We have a lot of laminate wood floors in the house, and many times the quickest way to get them clean is to run over them with the Swiffer sweeper dry cloths.  I found the Dollar General brand dry cloth refills while I was at the store, so I decided to give them a try.  They did the job, but I didn't feel that they worked quite as well as the Swiffer brand.  If price is an issue, they're a good alternative that will work almost as well.

Our bathroom gets that scummy pink gunk so quickly!  I just read the other day that it tends to be a lot worse if you have well water (which we do.)  That makes feel a little less like a disgusting slob.  I grabbed a canister of the Dollar General disinfectant wipes because they were a great price.  It's hard to see in the picture, but it removed the pink gunk very easily.  I like keeping these wipes under the bathroom sink for those “little boy messes” in the bathroom.  I thought the wipes were a great buy for a price. 

I had boiled over some potatoes on the stove (not that I do that very often), and the stains would not scrub off.  The Dollar General soap pads worked great!  I was kicking myself for not picking some up earlier.

Remember the pink gunk?  It shows up all the time in the toilet too.  Eww, gross, I know.  I tend to be a little unconventional with how I clean my toilet.  I don't normally buy toilet bowl cleaner; I just use whatever soap happens to be nearest to me.  I decided to give the dish soap a try.  I loved it!  It made the water so sudsy and gave me some good scrubbing action. 

And I often scrub the pink gunk on the tub the same way as the toilet – using whatever soap happens to be nearby.  The dish soap worked great on that too!

I have a lot more cleaning to do (with 4 little ones, it's pretty much never-ending), but I got a good start.  Seeing things clean motivates me to clean even more!

Have you started your spring cleaning yet?  What projects do you need to tackle?

Help for Disorganized People (Part 2)

As we continue our series on Time Management and Organization for the Disorganized Procrastinator (read part 1 here), let's take a look at some common reasons for procrastination.

Pretty much everyone suffers from procrastination tendencies in at least one aspect of their lives, whether it's getting work done, doing household chores, or exercising.  (Wouldn't it be great if we procrastinated about eating that delicious chocolate brownie as much as we do about exercising?)

When you procrastinate on certain things, you're getting some sort of payoff for the behavior. You're avoiding the pain of doing the task right now. Maybe you realize that it may cause you pain later, but you put that out of your mind. What you're concerned with right now is avoiding the pain now. Pain felt later is not real yet.

So what are some of the reasons we procrastinate?

1. Fear of Failure

This is the most obvious reason people procrastinate. The fear that you won't succeed is so strong that you'd rather not try at all. Your mind tells you that you're not a failure because you didn't do it yet. Many people who fear failure have perfectionist tendencies. Perfectionism is really just a cover and an excuse for not ever finishing anything due to the fear of failure.

2. Fear of Success

Believe it or not, some people procrastinate due to a fear of success, the inverse of fear of failure. If you have an innate feeling that you don't deserve success and lack confidence in your ability to continue being successful, you will procrastinate. Once you are on top, it's harder to stay on top, so why get to the top at all? Fear of being able to repeat success can block you from ever experiencing success in the first place.

3. Addiction to the Rush

This is something that often happens to college students or people who work with deadlines. They wait until the last minute and the extra adrenaline that is produced makes them feel good. They get addicted to the adrenaline and seek reasons to flood their body with it again, and again. Adrenaline junkies often believe they do better work at the last minute, which could not be further from the truth. If you perform at a high level at the last minute, imagine how well you would do with a real plan of action?

4. Lack of Interest

Some things you put off because you simply don't like to do them.  That could be cleaning out the oven or the fridge, matching socks, or working on a report for work or school. Those things are boring, so you procrastinate because you simply do not want to do it to start with. You wait until the very last moment to do it.  Maybe you're even late with it or don't do it at all.

5. You Need Training

Some people procrastinate because they really aren't sure how to do something. They need someone to train them how to do it right. It doesn't matter if it's household organizing, work related tasks, or something else entirely — if you tend to procrastinate about something, ask yourself if you are procrastinating because you don't know how to do it.

6. You Don't Like to Say No

By putting off doing things you've committed to do, it's your way of saying no without saying no. If you're a person who doesn't like to say no just because you're trying to be nice, but then you put off doing what you've agreed to do — I hate to tell you, but you're not being nice!  Just be honest and don't commit to things with which you cannot follow through.

7. You're Overwhelmed

It's not uncommon to start putting things off when you simply get in over your head. Due to poor organizational ability, you simply bit off more than you could chew. Plus, you lack the training to chunk together actionable steps to beat the feeling of overwhelm. When you're overwhelmed, it seems easier to just ignore anything that needs to be done.

8. You're a Dreamer & a Talker

Many people who are otherwise great people tend to love to talk about doing, rather than actually doing. The problem with this is that if you never follow up with doing what you're talking about, you'll never achieve success. You'll always just be a talker and a dreamer. Spending time making vision boards on Pinterest feels productive, but if you don't back that up with some action, you're not productive. You're all talk and no action.

9.Inability to Visualize Success

Some procrastinators have serious problems with creating a picture in their minds of future success. You let your past inform your future too much. You just cannot see yourself being successful at anything, so you put off trying and put off doing your best because you just can't see yourself beyond where you are right now.

Next week, we'll talk about how to overcome these roadblocks.

But for this week's challenge, I want you to identify:

1. One thing that you've been putting off.
2. The reason you've been procrastinating.

Leave a comment and let me know what you determined!

Help for Disorganized People

If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm not the world's most organized person.  (Someone recently suggested I might truly have ADD.  Who knows?  But hey, maybe I can use that as an excuse, right?)

My super-organized (and extremely patient) husband has taught me a thing or two about how to keep things organized.  I'm sure I would be 10 times worse without his help.

So for the next few weeks, I'll be running a series on Time Management and Organization for the Disorganized Procrastinator.  I'll be sharing some of the things I have learned from my husband as well as personal obstacles that I have overcome.

Ready for part 1?  Let's dig in…

Do you have piles of paper surrounding your desk? Do you have boxes of paperwork to go through in the attic, inside closets, or in the corner of your office that need to be organized? Are your computer files a disorganized jumble of text files and Word documents full of ideas that you will never find again? Do you have many plans and ideas that you just never get to? Does the idea of getting organized make you uncomfortable and a little bit nervous? If so, then this guide is for you!

Week One:

Identifying Your Organizing Style

The first thing you need to do is figure out your organizational style. Even as a disorganized person you have an organizational style. Trust me. Knowing your own personal organizational style will help you avoid choosing methods that won't work for you.

• Neat Nelly — She puts everything away out of sight; however, the term neat can be questioned. She feels neat because it's all out of sight and out of mind.
• Piles Polly — She puts everything out where everyone can see it, usually in piles all over the place. She cannot find anything when she needs it.
• Basket Betty — She puts everything into baskets so that they look neat and out of sight, but they are anything but neat (and maybe not even out of sight).

Understanding your organizational style will help you move forward with creating a system of organization that works for you. Working with your personality, instead of against it, will make becoming more organized a lot simpler. So, it doesn't matter whether or not you pile everything up, stuff everything out of sight, or have lots of baskets and bins with all your work in them. You can work with your natural inclinations to create a plan and develop a system that works for you.

If you're still not sure about your organizational style, think for a moment about what you do when you receive a monthly bill. Do you throw it on a “bill pile”, file it away, or throw it in a basket (or drawer)? Some people just prefer to be able to see everything because they're afraid they'll forget something. Other people feel more accomplished if it's all out of sight (and out of mind), while others do a mixture of the two. Which one are you?

Week one challenge:  Identify your organizational style and tell me in the comments.

(If you're the organized type, none of us naturally disorganized people will mind a bit if you chime in with your helpful suggestions during this series!)

Free Goal-Setting Printables

Have you thought about what you'd like to accomplish in 2014?

More importantly, have you thought about what God wants you to accomplish this year?

My husband and I have a date planned for this Friday night to sit down and make a list of goals that we believe God would have our family to work towards.

I will also be sitting down this evening to work on my personal goals for this year.

You've probably all heard the old saying, “If you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time.”  I want to aim for something.  In this season of my life, that may not be anything “big”.  My life is full right now with taking care of my home and children, and there's not much room for many “big” things.  And that's okay.

As you think through your goals for the year, just keep them simple and realistic.  You don't have to come up with specific steps for reaching those goals quite yet – I'll be providing printable worksheets for that within the next few days.  Just start jotting down everything you can think of that you'd like to accomplish, then go back and pray over your list and re-evaluate what you should keep and what you should cross off.  Remember, if you try to focus on doing too much, you'll actually accomplish less.

You can use these free printable goal setting sheets.

Download Here

I've included the following:

Spiritual goals – Do you want to read all the way through the Bible this year?  Memorize a large passage of scripture?  Those things go here.

Personal goals – this is for things like exercising, personal hobbies, home business ventures like blogging or direct sales, etc.

Homemaking goals – this includes anything that has to do with your home and family like menu planning, cleaning and organizing, spending quality time with your husband or children, etc.

Family goals – this is for goals that you set as a family and all work on together.  Maybe you'd like to accomplish some yard or house projects together or participate in some type of ministry as a family.  Work on those goals together and put them here.

You'll probably want to put these printables in a binder as I will be offering many, many printables this year as a part of Project Simplify.  (Get the first one here if you missed it.)

Don't forget to subscribe to email updates so you can keep up with each step of Project Simplify and receive the new printables as they are published.  Simply enter your email address in the form below this post.

What area do you most need to simplify this year?

How to Organize Your Laundry Room

How to organize your laundry room is one thing every homemaker must learn to keep a smoothly running home.

Organizing your laundry room can be a challenge. Between sorting clothes, setting up drying racks and ironing boards and organizing laundry detergent, you may find yourself pressed for space. There are great ways to organize your laundry room so that you get the most use out of your space.

Install Shelves

Installing shelves in your laundry room will give you added space above your washer and dryer. You can use this space to store bottles of detergents, irons and laundry baskets. You can find easy to install wire shelving at most home improvement stores.

Use Cabinets

If you have space in the corners of the room, you can install cabinets that will be handy for storing all of your laundry supplies. Laundry cabinets can free up floor space and give you room for folding and drying.

Use Space Saving Hampers

Using multiple hampers for your dirty clothing can take up space. Use a laundry organizer to sort your lights, darks and delicates. These sorters can be especially helpful if you have tiny children's socks that easily get lost in the wash. You can find stylish 3-bag laundry sorters for all of your clothing storage needs.

Install Ceiling Bars

You can stretch a tension rod across your laundry room and use it to hang wet clothing and other effects. These rods require no installation and are inexpensive. You can find them at your local home improvement store.

Keeping your laundry room organized doesn't have to be a chore. Find the best organization supplies today.