Organizing habits are the key to staying organized and we suggest you start creating your organizing habits now. Here is the habit that will get you on your way to lasting order. Practicing this habit will naturally motivate you to organize more and more.
15 minutes per day completing a clean sweep.
- Pick a specific time to take action and complete this one organizing habit, either morning or evening.
- What is a ‘Clean Sweep’? Make a commitment to stop what you are doing and travel around the house picking-up for 15 minutes.
- If your house is really cluttered or you have trouble making a difference by sweeping through the whole house, pick just one area and focus on that daily. You can add another area later.
- Ready your mind set to really dive in and work hard for 15 minutes.
- If you have a family, make it a family time, “This is when we work together as a community.”
- Don’t think about it being a long term commitment. When the time (set an alarm) comes for that first time, just get up and do it. If you hear someone inside you saying, “I don’t feel like it.” Just do it anyway. Practice “not thinking”.
- It doesn’t matter in the beginning if you miss a day or two here and there. What matters is that if you miss, you promise not to beat yourself up, get up and take action to make up for the missed session. Or, get back on the horse and take action the next day. This is key–Don’t beat yourself up!! Take Action!
- Vital: Take a moment when you have finished to notice how good you feel and enjoy what you were able to accomplish.
- If your house is so cluttered that you cannot see a difference, keep it up. It will not get worse and soon you will see a difference.
- If you don’t have a lot of practice starting a new habit successfully, don’t have good self-discipline skills, or are ADD, continue reading.
- Use Hyper Focus: Hyper focus is a trait that many people with ADD or those who were not taught self-discipline have developed as a natural coping mechanism without realizing it. They/you don’t necessarily have control over it. It is developed because they have a hard time paying attention and they are desperate to address the demands from their outside world to “accomplish” or “finish” what they start. They teach themselves to zoom in on one task/project blocking out everything except what they are doing. They have basically developed an on/off switch.
- If this is you, it is likely driven by your motivation. You are strongly motivated by stress and frustration to get “it” done. With this habit there is no outside pressures or motivators.
- You will have to find ways to increase your motivation for making this commitment.
- To motivate: think about the outcome and how wonderful you will feel after you have completed just one 15 minute clean sweep! Think about how good it will feel to have more order and you can find what you need, when you need it!