De-stress Before Organizing
10 Ways to De-stress Before Organizing
Every time that we think of all of the things that we have to do to get our homes looking the way we would ‘like them’ to look-we get stressed.
Every time that we think of the mess we have in our homes-we get stressed.
Every time that we can’t find something that we are looking for-we get stressed.
Every time that we can’t find a place to put something-we get stressed.
Every time—never mind, you get the idea by now.
It is no wonder that thinking about organizing our homes raises our blood pressure; our anxiety and stress levels go up once again. It would be nice to have a little genie that thinks the way that we think and arranges things the way we wished they would be arranged and then comes in and does all of this for us. They can, it’s called a Professional Organizer and all you have to do is hire one.
I know, most of you think that they are too expensive and that there is some kind of hidden agenda. Very UNTRUE! It isn’t any different than hiring a carpet-cleaning person to come and do your carpets. They walk in, evaluate the situation, find out what services you want done, do the job and leave.
But, for those of you do-it-yourselfers that have the “I want to do it myself’ attitude, there is ME. A professional organizer that will give you tips on how to do it.
The first place that everyone needs to start is to distress yourself. For that we need a guideline; so follow these easy steps;
- Make a list of the jobs you want to organize. This is your master list.
- Now use another piece of paper and take the job that you know will bother you the most and place the name at the top of the paper
- On this paper list everything that you need to do to get the job accomplished.
- At the bottom of the paper write down all of the items that you will need to accomplish the job to your satisfaction.
- Now in the upper right hand corner write down a number of minutes that you think that it will take you to get the job done.
- Now, go and have a cup of coffee, a soda or glass of water and relax for 10 minutes. Set the timer to make sure that you know when 10 minutes are up.
- That seemed like a long time didn’t it? Do you still think it will take you as long as the number that you wrote in the upper right hand corner? Well, to be honest, who cares! I wanted you to write a number down so that you could see that you created a stress point for yourself, as well as by setting a timer when your objective was to relax. There is no need to think that you have to time everything in your life. It gets done when the job is done—period. Don’t put any extra pressure (also known as stress) on yourself.
- Now go to the room that you made a list for and evaluate what you are going to do and how great it is going to look when you are finished.
- Get everything on your list that you need to get the job finished.
- Start organizing and cleaning, using your list as your guide so that you don’t forget anything. Just go from number one to two to three etc. don’t skip around and don’t add things to your list. Start in one corner of the room and work your way around it so that the last thing that you do is walk out of the door.
By this time you are so sick of listening to me go on and on about stress that the break for actually getting down to work is a welcome experience.
We have a tendency to heap more on ourselves than what we can handle. If we have one list, we keep adding to it. If we are going to do one job, we look at the whole picture instead of taking it down into smaller jobs. All of these things create stress. By following these simple steps in different aspects of our lives stress is eliminated.
Just think to yourself, what am I getting so upset about? Is getting upset making the job go faster? Do I feel better by upsetting myself? Chances are the answer is NO to all of the questions and once you start to laugh at yourself (the best stress reliever of them all) everything else will be easy.
©2007 Jan Hayner is the creator of Easy Home Organizing and House Cleaning Shortcuts go to her website at http://www.organizingyourlifetheeasyway.com for her free pamphlets “50 Things to Organize in 10 Minutes or Less” and “Guiltbusters for Working Moms”. Free checklists and Newsletter