How does your home measure up against those pretty pictures in the magazines? Maybe instead of trying to keep up with the Joneses, you could re-imagine your definition of what an organized home really means. Sometimes letting yourself off the hook is beyond measure!
(Click here to watch on YouTube if you can’t see the embedded player. Or watch the video at http://bit.ly/tcdmeasure.)
Transcript:
Hi. I’m Lorie Marrero, creator of the Clutter Diet book and on-line program, and today, we’re going to find out if you measure up. Are you really organized? And we’re going to do that by looking at the definition of what it means to be organized. I’ve created this definition as an acronym of the word “neater.” So today, in Part 1 we’re going to look at the first three letters, N-E and A. And in Part 2, we’ll be looking at T-E and R.
So let’s look at the first letter, “N.” It stands for “not perfect.” We tend to measure ourselves against pictures in magazines. And we need to understand that those pictures are created by teams of people, including interior designers, stylists, lighting people, photographers. All these people are experts and they create beautiful pictures that inspire us, and that’s great. But we need to be inspired, not discouraged, by what we see there and we need to expect our homes to be lived in. So organizing is not like the picture you see here on the screen; it’s not about lining up everything by color or everything being perfectly straight. It’s about doing things that save you time and save you stress.
So let’s talk about the next letter, “E,” “effective.” It means doing what works. We just did another video about this in our previous post, and I showed you several things that I’ve done that were also not perfect, and that they just worked. And they weren’t necessarily the most tailored solution. So, you need to make sure that you are easy on yourself, you’re forgiving of yourself, you just do something that makes sense for you and your family, and it may not be something that the experts would have told you to do. And if you are a parent you’ll understand this analogy. If your child goes through a phase of eating peanut butter sandwiches every single day, go with it. They’ll grow out of it. They’re not going to get hurt by it. And it’s easier for you, and they’re happy. Just go with it. It’s the same way with organizing. Whatever systems you’ve got going in your home, even if they’re kind of silly, if they work for you, just do that.
Okay, the next letter is “A,” for “always improving.” Now, this is something I talk about because I often tell people that I am organized because I am lazy. I don’t like to do things the hard way. I’m always looking for shortcuts. And when you’re always looking to improve, you are looking for an app to do that for you; you’re looking for a way to delegate it; you’re looking for a way to eliminate that chore from your list. So, I have three lazy questions for you that you can ask yourself every day to look for these shortcuts: One, how could I do this better? Two, how could I do this faster? Or, three, how could I not do this at all? If you can delegate something or cross it off your list, fantastic. Maybe it’s just not necessary, maybe it’s something you’ve perfectionistically thought that you should be doing and you don’t need to do. But try to cross these things off your list. Find easier, better ways to do things: use apps, use tools, get ideas from your friends, but don’t do things the hard way. Improve all the time so that you can have better systems in your life.
Okay, those are the first three letters. We’re going to find out how you measure up more next week in Part 2. In the meantime, if you want to read more about the “neater” acronym and get ahead of me and find out what the last three letters are for, you can check it out in my book at https://www.clutterdiet.com/buybook. I have The Clutter Diet, The Skinny on Organizing Your Home and Taking Control of Your Life.
See you next time, and may you always be happy and grateful for having more than enough.
You may have been searching for what to do when you can’t stay organized.
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