How to tackle this year's resolutions

This time of year, I usually see an uptick in new client inquiries as the New Year’s resolutions start forming and the excitement for change in the coming year escalates. We all hope to enter each year as a new and improved version of our previous year’s self. As we plant our feet firmly into the new year, reality usually sets in and we realize that conquering those resolutions is going to take more than hopeful thinking and feelings of motivation. Achieving those goals will also take discipline, change and diligence. These activities and changes also apply to the process of organizing. Organizing requires discipline.
 
Some of you probably stopped reading after that last sentence but hang on. Sure, some of us are inclined to being creative with storage solutions, and it helps when we also enjoy the process of getting organized. I have news for you though…even people who are well organized conjure up a bit of discipline to stay that way. The TV shows we see about getting organized and making over a home tend to show us the highlights; the results that make us feel good and suddenly empowered to take on our own projects. What they don’t show is the diligence, process and habit changing mindset that goes into maintaining those results.
 
If you have ever worked with me, you have likely heard me say that I wish I had a magic wand. I wish I could wave a wand over everyone’s disorganized situations and suddenly transform them to a state of forever organized and neat. I wish I could use that wand in my own house. I am very organized and love to put things back in their place, but if my husband and I have a busy week, and choose different priorities, clutter happens. The laundry piles up, just like everyone else. The dishwasher gets full and dishes overflow in the sink, just like everyone else. As a result, just like everyone else, we are left feeling stressed and disorganized.
 
So, what do we do about it? If you are thinking of throwing in the towel at this point and surrendering to an existence in a cluttered and messy household, hang in there. We CAN change and we CAN be organized! Cleaning up is often the easy part. Most of us are capable of picking things up off the floor and putting them back where they belong. The challenge is maintaining a state of constant tidiness during our busy lives. While changing our habits requires that we delve into a bit of science (more on that later), here are a few activities that you can start doing today that will help you to stay organized after the initial clean-up:
 

1. Stage a basket or bin on every level of the home – As you navigate daily activities throughout the home, throw anything that doesn’t belong in that area into the closest basket for temporary storage. Before bed each night, grab any basket with contents and walk them back to where they belong.
2. Never leave a room empty handed – Going upstairs to grab your shoes? This is a great time to quickly look around and see if you can carry anything up with you that might need to be put back in its place. Heading to the kitchen to grab a beer? Why not carry that empty chip bowl back with you? Getting into the habit of using every step around the house as an opportunity to shuttle items back to their homes in the direction you are headed anyway will save you a ton of time and effort later.
3. Always clean-up before switching activities – This step is critical to teach children when they are young and will save you a ton of extra work in the long run. If the Legos are no longer holding interest, make sure they clean them up and put them back before moving on to the next activity. Clean-up from activities usually doesn’t take that long, but most of us associate this task with all things unpleasant and painful. Cleaning it up now means less mess at the end of the day, and you might be surprised by the little shot of endorphins you get from viewing the results of your incremental efforts.
4. Schedule a timeslot into your calendar every day for getting organized – We schedule timeslots for things like business meetings, doctor appointments and gym visits. Why wouldn’t we also schedule time for general household organizing? If decluttering and organizing is painful for you, schedule only 20 minutes a day and make it count. Write your goals for each one of these session in your calendar as well. Do you plan to tackle laundry tomorrow and the hall closet on Friday? Both of those are usually simple and quick activities that can be accomplished in 20 minutes if there are no other distractions. Add a reward at the end, like a nap or alone time with a good book, to reinforce and stay on track.
5. Create a family “command center” and actually use it – I get a lot of requests from clients to help them establish a “command center” to better communicate schedules and events with their families. We shop the big stores, install beautiful and functional systems, and weeks later they hang cluttered and misused. The issue is always that the underlying habits needed to properly use the system were not fully developed and maintained. Remember that discipline part? If you do not sit with your entire household, talk through and agree upon the desired process, functions, reasons and outcomes, you are sure to fail in this endeavor. Everyone must agree and be aligned on the who, what and why’s in order to be effective.

 
In his book “Atomic Habits” author James Clear defines the 4 stages of any habit as: 1) Cue – the trigger that tells the brain that a reward is in proximity, 2) Craving – the perceived change in state that will be delivered by following the cue, 3) Response – the action needed by you to receive the reward, and 4) the Reward itself. According to his philosophy, we get stuck in this “habit loop” that perpetuates our actions unless we remove one of the 4 stages. His simple suggestion is to break old habits by removing one of these stages; by making the cue and reward less desirable, harder to reach or invisible altogether. He goes on to say that we can then create new habits by asking ourselves these 4 questions:
 

1. How can I make it obvious? How do I make my cue readily available and visible?
2. How can I make it attractive? How and why would I crave it? What’s in it for me?
3. How can I make it easy? If the response is too difficult or impossible, you will likely never continue forward.
4. How can I make it satisfying? What is my reward? What reward makes my response worthwhile?

 
If you want to geek out on this further like I did, check out his entire excerpt online at https://jamesclear.com/three-steps-habit-change. If you need some real change this year and are not sure where to start, give me a call and we can approach this process together! Happy New Year!