195 | Finding the Time to Organize My Home

 When you’re busy and have a lot going on time is one of those things. We all wish that we had more of, unfortunately we can’t wave a magic wand and add more time to the day. But we can all learn to use the time that we have in different ways and this episode we are going to discuss solutions when it seems like you don’t have enough time to tackle decluttering and organizing but you still have that dream and that desire to take on the projects that get you to an organized and simplified home

 Do you feel like you’re always running out of time or there is never enough time to accomplish all that you want to do? That lack of time can be hindering for so many things in our life. You might want to get in more workouts or make a complex dinner meals that your family enjoys or visit friends and family out of town or travel more or spend quality time with [00:02:00] your kids. Or similarly have enough time to pick up and clean the house, or maybe all you want to do is get a pedicure every couple of months. I know that as busy people, when we have a lot going on and a lot packed into our schedule, many things that are oftentimes requirement’s, especially with work and activities and things that we have committed to these things that take up our time. They take up the minutes in our day. So the lack of time is a real thing. But the way we manage the time that is available to us and what we choose to do with the actual minutes that we have, that is the real deciding factor for what we get to do. What makes it into our schedule or what we keep pushing aside. Or I could say it in a different way, which might seem a little bit harsh to some people, The thing is that happened and that actually fill the minutes of our time. Those are the things that we have identified as a priority. So what we make a priority, we find time before we are often good at wasting time. That’s hard to admit, but if you were to do a true schedule audit and see where the gaps in your days are and what you are filling the minutes with a lot of times, we see that there are things that we are doing that are wasting our time, or we are not using our time, the best way that we can. I don’t mean that we have to be being productive all the time and we have to be checking things off the list. That’s the opposite of what I mean when I talk about prioritizing our time and using our time wisely. I mean. What is important to us that could, uh, be downtime that could be intentional family connection that could be having time to actually read a book or doing something for enjoyment. I am talking about absolutely anything, the good, the bad and everything in between that we fill the minutes of our day [00:04:00] with this is why I’m constantly talking about routines, because When we have these good quality intentional routine set up. The thing that it does, that we are very aware of is it does check the boxes. It crosses the things off. The to-do list. It allows us to get more done in less time. And that’s the focus usually when we create the routines, but one of the benefits that is. Like a hidden benefit is that when you are more efficient at the things that have to be done, that means you have more leeway in your day. You have more free time, you have more minutes and hopefully more hours to fill up doing the things that you want to be doing. And that is the main reason that I say that we have to create these intentional routines because you want to relieve yourself of all of the duties. And have the things that have to be done, like loading the dishwasher and running the carpool and doing errands and grocery shopping, all of those things that have to be done we want to get those out of the way so that we can have more time to enjoy the little moments in life and fill up more of our time with things that we want to be doing. Things that we enjoy, people that we want to spend our time with. That’s where we want more of our minutes to go. And we want to remove some of that time spent doing the things that we don’t love to do, but it still needs to get done to function in life.

if you were a longtime listener, then you know that. When we set up these retentional routines. They do save time. They serve us. The routines become habits. that is the goal. When something is a habit, it’s just the way we do something. We don’t think about it anymore because it’s just the way we go about our day. It’s the way that we do something. it becomes as simple as that. Now there are a lot of things that you can do when creating these routines and setting them up initially, those things are, what’s going to help you save time.

They’re going to help you be more [00:06:00] efficient so that you. You can’t efficiently use the minutes that you do have today. I want to share something that you can do in terms of helping with the decluttering, because so often the excuse or the reason for not being able to get your house organized is the lack of time when you want to purge and you want to remove some of the excess that has accumulated in your home.

You have to get it out of the house. But you feel like you don’t have enough time. I want you to think about doing this in 20 minute increments, so you can carve out 20 minutes a day, not even every day, just three to five days a week. If you can pick three to five days throughout your week. Where you can carve out 20 minute blocks of time. And if you have to make it to 10 minutes sessions, 20 minutes to dedicate, to removing the clutter in one area of your home and start with the area that is bothering you, you know, that this area needs to be decluttered. So start there set that timer for 20 minutes and you are going to make a commitment where you’re not allowing yourself to do anything else.

During those 20 minutes, the 20 minutes. That you have set that timer for your entire focus is going to be going through this area and decluttering it. You’re removing the things you don’t want. You’re placing these items in bags or baskets to be donated or to get rid of. When you were doing this process. There will probably be things. In fact, I can almost guarantee. There will be thing, is that. You want to keep, but they do not belong in this location. They need to be moved. They need to be taken to the location or the room where they actually belong the place where they go, the place, where they should live their storage location for when they’re not in use. You’re not going to do that at this time. This time is for decluttering. So place those items that you want to keep that go to another room in the home, put them in a basket. a bin or some type of container, place those in there, put [00:08:00]everything else that you’re going to get rid of in a different trash bag or box. when the 20 minute timer goes off. You can deal with the item, is that belong in your home, in a different location. at that time you carry these. Items to there, the room that they go to, or you can take the next couple of days and put them away. the actual 15 to 20 minutes that you’re going to spend working on this project is going to be for the decluttering component of the project. You’re not organizing. You’re not running from room to room. You’re zoning in on this one space. It might be one drawer. It might be one shelf in your pantry. It might be one section of your closet. It might be one little corner of a room because that is such a mess. It could be a pile on the kitchen counter. Yeah. Once you set that timer, you’re not moving from that spot. You are dialed in to that project and you’re going to keep going so that you can get results. Now you’re not going to get the same results in 20 minutes as if you were devoting two or three entire days to the decluttering and organizing of a large walk-in closet and your. Going through the steps of the process and you’re doing it from Tufts bottom because you have devoted many, many, many, many hours to doing that. You are just devoting 15 to 20 minutes. Of course it is going to take longer in terms of the number of days. Total days that it takes to complete this project, but the inner result is going to be the same. You are going to get to that end result eventually. You are getting there in sections of 20 minutes, 20 minute timeframes, or even 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there a few days a week. until you reach that final result, your game plan looks a little bit different, but your end result is the same. You can decide if you want to keep making excuses and keep saying, I don’t have enough time. There’s never enough time in the [00:10:00] day. All that means is your home stays the way it is right now. The space you live in. That stress continues to build. It will continue to be there a month from now, six months from now next year. If you keep saying you don’t have enough time. I don’t have enough time to declutter. I don’t have enough time to get organized. There’s never enough time in the day. If that’s the mindset that you are in, then you are not doing anything to make changes that move you toward the end result that you want. You can choose to do it a different way. And that’s why I’m recording this episode today, because I want you to have the ability to get the end result of a simplified home, an organized home, a home with significantly less clutter. A home that you feel good in a home that you feel good. Having people come over to and being at, and a place where you can relax, and feel peaceful at the end of the day. I want all of these things for you, just like you want them, but you have to make the changes. And if time is the reason that you are not able to tackle the decluttering and the organizing, and you don’t have time to set up routines that keep your home organized and running as efficient as possible. you have to find the minutes. You have to reevaluate what you’re doing and take 15, 20 minutes. In a time blocks a couple of times a week. And use that time for the decluttering. You start there the way that I just explained it, you’re starting with that. And then you keep going and you move through from one project to the next, until you have decluttered all that you need to declutter.

you decide, are you taking today and are you making changes? Are you finding the minutes you need to do? Or are you going to stay in the stuck. If you don’t want that option, if you don’t want to stay living in the clutter and having that stress that You don’t need to have in your life. Then you have to decide to make the change, make the [00:12:00] commitment as you finish up this episode. That you can find three to five days a week with 15 to 20 minutes during those days. And you will use a timer to stay on track. You can dedicate those short little bits of time to the decluttering. And you stop once the timer goes off. 15 to 20 minutes will go by incredibly fast. You will not believe how quickly all of the sudden you are done. And it is time to move on to something else. if you want to make a change, make that commitment.

The saying slow and steady wins. The race is perfect in this situation. Because if you want change, you have to commit to a plan. And you will eventually get there. It’s better to get there at a slower pace than to never ever get there at all. You would rather get to the finish point at some point. Then not ever across the finish line. This is the beginning step of the plan that it might take you. An extra couple of weeks. It might take you longer than your friend that gets a babysitter and dedicate an entire weekend to a major kitchen and pantry decluttering and organizing overhaul. If that is what is available to her, that’s great. This is available to you. The time you have available to you is going to come in shorter bursts and that timer is going to help you stay on track.

It will get you to the same end result of that simplified. And organized home with significantly less clutter, as long as you implement the purging, the organizing and the routines that bring you the success. You will get the same and results. If you don’t know what projects are bothering you the most and where to start then grab the practical purging projects. the link is in the description where you’re listening to the podcast. You can click on that link and it will give you 10 different ideas for purging projects and how to go through those, how you can start. [00:14:00] And all of those are designed to take 15 to 20 minutes a day. So that is a perfect. Challenge for you. There are 10 different projects and that means if you do one each day, it will just take you 10 days of those 15 to 20 minute projects. And there are detailed instructions that help walk you through the decluttering of each project and a checklist. So you can see what you have gotten done and what you still have to do. It’s completely free. You just click on the link and download it, and then you can start today or you can start tomorrow.

That’s a great place to start. Work on these projects for 15 to 20 minutes a day. Move through your house until you have decluttered. Many of the areas in your home that are causing you stress so that you can get the results and you can eventually get to this step of organizing so that then you have the organization done. And at the same time, you’re going to start implementing routines that are going to keep the clutter from coming back in and make things more efficient in your home.

So that when you have this limited time that we’re talking about, then more of the minutes can go to. The things that you actually want to be doing. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the intentional edit podcast, I will meet you back here for the next episode soon.