Cluttered Home? Nurses, Get Organized

We spend a lot of time organizing our schedule, worksheet, charts, meds and many work-related stuff that when we get home, dead tired from work, our personal space is in chaos! Nurses, have you really taken a look on your home's clutter?

Being disorganized by its very nature is a time waster. Not knowing where something is and having to search wastes both time and energy. How long does it take to find your keys each time you misplace them? Multiply this by the number of times you've had to do this and you get the point! And that's just your keys!

Here are excuses some of you probably have for not getting organized:

■That cheese grater I received as a wedding gift ten years ago – that I have never used - may come in handy some day.

 

■I know right where each important document is in that 3-foot high pile of mail and paperwork.

 

■The procrastinator's philosophy: "I will do it tomorrow".

 

■It takes too much time to get organized!

 

■Being disorganized has worked for me so far!

If you are disorganized, follow the T-TRASH process to forever rid yourself of disorganization.

Touch each item only once. When you are going through the stack of old mail, each piece either goes in the file cabinet or the trash. Do not start a "set it aside" pile, because this will become your new area of disorganization! Once organized, as mail and "stuff" enters your home, touch it only once and put it in its place. We keep a cardboard box for school papers. Each time the kids bring home papers, we touch them once. We look at and enjoy them and then they either go on the fridge or in the box!  Periodically, we all look through the box and enjoy what's in there. At the end of the school year we tape it up and mark it. We have organized the whole year in one box and the kids have lasting memories!

To-do list!  Having a running to-do list organizes your household and alleviates "disorganized mind" syndrome. This is where you strive to remember multiple things you need to do and purchased and in the end forget all of them! Crossing items off the list as you accomplish each gives a great sense of accomplishment!

 Rally the troops. Get everyone in the family on board to organize. Okay, I hear you now, "How do I get my disorganized child to organize?" I will tell you what worked with my disorganized son when he was younger. I said, "The next time I have to pick your toys off the floor after I've asked you to take care of them, they are going in a trash bag." He didn't believe me until I did it. I hid the trash bag and gave him a couple of days to think about it. Then I made a deal. I gave him his toys back in exchange for organization.  I never had another problem when I asked him to organize. Rallying the troops not only helps you, but teaches everyone in your family better organizational skills!

 Ageless and priceless are not synonyms. Unless you're an antique collector, clean out the old stuff! Let's think back to that 15 year old unused cheese grater. Seriously, are you ever going to use it? The general rule of organization: if you haven't used it in 6 months you probably don't need it. Go through your kitchen cabinets, closets, and dressers while keeping repeating "the 6-month rule" mantra! 

 Shop! That's right – shop for tools to help you organize. Don't underestimate the usefulness of those covered plastic bins that fit under your bed or stack in your closet. Use them to organized your "stuff" and label each one with the contents. That way, when you are looking for an item, you know which bin in! Just think – you have narrowed your "lost zone" to a small bin instead of to the entire house! These same bins work well in kids' rooms too!  Shop for a pocket organizer so you can organize your schedule and to-do list!