|
Home organizing is about creating environments that support how you want to live, including supporting and protecting your good habits.
The beauty of good habits is that they are automatic, meaning that we don't have to rely on willpower, motivation, or self-discipline to do them. We follow our good habits without having to decide what to do or whether or not to do them. Instead, we just act.
For example, every morning do you brush your teeth, zip up your work bag so items don't fall out, lock the door as you leave the house, and fasten your seat belt before driving? These are all good habits that are probably automatic.
The challenge, of course, is shifting our good intentions into solid daily habits. Here are three home organizing principles that can help:
Tend to your body first. New clients sometimes ask what they should do to prepare for our first organizing session. Should they buy storage bins? Clean the house? I always say: be well rested, remember to eat breakfast, and drink lots of water.
The fundamentals of good health - sleep, nutrition, exercise - inform everything else that we do. It's hard to start or sustain a new habit when you're exhausted. Maybe begin with a nap.
When everything is important, then nothing is important. In home organizing, we sort through everything overfilling a space, let go of what's extraneous, and designate homes for essential items -- all to create wide open surfaces so you have the space to focus on what is actually important to you.
Similarly, when our calendars and to-do lists are overstuffed, it's hard to have the bandwidth or energy to keep up good habits. Consider letting go of extraneous commitments and expectations so that you can focus on what, and who, is actually important to you.
Use outer accountability rather than willpower. I schedule and prepay for three HIIT (high intensity interval training) classes a week. For me, the outer accountability of being expected in class makes it easier to maintain my exercise habit rather than trying to work out regularly on my own.
Outer accountability can come through commitments to friends, family, groups, coaches, or even to your own future self. 'Evening Lisa' is relieved to come home to a serene house, and so is grateful that 'Morning Lisa' makes the bed and does the dishes before leaving for work.
Like a decluttered and organized home, good habits take some effort to establish, but are ultimately restful.
My favorite books on the topic: Gretchen Rubin's Better Than Before and The Four Tendencies, and Martha Beck's Finding Your Own North Star.
| 
