8 self disciplining tips for being better organised at home

Being organised is really self discipline, if you can discipline yourself to do a few of these tips and stick to them. Then it becomes a start to better self organisation

1. If you are in a room and see something that comes from somewhere else, another room, a bookshelf or a cupboard.

• pick it up
• put it in the correct room or place as you walk by.

2. If you are in a room where items are out of place, but belong in that room (maybe you tossed it there per tip 1)

• put it away.

3. If you are about to step over something on the floor that doesn’t belong there

• bend down,
• pick it up
• put it away.

4. If you see something out of place and you go “Meh! later”. Think Nike:

• just do it now!
• There is no trick to it; you just do it.

5. Evernote or Keep a short  list (3 to 5 items) to do arounf the house. Make them a daily reminder

6. Be tough and chuck. If you find you have things that just don’t belong anywhere, get rid of them.

7. Move mail/email/reminders/alerts/messages along quickly. Don’t let them pile up.

• This is bad for your organisation
• And bad for paying your bills on time (calender or event them)

Tip 8, make the other seven tips a morning alert/reminder until the bed in and become automatic

Five top Stay at Home Parent productivity time-killahs

I’ve been a stay at home parent for six months now and it’s hard work, schlepping two kids to and from school, shopping, cleaning and money management. These are the top five things that mess me up

Trap number 1: Poor Prioritisation.

Lots of tasks at home, with no supervision and plenty of distractions.
I’ll just have a coffee and surf,
hmmm! a cuppa and wonder if there are any new releases on the movie channels.
I was up late and early so I’ll have a snooze,

Then there are things like timing the laundry so it stops before I have to go out, leaving damp laundry in the machine, makes for a pretty awful smell. So it’s getting the timings right. We don’t have a tumble dryer so it’s also gauging if the weather’s ok for drying outside or is it going to piss it down. So as you can see there are lots of distractions and and plenty of way’s to de-prioritise things.

It can be pretty easy to become overwhelmed, especially with the ability to pause films and wander off to make a cuppa, you suddenly realised that ninety minute film lasted three hours. The solution is one of those “easy to say, hard to do” things: you have to confront the time-killah and wrestle it to the ground before it destroys your productivity altogether.

So my lack of organisation is the problem, time to sit down and start being ruthless with my daily to-do list. Reduce the must-do tasks to the few items that truly matter, based on the needs and whatever must be done (collect the kids from school).

Trap number 2: Distractions/Interruptions

Well as you read above, being at home gives you plenty of distractions,  I’m considering building in daily procrastination time to manage the distractions. Interruptions on the other hand, well you can’t manage when they occur, the best that can be done is assess them as they occur and deal with them, such as the school ringing up saying one child is ill can you collect and then manage the timings accordingly.

Trap number 3: Overwork

This one has surprised me, managing the shopping, laundry, cleaning and school runs has been a surprising amount of work, especially if you throw in the distractions and procrastination.

Trap. Number 4. Poor Self-Discipline

The workplace gives you a certain amount of discipline, core hours, tasks and bosses and your employment contract give you discipline otherwise your salary ends. At home I think I need to have an imaginary supervisor to check up on me.

Trap number 5: Poor Organisation

The antonym of this would be superior organisation, if I had an answer to poor organisation I wouldn’t have any of the above four time-killahs. The poor quality of my organisational skills at home would go if I deal with the procrastination and the distractions

The Bottom Line

There you have it: my list of the five top time-killahs based on six months of running the house.