29 | Home Disorganized? 5 Essential Routines to Make Your Home More Organized

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This episode specifically is for you if your home is not as organized as you want it to be, or if your home isn’t running as smoothly as you’d like it. This episode is for you. I’m going to share with you five essential routines to make your home more organized. It’ll be interesting as you listen to see whether you’re doing any of these routines. Which one of them do you to implement first?

00:00:26
Okay, the other thing I need to let you know is the doors are open to Organized Life Academy… very exciting. I’ve been planning and thinking and sharing about Organized Life Academy 2024 and if you get in this week, you get November and December of this year and all 12 months of next year included. You can attend all the calls, binge watch all the material from the vault for the last three years. You also get a bonus VIP call with me every single month of 2024.

00:01:03
Okay, so get in there. Now join us and you get a ‘member only’ invitation to our first ‘in person’ event in April. Now let’s get into the episode. Are you ready to work less and feel more organized and productive? Streamline repetitive tasks and implement systems that allow your coaching business to run smoothly even without you?

00:01:28
If so, you’re in the right place. Welcome to the Organized Coach Podcast, your go-to source for practical tips and solutions. I’m your host, Tracy Hoth, professional organizer, certified Life coach, simplifying expert, and most of all, down-to-earth fellow coach just like you. No matter if you think you’re missing the organizing gene, have ADHD, or just love anything organizing, I’m here to help you become an organized coach with a business that works for you. Pull up a seat and let’s get started.

00:02:01
I listen to other people’s podcasts and I always love when they share at the beginning, the personal things that they’re doing. When I’m out and about, I think, “Oh, I should share this on the podcast.” So then when I start recording, I’m like, what do I want to share? Oh, I can’t think of anything. Oh, they’re not going to want to hear about that.

00:02:20
But the thing I will share today is that it’s my son’s birthday. My first born, amazing, compassionate, intelligent son. He turns 25 today. Happy birthday! Okay, five essential routines to make your home more organized.

00:02:37
As I was thinking about these things, they kind of line up with The Academy next year and I didn’t really think about them in relation to telling you about The Academy, but I think we are doing these things. It’s so exciting. As I share, I’m going to point out how we’re implementing this in The Organized Coach Academy. Number one, a declutter routine. You have to be taking things out of your home.

00:03:06
If you don’t have some sort of routine in place to declutter, to get things out, it’s just going to build up because we don’t even need a routine to bring things in. Things are coming in all of the time, no matter how careful we are. Yes, we can be more aware and more intentional about what we’re bringing into our home, how much we’re buying, what’s getting mailed to us, all of that. We can be more intentional about that, but we have to have some sort of decluttering routine. And the first thing with this that I would set up is have a donate basket or a bag or a bin, something, some place that’s intended for donations to be put to make it easy.

00:03:49
We used to have ours behind our laundry room door. There was a space there and I would have a bag, like a paper bag, I think, back there. And we would throw donate in. And really it was because our kids were growing and they were growing out of things quickly. So when you’re washing, you see something older, you see something that they’re grown out of, you can just throw it in there.

00:04:11
That was a great place because our laundry room is up on the floor of our bedroom, so it was easy to get to. Now we have a cat. So the cat box is behind the laundry room door. And now I put a bag, I had a bin, a plastic bin. It would sit out in the garage in a certain spot, and then I would put a black trash bag in there and donation stuff would go into there.

00:04:33
We carry it out to the garage because it’s a natural progression to getting into our car and going to donate. So we have a place set up that we know we can donate stuff. But what next? What do we do next? How do we intentionally routinely declutter?

00:04:49
In Organized Life Academy this next year, I don’t know why, I’ve never done this before, but 2024 is going to have a declutter challenge every single month. I’m going to create for you the location of decluttering and have a checklist. So, for example, if we’re doing the kitchen, it’ll say, like linens. So you’re going to declutter? Well, I would be more specific than that.

00:05:15
I would say washcloths and hand towels and then you would declutter those. We’re going to have that list for us. We don’t have to do every single thing on the list, but you have the location chosen month-by-month. We’re going to go through every area of our home and we are going to declutter. The more you continue this, then at the end of the year, you print out all those checklists again or schedule them on your calendar.

00:05:42
and then you have that routine going of naturally decluttering. The other part of decluttering and a routine of sorts that you can set up is with your mindset. You’re constantly thinking, what can I get out? Let’s say you go into the back closet to get out. For me, it recently was a birthday cake pan.

00:06:03
You’re there, you see, there was a vase or something right near it. And I said, we don’t even use that. So I could declutter that. So anytime you open a cabinet, anytime you go into a space, you can just be thinking in your mind, what’s one thing I can get out of here? What’s one thing I can go put in a donate bag?

00:06:21
That’s the first thing, a declutter routine. The second routine to implement so that your home is more organized and runs more smoothly is a planning routine. We need to have a planning routine set up. For us in Organized Life Academy now, we’ve been doing this for at least last year, I think the year before, maybe all three years, the first call of the month, we plan. We plan our goal.

00:06:51
We plan what we want to accomplish. We break down. So I always like to start just by doing kind of a thought download. We download all the things that we want to do, and I like, as I do this, to download them into categories. So things on the computer, things on my phone, things on a certain project, appointments, whatever it is, you can download those into categories, and then we can purge.

00:07:17
We’re following the organizing steps. So the first step was to sort, then we purge. We go back through our list. We delete anything. We circle things we absolutely want to accomplish this month.

00:07:28
We delegate anything that we can delegate, we delay anything that we know we don’t have time for. And then step three is to assign homes. So then we get out our calendars. We set limits by setting an appointment time, a start and end, and then we assign homes on our calendar. So that’s how we use the organizing steps to plan our life.

00:07:53
To make your home more organized, have a planning routine. Is there something you want to organize this month? Is there things you want to accomplish? A project you want to do? A routine you want to work on.

00:08:06
You have to plan that in order for it to happen. Number one, a declutter routine. Number two, a planning routine. And then number three, a tidy routine. Tidying.

00:08:19
That’s hard to say. Have a routine for tidying. Maybe it is the one episode, I think it was 26. Let me pause and find that. Yes, episode 26.

00:08:33
It is feeling cluttered. One essential question to help declutter and organize your life. So in a tidy routine, you would use that question. You would stop every time you’re going to leave a room, and you would turn around and do a quick tidy. That’s how simple a tidy routine could be.

00:08:50
Or before you go to bed, you would run through the house or walk, tidy up everything. Or when you get up in the morning, you sweep through and tidy to really get in the habit. It’s stopping and turning around and cleaning up after every task when you leave a room. So listen to episode 26. It really explains it deeper.

00:09:12
Do you have a tidy routIne? Maybe your tidy routine is before the cleaners come, you tidy up, and then it might get really overwhelming because you haven’t tidied in between that time. Maybe it’s before company comes and it’s a super stressful situation. And by tidying, you’re shoving things in drawers, off of cabinets, into closets to get ready for company. So what if it could look differently?

00:09:41
Your tidy routine. And what do you want to tie it to? And turning around and tidying up when you finish something, when you leave a room, when you walk away. Okay, a declutter routine, a planning routine, a tidy routine. And number four is a maintenance routine.

00:09:58
So just like anything, it could be your weight, your garden, dishes, laundry, your teeth, all of them have maintenance routines. We maintain it. We go to the dentist every six months for a cleaning. We brush them, we floss them, we’re maintaining them. Once the dentist cleans them, then in between our appointments, we do the maintenance work.

00:10:25
Same thing with our house. So deeper organization is more like a project. It’s a project that we’re going to plan to organize our closet. But maintenance, having that routine in place is when we see that we have no hangers left, we go through and we purge more of our clothing. Maintaining our closet, maintaining the organization might mean when our socks are overflowing the sock compartment, we go back through the organizing steps, sorting, purging, and making room for what socks we have.

00:11:02
Because probably in the meantime, we’ve bought a few pairs of socks, and now that space is full, and so we need to go back and maintain it. By purging things in the organizing steps, sort, purge, assign homes, set limits. The set limit step helps us maintain. So when we set a limit, and it could be the size of a shelf, it could be the size of a drawer or the divider in the drawer, the section. It could be a basket that we buy in the pantry or on a shelf, a tub that we use that sets the limit.

00:11:39
In that way, it’s a signal when that limit is full to maintain, to go back through the steps, sort, purge, and make sure we have everything in its home. So we’re naturally implementing maintenance by setting limits on things. So what is your maintenance routine? The thing with Organized Life Academy that we can use is when we declutter an area, maybe the next time around, there’s only two things to declutter, and we can maintain the organization. So if we do kitchens in January and digital stuff in February, the next January we come back through and we maintain that area.

00:12:21
We don’t have as big of a declutter or as big of an organizing project. We’re just focused on maintenance after that, a declutter routine, a planning routine, a tidy routine, and a maintenance routine. And the final one is a project routine. How do we get big projects done in our house, or medium sized projects or small projects? In Organized Life Academy, we have quarterly projects.

00:12:47
I love the idea of having a quarterly project. Now. You could do a monthly project, whatever works for you. You could do a yearly project, anything that you want. But I’ve found that dividing the year into quarters is really helpful, motivating it doesn’t feel overwhelming.

00:13:04
And so our quarterly projects in 2024 is Quarter one is our health. We’re going to organize our health. We’re going to organize how we plan our meals, how we move, how we track our movements, and if we have weight loss goals. I feel like it ties into the year, the beginning of the year. If we just focus on doing it by willpower, it’s not going to work as well as if we actually organize how we maintain, how we plan, how we take care of our health.

00:13:37
So we’re going to focus on organizing our health. The first quarter. The second quarter, we’re going to look and organize our closets. We’re going to organize our wardrobes. So not only just organize the closet, but actually focus in and organize our style, our pieces in our wardrobe, so that they help us function more smoothly.

00:13:59
And then third quarter, we’re going to organize our paper. That’s our big project. And then fourth quarter, I still have it open I don’t know for sure. We’re going to see what do people want, what shows up during the year. So a project routine and what I love to do with projects, you might not be surprised, but I love using the organizing steps.

00:14:20
We take the project we want to do. Next, we empty everything out of our mind, all the ideas, all the options, all the things we could do, all of our goals around that. We get it all out on paper and then we purge. So we’re sorting it as we empty it out of our mind, and then we go back through all of it and we purge, we delay, we delete, we delegate, and then we assign homes to it. So we’re prioritizing how we’re going to go about organizing this space, this project, and then we assign homes to it on our calendar.

00:14:53
We practice those organizing steps in everything. Then, we practice them as we plan, we practice them as we create routines. We practice them with projects, we practice them with physical things, with our mental mindset. It’s so fun. So, tips for creating routines we have the declutter routine, planning, tidying, maintenance and project.

00:15:14
All of those routines are going to help you run your home more efficiently, more organized, streamline your processes. But how do you create routines now? I just did an episode. I’m going to go back and look and see what episode it was. Yes, episode 27.

00:15:29
Three critical steps to create routines that stick. So you’re going to want to go listen to that episode to find tips for creating routines. The main thing is you’re going to decide. You’re going to decide, don’t pick all five of those routines. You’re going to decide on one routine that you’re going to implement.

00:15:47
You’re going to decide that you’re going to focus on that and then you’re going to get it set up. I feel like a lot of times I can be thinking about something I want to do, can be thinking about it and thinking about it and consuming information about it. But until I actually decide, and until I actually go in and get it set up, nothing’s going to happen. And then tie it to something you already do. That’s a key secret.

00:16:10
So go listen to episode 27 for more ideas and helpful steps for creating routines that actually stick. And I invite you again to join us in Organized Life Academy 2024. There’s a lot of new people in there. There’s our core members in there. It’s just such a great, inexpensive way to keep you going, to keep you managing your home confidently, to introducing new mindset tools and having someone kind of tell it’s like going to the gym or going to a class at the gym and they just tell you what to do.

00:16:48
You can go in, relax, and yes, you’re going to do the work, but you don’t have to think about it or plan it out. You just show up and they tell you what to do and it takes care of your body, they take care of your muscles. Same thing with Organized Life Academy. You come in, you show up and I’ll tell you everything that you need to be doing and you can choose, I’m going to do this. I’m going to really do this well, I’m going to relax a little bit here.

00:17:13
You listen to your own body in your class to know what to do, but you listen to your own schedule and your own circumstances in your family at the moment and you do what you can that month. Join us in Organized Life Academy. The website is simplysquaredaway/oca2024 to get more information and join. There’s a payment plan and there’s full pay and get in now to get the extra bonuses. On our last call, one of the students in Organized Life Academy shared her thoughts about it.

00:17:47
I’m going to play that right now. Organized Life Academy came into being and I think the thing for me was I was in the empty nest and it was hard for me to let go of things. I was in a state of overwhelm with stuff because I still had a lot of their stuff and just sentimental things. So Organized Life Academy helped me process the sentimental side of things and get me to recognize of why I was hanging on to stuff and I was hanging on to things really for the wrong reason. And then it allowed me to just release it.

00:18:22
As well, I needed to have that mindset shift in order to sell our family home and downsize, cut our possessions in half and let go of things. And I honestly feel I would not have been able to do that had I not done the mindset work that comes with the coaching and whatnot and being in a community as well and listening to others, recognizing that, oh, I’m not the only one that feels this way. It’s sort of like, oh, we have company and we’re encouraging. And even though I’m in Canada, I have such a community here with all of you and it’s something I look forward to. That’s what Organized Life Academy has done for me and it’s continuing to help me grow and get moving into the place I love for our next 20 years in retirement.

00:19:11
Just get it the way I want and stuff. I probably have the most peace in my life around organization and where things are at in my life than I’ve had most of it. Wait, if you’re finding this podcast useful, you must check out the Organized Coach Academy. It’s my course where I walk you through every step to get your business organized, to get yourself organized, to save money and time, to prepare, to hire someone to do all the things that you want to do in your business with ease. Check that out at Simplysquaredaway.com/OCA.

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00:20:09
Until next week, have a beautiful day.