What are the main differences between an orderly home and a disorganized home? Creating routines and writing them down creates a procedure for everyone in the family to learn how to get organized. It's also the key to productivity.
The main differences between an orderly home and a disorganized home are usually easy to spot. Lorie Marrero, who is the owner of "LivingOrder", a professional organization company that creates organizing solutions for homes and businesses, explains: "An orderly home is a place where everyone that shares that space can find what they need in a short amount of time. When something needs to be purchased, the appropriate person knows about it, it is purchased, and things run smoothly. You don't have ten of the same things because you can't always find the thing you're looking for. Having a 'home' for everything makes for smarter purchases, too. You don't wind up buying duplicates of the things you need because you always know where they are and where they belong. Having your home in order saves you money, saves your time and makes you more productive. A disorganized space creates stress, costs you in money and time, and it's very distracting when you are trying to think and to work."
So, now that you know what the main differences are between what an orderly home and a disorganized home; what can you do if yours falls into the category of the latter? One important step to home organization is to have a schedule in how, where and when you do or put certain things.
What do organized routines look like? Lorie offers this explanation, "Obviously, it is different for every situation. For the most part, organized routines are repetitive and have a cycle. Whether they are daily, weekly, monthly or yearly, they are things that you do over and over again to maintain your home. There is usually some kind of procedure that's involved in it whether it is written down or not. In larger homes, where we are helping to manage staff like housekeepers or nannies, we do write the routines down."
Now, most of us do not have such large homes or incomes but even with a smaller household, she goes on to remark, "Writing down your routines can also be really helpful in a family; especially if you are trying to teach your children how to do some of these household things and trying to delegate responsibilities to them or to your spouse. It can feel a little business-like to do that, but it can also be very liberating. For example, just writing the directions down on a piece of paper for how to do the laundry can be a big help. Even if it just says, 'For white loads you need this amount of product and you run it on this temperature, in this cycle, and you dry it at this temperature.' You can just write down what the different specifications for each kind of load are...now your kids have no excuse for not knowing."
Lorie goes on to remind us, "The word 'procedure' is kind of intimidating because it sounds like business, but really it is just a sheet of paper with instructions on it. You can make your procedures as formal as you want them to be. Even if you just stuck Post-it notes with the information written on them, it would really help a lot in your ability to delegate household duties." Another option she discusses is: "A lot of procedures can also be written in the form of a checklist. Like a child's morning routine which could have things listed like: Are your teeth brushed? Is your hair combed? Have you fed the dog? Did you get your back pack?"
Even though, writing everything down may seem too time consuming at first, it will save you time in the end when everyone knows where they are supposed to be and what they are supposed to be doing, without seeking you out to ask. As Lorie says, "We have a ton of checklists that we use with people. A lot of the teaching of others about home organization and implementing these kinds of routines involve checklists." If professional organizers use these "procedures" to teach you how to have an orderly home, doesn't it follow that using them yourself will help you keep it that way?
