Moving?
Friday, April 2, 2010
Are you moving from a house and have a deadline? Start now ’cause there is no time to wait. You can accumulate many items that take up space in your home and garage over the course of the years. This can be up to the extent of losing one garage space due to the clutter flutter and having to park outside in the driveway. Some ideas that can help in the move is to:
1. Relax and don’t get more overwhelmed. Just pack up what you need and do not include the junk in the trunk. Let the clutter go and leave it and heave it.
You may already be overwhelmed with your clutter. Don’t get more overwhelmed thinking you have to get rid of it all in one day. Just promise yourself that each day you’re going to work on getting rid of just a little bit of clutter, and each day you’ll be freeing up a little more space. Before you know it, you should begin to see your table surfaces and your bedroom closet floor–so long as you don’t continue adding to it.
2. If you can’t fit another morsel . . . Just like those garages I mentioned that are stuffed to the max, if you have a room in your home that is stuffed from floor to ceiling, it’s time to take back control of that space. Focus on that one room for the next few weeks, each day choosing a few things to part with. If you don’t use it and/or you don’t love it, it’s clutter.
3. Don’t move your clutter with you. If you’re planning a move in the near future, leave your clutter behind. Seriously sort through the things you have and lighten your load.
4. If you have a team, use it. Home builders work as a team. Every person has their own specific job to do. The same idea should reign in your home.
If there are other people in your home besides you, every person in your household should be responsible for certain household tasks. Split up tasks between you and your spouse. If you have kids, give them chores and insist they do those chores before playing. If you live with roommates, come up with a task schedule so everyone chips in. It’s amazing how much time could be saved when good teamwork is put in action. If necessary, hire outside help, or ask a relative or neighbor to assist.
5. Work expands to fit the time allotted. The builders are given 5-6 months to finish building a home. That’s exactly how much time it takes. If they were given a year to finish, it might take them the whole year to do a job that could have been finished in six months.
Work expands to fit the time allotted. Never schedule your time according to how much time you have available.
Instead, schedule your time according to how long a particular project or task should actually take. Just because you have 3 hours, doesn’t mean it should take you three hours to do something that should only take an hour or so. You’ll get a lot more done if your deadlines are set properly.
6. Give yourself a plan. Can you imagine building a home without a plan? How would it ever get completed? Would it meet safety standards?
In the same sense, how much will you accomplish, and how well will you accomplish it all, without a plan? Don’t randomly go through your day, keeping all of your tasks, projects and errands in your head, jumping from one thing to the next with absolutely no plan. You’ll end the day both exhausted and unfulfilled, and most likely you’ll have a bunch of unfinished projects.
Instead, give yourself a written plan. Make a To Do list each evening for the next day. Follow it closely throughout the day. Cross things off as you finish them. At the end of each day, look at all the things you crossed off your list and rejoice in everything you have accomplished–then relax and enjoy your evenings!