Latest Blog Posts
Reading time – 5 minutes
What is spring clearing? Is it a typo? I attended the Association of Professional Declutterers and Organizers annual conference in London England a couple of years ago. It was enlightening to learn and share organizing ideas with Professional Organizers from England, Scotland, Wales, Netherlands, Japan, Dubai and the United States. This is where I picked up the phrase “Spring Clearing”.
If spring clearing happens first then spring cleaning is much faster. Share on XStart with clearing out the items that are:
Broken
They are the easiest to let go of but may be hard to get transported to the waste depot. If you can’t take them yourself can call a junk removal company or make a trade with a friend or neighbour. They can take your things to the dump and you can ….. bake a pie, mow their lawn, help with their gardening, and have them over for supper…..
Donations
There are things that you might not have used in a while, your children have outgrown playing with certain toys, you have a new one and you can let go of an older model of the same item, or interests and hobbies have changed……. Take these items to thrift stores or call and see if they will pick up your donations. Learn more about decluttering.
Want them but don’t need them
This group of items is hard to let go of. Try to let go of 2 or 3 items that have some sentimental value but you don’t need and you don’t have space for them. It takes time and practice to be able to let go of these things. With time it will get easier and you will enjoy having fewer things that are taking up space that you can use in a new way opening up new and exciting adventures in your life.
Here is a video of my adventure doing spring clearing.
A flood started the clearing process and then I just continued deciding what things were around my home that I didn’t need.
[pb_vidembed title=”Mind over Clutter does spring clearing” caption=”” url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmsLCPSrjyU” type=”yt” w=”480″ h=”385″]
If you need information on where to donate and recycle items send me your email address and I will send you a 9-page resource document.
Julie Stobbe is a Trained Professional Organizer and Lifestyle Organizing Coach who brings happiness to homes and organization to offices, coaching you virtually using Zoom. She has been working with clients since 2006 to provide customized organizing solutions to suit their individual needs and situations. She uses her love of physical activity to reduce clutter, in your home, office, mind and time. If you’re in a difficult transition Julie can coach you to break-free of emotional clutter constraining you from living life on your terms. Online courses are available to help instruct, coach and support your organizing projects. Get started by downloading Tips for Reorganizing 9 Rooms.
Contact her at julie@mindoverclutter.ca
Twitter – Facebook – Facebook group Organizing Mind and Space
Meal planning can seem like a difficult chore. I am going to talk about 4 ways to simplify your menu planning. Organizing your menu will give you a healthier diet, save money on food and create a relaxed mealtime.
Shuffle the Deck
Make menu planning into a game. Compile recipes for 20 to 30 easy-to-prepare main dishes and the same number of side dishes and desserts. Cut them out of magazines, and download them from the internet. Get together with friends and each brings 10 recipes and shares them.
1. Put each recipe on a 5 x 8 card, noting any special ingredients that require a stop at a specialty shop.
2. File all the recipe cards in a card box.
Each week:
1. Select your required number of main dishes.
2. Mix and match them with side dishes and desserts.
Mix and Match side dishes to give each meal a new appearance
Meal Planning can be easy if you make it into a game
Your menu is complete.
Plan a month of meals
I like to plan a month of meals and then take the plan and repeat it for 6 months. I find there are different meals made in the winter than in the summer. Make one menu plan for the colder months and one menu plan for the warmer months. Each year review it, and add a few new items. The easiest way to do this is to write down everything you make for one month. Now you have a plan. You might want to look through books, or websites and collect ideas. I used to do my planning while I was waiting for one of my children to finish sports practice. With this system, you will only eat each item 6 times. If you didn’t plan the menu I think there would be some meals you would eat a lot more times than just 6 times in 6 months.
Plan using a grid
I like to make a grid with categories across the top. The categories might be based on food, ways of cooking or time limits. It may be a combination of these categories. When my kids were at home, I needed some meals to be ready quickly because they came home and left for work or a sport. On other days I would arrive home from work later so I prepared supper in a crockpot.
Under each category (column), you fill in meal ideas, record where to find the recipe and if there are any unusual ingredients that need to be put on the grocery list.
Each week you read across (row) and you have your menu and your grocery list. This provides lots of variety in the menu and it is adaptable to your needs each week.
As my children got older one of the categories became new food. After the new meal, we would evaluate it and see if it stayed on the grid or was voted off. If it stayed on the grid, it would be moved to the appropriate category, after all, it isn’t a new meal anymore.
Adapt the categories to suit your family and culture. This grid has 7 rows so it is a menu plan for 2 months. Repeat it 6 times and you have a year of meals planned.Save money on food, save time on deciding what's for supper and have less stressful mealtimes by planning once and using your plans over and over. Share on X
Apps
The other ideas lent themselves to paper. I like paper because you can post it in the kitchen and everyone knows what is for supper and can help. Apps are wonderful. You can select your menu and the app will generate the shopping list. Big Oven is one of many apps.
Breakfast and Lunch
You can plan your breakfast and lunch menus in the same way. I find those meals to be more repetitious and easy to just have groceries on hand and let people decide what they feel like. I always make more supper servings than are needed at the meal (2-4 more) so they are available for lunches and late night snacks for the hard-working athletes in the home. Sometimes I would remove those extra servings before the group sat down to supper.
However, you like to plan, paper or digital or a combination use your plans over and over. Do the planning once a month, twice a year or yearly. Take the stress out of “what’s for supper” and you will end up spending less money eating out, less money wasting food and less time worrying.
Coupon Tip
If you like clipping coupons, write your shopping list on the back of an envelope, and stuff the envelope with the appropriate coupons.
Leaving the decision about what to eat at the last minute makes every meal stressful. Do you like menu planning? If you want help book a virtual menu planning meeting with me.
Julie Stobbe is a Trained Professional Organizer and Lifestyle Organizing Coach who brings happiness to homes and organization to offices, coaching you virtually using Zoom. She has been working with clients since 2006 to provide customized organizing solutions to suit their individual needs and situation. She uses her love of teaching to reduce clutter, in your home, office, mind and time. If you’re in a difficult transition Julie can coach you to break-free of emotional clutter constraining you from living life on your terms. Get started by downloading Tips for Reorganizing 9 Rooms.
Contact her at julie@mindoverclutter.ca
Twitter – Facebook – Facebook group Organizing Mind and Space
Just because something brought you joy in the past doesn’t mean you should carry it forever. The possessions you keep should represent the person you are trying to become, not the person you were. Keep this in mind when you start your decluttering journey. As you start to let go of things it will become easier and easier. Here are steps to help you on your path to finding your treasures.
Planning the space
1. Decide what the goal is for the room. Is it to have a:
- Beautiful compact space
- Functional workshop
- Sense of freedom and control
- the Joy of financially exchanging stuff for new experiences and pleasures.
- Clear out a parent’s home
- Make things easier for the next generation
- Streamline your lifestyle
2. Decide what you want the room to look like and be used for. Draw a floor plan and make a list of activities that happen in that space. It will help you to know what to keep.
3. Decision criteria
Set up some questions to help you with your decision making. Here are some examples:
- How many of these do I have? How many is enough?
- Does the item fit in with my values?
- Is this item current?
- Is this item really valuable?
- Will owning this help to resolve my clutter?
- What is the worst thing that can happen if I don’t have it?
- Can I borrow it from somewhere?
- Does it bring me joy?
- Do you need it?
4. How much is enough?
Look around the room and decide what percentage of stuff you need to give away so everything will fit into the room. 25% 50% 75%?
5. If you don’t schedule it, it won’t get done.
Schedule time and do it when you are not rushed. Do one area, room, box or even corner of a room depending on how much stuff you have to go through and your deadline.
6. Prepare the room for working.
You will need a series of boxes, bins, bags or containers. for garbage, recycling, donations, items to go to other rooms, and items to return to people.
5 Methods for decluttering the room
I’m going to go through a number of ways to sort through your items and you can decide what method works best for you. At first, decluttering is easy because you find items that you know you don’t want and just haven’t given them away yet. Then it becomes more challenging. You must chip away at identifying which items are true treasures versus those you feel guilty about giving away. Remember to reduce by the percentage you choose in your planning.
1. Have a box
The simplest way to start is to keep a box in your closet and whenever you find something you don’t need put it into the box and you can start decluttering right away.
2. Skimming
- Go to a closet/cupboard and select the best items in each category.
- Most cupboards/closets will have more than one category.
- For example, in a kitchen, the cupboard might have baking dishes, casserole dishes, muffin tins, and loaf pans. Pick the best 1 or 2 of each of these 4 categories and donate the rest.
- Continue to open each cupboard and drawer skimming the contents and selecting 1 or 2 items from each category.
3. Sort then declutter
- Go clockwise around the room sorting items into groups by function
- Do the surfaces first and then the drawers and cupboards next
- When you are done, the garbage and recycling will be collected and removed from the room
- All the items in the room will be in groups
- Each room will have different categories/groups of items. Here are some examples, books, electronics, tools, dishes, home decor, games, clothing, photos etc
Look at one category/group and apply the questions and percentage you determined in the planning stage. Start removing items.
If that method doesn’t work for you and you are keeping everything, try a different method.
4. Grouping
Keep the Best of the Best. Instead of thinking about giving things away, it might be easier to think about keeping the best.
- After you have sorted the room make sure you are keeping the best one. You need to see all of the items in one group together and keep only as many as you need or the percentage you set in the planning stage, keep the best ones.
5. Triage
- Gather all your items from one category
- Pick up the first three and remove the one you like the least.
- Pick up 3 more and remove one again
- After you have gone through the category/group you will have decluttered by 1/3
If you are sentimental
- Try taking a picture of the items so you have the memory and let go of the item go.
- Find a good home for the thing you are letting go of, they are still useful just not to you anymore.
- “Shrink it”, only keep one item from a collection instead of the entire collection, you will still have the memory
- Ask yourself, what would be best, having a number of boxes with large quantities of unsorted keepsakes or a carefully assembled box of very precious treasures?
Decluttering is about having a mindset of letting go and having less. Once you experience the joy of being unburdened from cleaning, organizing, buying, and repairing stuff you don’t need, want, use or like you’ll wonder why you didn’t start sooner. Enjoy the journey. Set your goals, develop your decision criteria and then begin decluttering your space. Share on X
Did I miss anything?
If you need help to start your decluttering project work with me virtually on zoom.
Julie Stobbe is a Trained Professional Organizer and Lifestyle Organizing Coach who brings happiness to homes and organization to offices, coaching you virtually using Zoom. She has been working with clients since 2006 to provide customized organizing solutions to suit their individual needs and situations. She uses her love of teaching to reduce clutter, in your home, office, mind and time. She guides and supports you to be accountable for your time, to complete projects and to reach your goals. If you’re in a difficult transition Julie can coach you to break-free of emotional clutter constraining you from living life on your terms. Online courses are available to help instruct, coach and support your organizing projects. Get started by downloading Tips for Reorganizing 9 Rooms.
Contact her at julie@mindoverclutter.ca
Twitter – Facebook – Facebook group Organizing Mind and Space
Reading time – 5 minutes
I believe that having routines helps you to accomplish things using less energy. It automates chores and tasks that need to be done regularly to keep an office or home organized. If only one person knows the routines for all the tasks that person will get burnt out doing all the work. Delegating the work is the key. How do you delegate work that is in someone’s mind?
Checklists
Checklists can be used for many reasons.
- to make a process repeatable
- to clarify a task for another person
- to schedule tasks to be completed at regular intervals
- to reduce what you need to remember
Reproducible
I have many tasks that I do infrequently or that I am learning. I set up a checklist with all the steps I need to do so I don’t forget one. The checklist takes the stress out of completing the task. I don’t need to figure out how to do it each time. The checklist will be refined after each use when I realize I left out a step or I have found an easier way to do it.
Some examples are:
Collecting income tax records:
- material needs to be gathered from several institutions,
- forms need to be filed,
- receipts need to be organized,
- copies made
- information needs to upload to a portal
Setting up meetings:
- agendas prepared
- reports requested to be compiled/ submitted ahead of time for the meeting
- meeting notice was sent with the current date, time, location and attachments
- set-up meeting room in-person or virtual
- take meeting minutes
- meeting minutes sent out to attendees
- follow up on items to be completed by participants
Social media posting
- make a list of hyperlinks to social media sites so I don’t need to look them up each time
- record steps on how to post to each site until it becomes easy
- record the date when something was posted
- record the topic that was posted so it is not posted twice
If you need help with this task book a virtual session with me and we can set up your social media posting checklist.
Clarity
How many times have you asked someone to do something and you come back and you are shocked by what they did or didn’t do? Checklists clarify what needs to be done in order to call the task completed. It allows you to delegate work.
Some examples are:
Clean your room – this means something different to each person
- Take the sheets and pillowcases off the bed and put them in the laundry
- Put on clean sheets and pillowcases
- Pick up everything off the floor and put it away
- Dust everything( list the items)
- Vacuum the floor, closet and under the bed
- Empty the garbage can into ……
Filing
- place documents in designated box for filing
- recycle advertising
- shred unimportant documents with personal information on them
- sort the pile alphabetically or by date or category
- file placing new documents in the front, header to the left
Planning an event for your family or at work
- set date, time and place
- send out notice/invitation with date, time, directions, need to know information, RSVP
- start to build a purchasing list
- decide on food and drink- quantities, order or prepare on site
- set up the room – seating, decorations, pens, paper
- clean the location
- have a place for coats
- plan activity- ice breakers, games,
- purchase/shop for items for the event
- set up a timetable for the event
- reminder notice
- post signs showing where to go, the name of the event Developing a checklist is a good way to think through all the steps in a task. Share on X
Avoid mistakes, frustration and embarrassment
Checklists are great for things you do from memory to confirm you have not missed anything. Memory is fallible, especially the busier you get. If you have a checklist you won’t forget to make sure you have enough handouts for your meeting, you have defrosted the meat for supper, you have your passport etc. Sometimes I have a mental checklist I run through before leaving the house, a written checklist is better
How to write a good checklist
In his book, Gawande said a good checklist contains only five to nine items and fits on one page. You might not get your checklist right the first time, so practice using it in the real world, and then refine it as needed.
Checklists can improve performance, help you be more consistent, reduce anxiety and errors. If something you are doing and is hard, complicated, never seems to go right or needs to be delegated try making a checklist for that task. It is a good way to think through all the steps in a task. It only works if you use it before you begin your task.
Need help making a checklist book a 30-minute complimentary virtual organizing appointment. https://mindoverclutter.as.me/virtualorganizingassessment
Julie Stobbe is a Trained Professional Organizer and Lifestyle Organizing Coach who brings happiness to homes and organization to offices, coaching you virtually using Zoom. She has been working with clients since 2006 to provide customized organizing solutions to suit their individual needs and situations. She uses her love of teaching to reduce clutter, in your home, office, mind and time. If you’re in a difficult transition Julie can coach you to break-free of emotional clutter constraining you from living life on your terms. Online courses are available to help instruct, coach and support your organizing projects. Get started by downloading Tips for Reorganizing 9 Rooms.
Contact her at julie@mindoverclutter.ca
Twitter – Facebook – Facebook group Organizing Mind and Space
Welcome to the new year. I hope you have challenges you conquer, joys you share and fun to revitalize yourself.
I am a naturally organized person. It comes very easily to me. Many people find getting and staying organized difficult. You will enjoy reading my guest blogger’s article on how to become neat by Sophia Perry of Arizona Moving Professionals.
Trust me when I tell you that a messy person can learn to be neat. As a former slob who daily transferred a ginormous pile of semi-dirty clothes from bed (when it’s sleep time) to the work desk, and vice versa, I can tell you, you too can transform. I don’t even know how it used to get to the point of having almost the entire content of my wardrobe on the bed. But it did.
And the story doesn’t end there. The most frustrating thing was the laundry. I wash one round. While it dries, the second is being washed. I still haven’t folded the first one, and the second is drying. Soon there is the third round. And the rest of my wardrobe is now clean but wrinkled beyond recognition, on an armchair waiting for something to happen. And when I finally get around to dealing with those mountains of clothes, I end up with a closet so messy that I don’t even know what clothes I have. I wish I could say these were my greatest issues, but… There were also dishes. Technically, the situation was the same as with the laundry. It’s just that I never managed to empty the dishwasher, so new dirty dishes piled up in the sink, and… Well, you get the picture. However, there is help! Much like the 12-step program, here too, there are steps to take to get on the path of tidiness.
1. Designate a place for each and every item you possess.
After a long day at work, believe me, I understand the tiredness. But don’t drop your pants, key, and shoes wherever you see fit and leave them lying there until you need them again. If you know that shoes belong in the hallway, keys on a peg next to the door, and jeans in the closet, go put them there. Repeat every day. It will start feeling normal. It will become an automatic thing.
2. Eyes on the prize – visualize the outcome and work on the road to get there.
To stay motivated, it’s vital to be realistic. Start small. Set a few attainable goals every day, and cross them off the list once you’ve done them. The crossing off will create a feeling of accomplishment and get you incentivized to keep going. It’s like training yourself. In addition to daily plans, start making weekly and monthly plans as well. Put them up on your fridge, so you remind yourself of what needs doing. It will bring some organization to your life.
Motivation can come unexpectedly. For example, once I heard a motivational speaker, whose name I can’t recollect, say: “If your bed is a mess, your life is a mess.” He explained that it’s his morning routine that makes him successful. He gets up, works out, and makes his bed. Making the bed is a task he completed early in the morning. So he set himself up for success. He already accomplished something. Needless to say, I have made a habit of making my bed every morning now.
Set small goals every day and cross them off the list. It will make you feel like you have accomplished something.
3. Stop with the hoarding.
Stop piling up clutter. Having too many things is what complicates the cleaning process. And not just that, too many items to wipe, move, and dust are downright overwhelming. As Marie Kondo says, and I’m paraphrasing – if it doesn’t make you happy, get rid of it. Also, if you haven’t used it for a long time – get rid of it. If you don’t need it – you’ve guessed it, it goes out. Finally, don’t accumulate sentimental knickknacks. Don’t get attached to things. They are just things. Many have fallen into this trap. If you don’t enjoy, need, or use something, lose it. A messy person can learn to be neat if they learn to declutter mercilessly! I have come to despise ornaments with no purpose, just because they add to the cleaning time. And time is precious.
Moreover, clutter can get in the way of productivity. Therefore, tidying up your workspace is very important. This is especially crucial if you work from home. There are already too many distractors. And several dirty coffee mugs, a mountain of clothes on your chair, and dirty socks on the floor are not helpful. Also, too many things on your desk, such as purposeless ornaments, don’t make for a suitable working environment.
Clutter can get in the way of productivity. Keep your workspace tidy and organized.
4. Simplify cleaning.
How can cleaning be simplified, you wonder? Well, simple. Organize your home so that it’s easier to tidy. Decluttering is one way to do it. But you can do more. For instance, I’ve realized that curtains really make my life difficult. So I got rid of them and replaced them with zebra blinds. They are stylish, modern, and, most importantly, easy to maintain. There is no washing, ironing, or hanging. Just an occasional wipe with a wet cloth and a bit of dusting. Good quality ones are antistatic, so even dusting is optional. Think of the areas in your home that cause you the most headaches, and figure out ways to make them more manageable.
5. It all boils down to making new habits.
Make yourself do something, even the smallest thing, every day. Not every week or every few days, but every single day. The point is to make it a habit to keep your home neat and tidy. If tidiness doesn’t come instinctively, you must train yourself. Basically, repeat until it’s a routine. Every time you leave a room, try to leave it better than you found it. Put a thing or two away. As you cook, put dirty dishes in the dishwasher as soon as you are done with them. Wipe the surface the second you spill something. Don’t let things get really filthy. So big cleaning will be less frequent.
If tidying up doesn’t come instinctively to you, make a habit of it.
A messy person can learn to be neat
Some people call it a creative mess. Some say they can only function in chaos. They claim they can’t find anything if their home is tidy. But is it really true? Or are those excuses? Old habits are hard to break, but a messy person can learn to be neat. It’s essential to change self-image. You are not a slob or a lazy person – you need to purge. Rid yourself of clutter and bad habits. Finally, make positive associations with cleaning. Listen to music or an audiobook. That way, an unpleasant, mundane task will become something more enjoyable.
Let me help you to leave your messy self behind. Book a 30-minute complimentary virtual organizing assessment. https://mindoverclutter.as.me/virtualorganizingassessment
Julie Stobbe is a Trained Professional Organizer and Lifestyle Organizing Coach who brings happiness to homes and organization to offices, coaching you virtually using Zoom. She has been working with clients since 2006 to provide customized organizing solutions to suit their individual needs and situations. She uses her love of teaching to reduce clutter, in your home, office, mind and time. If you’re in a difficult transition Julie can coach you to break-free of emotional clutter constraining you from living life on your terms. Online courses are available to help instruct, coach and support your organizing projects. Get started by downloading Tips for Reorganizing 9 Rooms.
Contact her at julie@mindoverclutter.ca
Twitter – Facebook – Facebook group Organizing Mind and Space
The bathroom has a lot of use by a number of people. it is a high traffic area in the home. Use the space well in the bathroom to make storage efficient. Here are 5 tips to help make your bathroom function better and safely.
1. Have a drawer for each person who uses the bathroom to store his or her toiletries and cosmetics. If you don’t have the space to store items in the bathroom, give each person a basket to transport their things to the bathroom from his or her bedroom, where the basket is stored.
2. Purchase under-sink storage shelves or baskets to make good use of this under-utilized area.
Find a shelf or stacking baskets to use under the sink
3. If medications are stored in the bathroom, safely store them where small children can’t gain access.
4. Store cleaning supplies safely, out of the reach of children, nearby so you can do quick cleans ups.
5. Add hooks or towel bars to the walls or over-the-door racks/hooks to hang and dry towels after use. Not enough room in the bathroom? Install hooks or bars in the bedrooms. This will keep towels off the floor, neat and clean.
Swing out towels bars provide space between each towel so they can dry quickly
Here is a link to a lovely informatic from Modern Bathroom to help you have a visual of organizing a bathroom.
If you need help organizing your bathroom book a 30 minute complimentary virtual assessment.
Julie Stobbe is a Trained Professional Organizer and Lifestyle Organizing Coach who brings happiness to homes and organization to offices, coaching you virtually using Zoom. She has been working with clients since 2006 to provide customized organizing solutions to suit their individual needs and situations. She uses her love of teaching to reduce clutter, in your home, office, mind and time. Online courses are available to help instruct, coach and support your organizing projects. Get started by downloading Tips for Reorganizing 9 Rooms.
Contact her at julie@mindoverclutter.ca
Twitter – Facebook – Facebook group Organizing Mind and Space
It’s hard to believe but we are coming to the end of our seventh blog to get off your butt and finally beat procrastination. I hope you’ve been following along and more importantly that you’ve been making progress on at least one of the things you’ve been procrastinating on. We end today with the most critical advice and the main lesson I want you to take away from all this.
Make progress every single day!
Of course, that’s easier said than done. That’s why I’m leaving you today with three simple hacks or strategies to help you. Give them a try and see if you can’t get into the habit of being productive every day instead of procrastinating.
Plan For It
It’s easy to make progress every day when you know exactly what you should be working on next. Make a plan and then decide what you will do each day of the week. Write it down in a planner and adjust daily as needed. In the morning, you can see at a glance what it is you should be doing. Then get to work on it first thing before the day gets away from you. I find it helpful to have my planner sitting right in front of me at my desk, keeping me on track.
Don’t Break The Chain
There’s something to be said about a chain or a streak. Record every day you don’t procrastinate on something. You can mark it on a monthly calendar, or create a chain of sticky notes, stickers, or even one of those paper chains you used to make in school. The goal is simple. Don’t break the chain. Once you have a few days under your belt, you’ll be motivated to go the extra mile and do that one thing you need to do to avoid breaking the streak.
Check In With Yourself
As you progress on the things you know you need to be doing, you should feel your anxiety reduced. Instead, you will feel your confidence go up. Don’t be surprised to feel proud of your accomplishments. Instead, use those feelings to propel you forward to more procrastination free days. Procrastination is a habit. It’s something you learned to do, which means it’s something you can unlearn. Stick with it, make progress every day, and enjoy those feelings of accomplishment.
Make progress every day, and enjoy those feelings of accomplishment. Share on XJulie Stobbe is a Trained Professional Organizer and Lifestyle Organizing Coach who brings happiness to homes and organization to offices, coaching you virtually using Zoom. She has been working with clients since 2006 to provide customized organizing solutions to suit their individual needs and situations. She uses her love of teaching to reduce clutter, in your home, office, mind and time. Online courses are available to help instruct, coach and support your organizing projects. Get started by downloading Tips for Reorganizing 9 Rooms.
Contact her at julie@mindoverclutter.ca
Twitter – Facebook – Facebook group Organizing Mind and Space
Something we haven’t talked about yet is that little voice in our head that either encourages us to go do something else – thus procrastinating, or the other one… the critical one… the one that tells us how much we suck because we didn’t get the things done we set out to do. Listen to your inner voices; the negative one, the fun one, change that dialogue and stop procrastination Share on X
Forgiveness
Why is it important to listen to those voices? Because they have an impact on your life both on a conscious and a subconscious level. Let’s start with that negative voice because I think it’s the most destructive of the two in the long run. Back on day one of this seven-day challenge to beat procrastination we talked about the importance of forgiving yourself. To quickly recap, it does you no good to beat yourself up over past procrastination and you should expect to “fail” by procrastinating again here and there. Nobody is perfect. We all have good days and bad days. The important part is to show up and try your best.
Negative Voice
That little negative voice in your head doesn’t help you do that. Become aware of it and when you hear it, defuse it. You can do this by responding to it out loud or in writing (via a journal). Or go up and do something else. Do whatever it takes to silence that voice. A great option is to prove it wrong by doing something productive. Over time that voice will speak up less and less unless you indulge it by paying attention to it and letting it ruin your day.
The Fun Voice
Next, it’s time to tackle the voice in your head that tells you it’s much more fun to do about anything other than what you should be doing. We all have that voice. It’s why we come up with terms like procrasticleaning and procrasticrafting. We can get pretty innovative when it comes to doing anything but the thing we don’t want to work on and that little voice is feeding us suggestions and cheering us on.
The best way to diffuse this particular voice into something more productive is with “yes, and” statements. “Yes, playing video games sounds like a lot of fun and I’m going to play for an hour or so after I get this task done.” Use the suggestions this voice gives you as bribes if they sound like something fun. Ignore them otherwise, or put them off until tomorrow.
Comment on which voice you listen to most often and why.
Julie Stobbe is a Trained Professional Organizer and Lifestyle Organizing Coach who brings happiness to homes and organization to offices, coaching you virtually using Zoom. She has been working with clients since 2006 to provide customized organizing solutions to suit their individual needs and situations. She uses her love of teaching to reduce clutter, in your home, office, mind and time. Online courses are available to help instruct, coach and support your organizing projects. Get started by downloading Tips for Reorganizing 9 Rooms.
Contact her at julie@mindoverclutter.ca
Twitter – Facebook – Facebook group Organizing Mind and Space
Beating procrastination can be hard. We do well for a few days, but then old habits set back in, or we get frustrated with our lack of apparent progress. Nothing goes fast enough. If you face a small setback at this point, it may be enough to stop working on what you wanted to accomplish in the first place. Thankfully there’s something you can do to greatly improve your chances of success. Accountability.
Procrastinating is a habit and you can get out of it and turn yourself into the motivated and productive version of yourself you want to be. Share on X
Track Your Progress
Start by tracking what you do. You can do this via a simple habit tracker. Use a box for each day of the week and check it off or fill it in when you do the thing you told yourself you would do. Keep tracking until it becomes a habit or until the project is done.
For larger projects that you may or may not work on a daily basis, it helps to write down your goal and then break it into milestones. Record your progress and how much closer you’re inching to each of your goals.
Make Daily To-Do Lists
Write out a list of everything you want to get done for the day. I find it helpful to do this the day before. Play around with how many items you put on that list. You don’t want it to overwhelm you, but you do want to challenge yourself to get more done. The list holds you accountable because you can see in black and white if you procrastinated or not.
Tell Someone About Your Plans
If there’s something you’ve been struggling to get done, tell someone else about your plans to finally tackle it. Call a friend, tell your spouse, or announce it on social media. Encourage the people you’re sharing with to check back with you on how you did. It may be the little extra push you need to stop procrastinating.
Find An Accountability Buddy
Last but not least, find someone else who’s procrastinating and start holding each other accountable. This could be as simple as checking in once in the morning to declare what you each want to get done, and then again at the end of the day to see what happened. Knowing someone else is right there with you can be super motivating.
Give each of these procrastination beating strategies a try and see which ones give you the best results. Like anything else, procrastinating is a habit and you can get out of it and turn yourself into the motivated and productive version of yourself you want to be.
Need help being accountable? Set up a complimentary 30-minute virtual appointment to help you stop procrastinating
Julie Stobbe is a Trained Professional Organizer and Lifestyle Organizing Coach who brings happiness to homes and organization to offices, coaching you virtually using Zoom. She has been working with clients since 2006 to provide customized organizing solutions to suit their individual needs and situations. She uses her love of teaching to reduce clutter in your, home, office, mind and time. Online courses are available to help instruct, coach and support your organizing projects. Get started by downloading Tips for Reorganizing 9 Rooms.
Contact her at julie@mindoverclutter.ca
Twitter – Facebook – Facebook group Organizing Mind and Space
You wake up in the morning motivated and ready to tackle whatever it is you’ve been procrastinating on. Or maybe you’re excited about a new project. You drink your coffee, get dressed, and get ready to get to work. Then something happens.
Maybe you open your email, or worse Facebook and get sucked into spending the next few hours on your computer. Or maybe a good friend calls and asks you to go shopping. Or you get an alert that your favourite TV show dropped on Netflix. It doesn’t matter what it is, the point is that there are people and things that will try to distract you into procrastinating. If you let them. 
Strategy – plan the night before
There’s a simple strategy you can use to keep this from happening. It’s to make the important project you’ve been procrastinating on a priority and work on it first thing every morning. The whole process starts the night before. Before you call it a day, sit down and make a simple plan for what you want to get done the next day. Identify the three most important tasks. These will be things that start to move the needle. Maybe they are all focused on one main project, or maybe it’s several things you know you should be getting done.
Write 3 things down
Write these three things down. They don’t have to be anything big. In fact, I find it helpful if they are all items I can take care of in an hour or less. When you get up in the morning or get to your office, look at your list and work on these three most important tasks before you do anything else. Don’t look at the email. Don’t start playing on your phone. If possible don’t even answer the phone or attend meetings before these three tasks are taken care of. Make them your number one priority.
Don’t leave it to the end of the day
This alone will make a huge difference in how your day goes, how productive you are, and it of course keeps you from procrastinating on those projects. Putting them off until the end of the day when you’re too tired to do anything is no longer an option. Stop procrastinating: strategize, write 3 tasks down, complete them first thing in the morning and beware of things that derail your plan. Share on X
Pinpoint what caused you to procrastinate
Aside from that, simply being more aware of what things, devices, and people tempt you to procrastinate is helpful. When you find yourself putting something off, look back and see if you can pinpoint what caused it. Then take action to prevent it from happening in the future.
If you’re having trouble changing your habits, book a complimentary 30 minute coaching appointment to discuss how to increase your productivity and reduce your procrastination.
Julie Stobbe is a Trained Professional Organizer and Lifestyle Organizing Coach who brings happiness to homes and organization to offices, coaching you virtually using Zoom. She has been working with clients since 2006 to provide customized organizing solutions to suit their individual needs and situations. She uses her love of teaching to reduce clutter, in your home, office, mind and time. She guides and supports you to be accountable for your time, to complete projects and to reach your goals. If you’re in a difficult transition Julie can coach you to break-free of emotional clutter constraining you from living life on your terms. Online courses are available to help instruct, coach and support your organizing projects. Get started by downloading Tips for Reorganizing 9 Rooms.
Contact her at julie@mindoverclutter.ca
Twitter – Facebook – Facebook group Organizing Mind and Space
