Benefits of Organization: Self-Care
I couldn’t let this month go by without talking about not only how we love those around us, but also how we love ourselves. There are lots of ways that we can practice self-care and relax from our busy lives. I would argue that organizing key spaces in your home is one of them! Last month we talked about Visual Clutter Stress (jump back and read this one if you haven’t read it yet!), so it seems logical to follow-up this month with some practical ways to combat that stress.
First, I need to tell you that this topic is the whole reason I started this business. As a young mother of toddlers and babies, I experienced a lot of anxiety that I wasn’t doing things right or doing enough. But I also observed a lot of parents over-scheduling their kids, over-buying consumable goods, and over-taxing their energy, and so on and so on. I found that when I stopped and was thoughtful about our priorities as a family – thoughtful with our time, money, and energy – I often felt better as a parent. I also learned that visual clutter really affects me and my daily mood and that having an organized home reduced my stress. My kids are no longer toddlers (close, they are pre-teens!) and our lives are not stress-free, but I appreciate the rhythms we have worked out along the way to manage our household as gracefully as we can.
Now, back to you… The true benefits of organizing your home really come down to self-care. Organizing can lead to reduced stress, healthier eating, better sleep, improved relationships, and increased productivity. (Check out our latest Instagram posts for more about these organization benefits.) I don’t know anyone that doesn’t want these attributes to show up more in their life. But what can we change in our daily life to start making progress toward these goals? Here are a few places to start…
Ask for and accept help.
If I could write a book one day to share my thoughts on our current generation, this may be the subject! In my opinion, we have become so bent on self-reliance and independence that we have forgotten that we were made to live in community with one another. Connection to others comes when we open our messy lives to people we trust and ask for help … or simply accept help when it’s offered. Maybe schedule a closet purge date with a friend, or a beauty product swap gathering with a group of friends? Maybe ask a neighbor to share carpool with you to reduce the taxi driving load? Maybe create some systems in your home that everyone can follow so that tasks do not primarily fall on one person?
Prioritize.
We cannot do all things well all the time. Focus on where you want to spend your time, money, and energy. For everything else, find solutions to simplify your life and minimize your effort. Maybe that means hiring someone to help manage household tasks? Maybe that means reducing the amount of stuff in your home that you need to manage? Maybe that means creating a family calendar to manage time commitments or a family budget to manage expenses?
Take It Bit By Bit.
This is the lesson my daughter taught me when she was learning to do puzzles and was starting to feel overwhelmed by the task. Simplifying our lives is a process that takes time and may be best handled in chinks. Start with your first priority, work on it, then build on your success. Maybe that means decluttering a storage space, but it could also mean meal planning, budgeting, establishing a family command center, or setting up a chore chart.
What does this all have to do with organizing? Stop thinking of organization as pretty pictures of closets or products that you buy at big box stores. Organizing is about problem-solving, simplifying, and thoughtfulness. Organizing is creating a plan to manage our time, resources, and energy. When we focus on organizing our life, we practice self-care — which is the ultimate goal after all.
