The 15-minute Rule

Are you totally overwhelmed by the idea of getting organized?  Does the idea of gutting a room and setting it straight (see here) make you want to run and hide?  Maybe you should try the 15-minute rule.

It's so simple.  All you do is select a organizational hotspot, like the junk drawer, a kitchen cabinet or the sock drawer.  Set a timer for 15 minutes.  Work in a focused manner while the timer is running.  When it buzzes, you -- are you ready?  You stop.  It's over.  You're done. That wasn't so hard, was it?  You can do anything for 15 minutes.  If you are a mom, you birthed babies, and that is a lot harder and takes way more than 15 minutes.

The key to making this technique work is to do a 15 minute segment or two every day, and to maintain the areas you have already organized.  Maintaining your progress means you don't let it get bad again.  You will need to figure out why it got that way in the first place and come up with a better system.  If the tools that belong in the garage keep migrating to your junk drawer, maybe you need a cute basket near the garage door for the tools to be dropped off.  Or better yet, develop a habit of putting things back where they belong when you finish using them.  If the mail always piles up on the kitchen table, maybe you need another cute basket for the mail.  And a habit of "look and toss" instead of "look and shuffle."  "Look and shuffle" is when you look through the mail, see 6 pieces of junk mail that no one cares about, and lay the whole stack of mail on the counter.  Later, your spouse looks at it, restacks it and moves it to the kitchen table.  The baby sees it, grabs it, drools on it and drops it on the floor.  You get the idea.  Everybody looks and shuffles, but nobody does anything productive with it.  Instead of all that drama, why not just toss all the unnecessary mail immediately.  Now you are just left with magazines and bills, which you, of course, take straight to your home office and put in your "To Be Paid" file.  (But you are so cool, you have probably opted for the digital versions of your magazines and online bill paying, so now you don't even have that.  You have decluttered and simplified your life.  Good for you!)

Before you know it, you will have sailed through organizing the entire house without even breaking a sweat.  And who knows, after you see all the progress you've made in a few short weeks, you might even be ready to take on a whole room.

Angela