I have a love/hate relationship with organizing and clutter. I love organizing at your house, I hate organizing at mine. What’s worse, I have a lot of junk and I have the shortest attention span given to an adult.
I have totally read organizing blogs and blogs about how to get rid of all the clutter... no method has ever worked for me. Mostly because I don’t want to waste time on it when I could be doing something fun.
Over the last few years I have found something that works. I love it. I call it my “15 Minute List.”
I still have my regular to do list that I check off through out my regular day and my daily routine. The 15 Minute List is made of a few things I take from my to do list; projects, messy rooms, organizing tasks etc. The bigger tasks that are always making a fuss in the back of my mind, but I never make time to do them.
There are two ways that I use my 15 minute list. On a day that I will be home most of the day, or I find myself feeling ambitious, I will pick 3 things, write them on my chalk board on the fridge or a few post-it notes on my desk, set a 15 minute timer and really dive in to a task. Just one task at a time.
I work well and quickly for 15 solid minutes. If I get interrupted by a kiddo with a need, I pause my timer and start up again immediately after I shoo my kiddo away. After my 15 minutes I refill my coffee, make sure I am ready, then I move on to the next 15 minute task. I put a check mark next to each as I go so I don’t have to remember where I left off.
If I finish a task on my list, I just add another one and keep going through the list. Boy do I love checking things off on my lists....
Reality is, I dont have time to spend hours every day organizing or checking off lists. But, I still do my 15 minutes every day.
Every one of us can find 15 minutes somewhere in our day.
The other way I do my list is the most common for me. I move my 15 minute list to my handy dandy post-it’s on my desk. (I am ordering these ones next) I won’t have time to really dedicate to it this week. So, because I have to keep moving forward, I will spend 15 minutes on one task today. 15 minutes on the next task tomorrow. On and on until forever.
I always do 3 tasks at a time. You can do 1 or more, but I feel like switching from task to task really accommodates my inability to focus on one thing too long and its short enough that by the end of the week I will have spent at least 30 min deeply focused on each task. Often times I can squeeze 15 minutes out of my morning and another 15 minutes out of my evening, doubling my efforts.
I will always have organizing and decluttering to do with 8 people living in this small house, but I don’t always us my 15 minute list to organize. I also use my 15 minute list to deep clean a specific zone of the house. You can remove everything from a cabinet, clean the shelves, wipe everything down and put it all back. If you hurry, you can do anything in 15 minutes.
A little secret, when I am feeling rebellious or particularly sassy, one of my 15 min list items will be “crochet” or “craft”.... because I need to do those things too... because I am me... and I have to...
Now, the real solution to this problem will come when I stop buying so much stuff and teach my family to put things away where they belong... I am working on that this year.
Cheers!
Tammy
