Falling Off the Home Organization Wagon

It happens to everyone at some point. You've gotten your house completely organized. Okay, well, at least mostly organized. And then something happens. Maybe you're planning for a trip, an unexpected emergency comes up, you get busy and stressed out at work so all you want to do when you come home is relax and make the world go away. Then slowly your house creeps into a level of chaos again. Books, papers, stuff is just accumulating everywhere. I'm here to help.

Stop The Chaos
Make a point to make sure that you stop the chaos in its tracks right now. Don't let it get any worse than it is right now. Enlist the help of others who live in the house if they are contributing to the home organization problem. If you don't stop it now, it will just get worse. If the paper coming into your home is contributing to the home organization problem, make sure that from this point forward you have a plan to deal with that paper problem. Worry about cleaning up the existing mess later. Just make sure you don't add to it.

Make A Plan
Take a look at the chaos in your home. Sit down and figure out which area is the worst and set aside time to tackle that room. You already know what you did to organize that room in your home in the first place. So sit down and make a plan to get it organized again but give yourself a measurable timeframe to get it done in. Don't just tell yourself that you'll get to it sometime soon. Set aside a specific time within the next week to actually do it. Do the same thing with every other room in your home that you need to organize.

Figure Out What Went Wrong
This home organization step is important because you can't prevent it from happening again if you don't know what went wrong in the first place. So sit down and take an evaluation of your home organization problem. Were you feeling stressed out so you stopped putting stuff away? Were you focused on another area of your life and ignored your home? Figure out why you stopped keeping your home organized and then figure out how to avoid that problem in the future. Make a real, concrete plan here, not vague ideas. If you know it takes you 15 minutes a day to keep your paper beast in order, write in your plan how you will still fit those 15 minutes in when you get stressed out during a day. Then file this home organization plan somewhere that is easily accessible. Be aware when you get off track and take out your plan to keep you grounded.