1. Review what you wear
I suggest you empty one drawer at a time and go through every item separating into piles of things you will wear and things you won't wear.  If it doesn't fit or you don't like it, don't let it take up space in your dresser or closet!  Put items that you will wear back in the space and relocate the items you won't wear (in our case, they will go in the basement in a tote for my younger son, but you could put them in a box for Goodwill.)  Repeat with each drawer and section of your closet.  Don't forget shoes, scarves, belts, bags, etc.

2. Curate your surfaces
Empty each shelf, dresser top, or drawer.  Similar to what you did with your clothes, review each item and decide to keep in place, keep but relocate, or get rid of.  Put the keep in place items back, the keep but relocation items in their new home, and box up other items for donation.

3. Clear the floor
Look closely at anything that touches the floor that isn't furniture.  If it's trash, throw it away.  If it's not trash, why is it on the floor?  Find a new home for it either within your room or elsewhere in your home, or donate it.

4. Measure and plan
Measure everything!   Write down the dimensions of your room and all of your furniture that you plan to keep.  Create a scale model of your room and all the furniture to help decide on a floor plan.  You can go old school and use grid paper to map out your room and then cut out pieces of furniture to scale or you could use a digital option like planyourroom.com.  Arranging and rearranging on paper or virtually will save you time, effort, and money!  It will help you clearly see how much space you have so when you buy new items, they are the correct size.  You can also determine where you want to position everything ahead of time to cut down on the muscle needed to move furniture!  

5. Move only once
Once you've decided what to keep and what you need to purchase, only move your furniture once.  For our project, we will be ordering the new items and they will stay in the garage until after the room has been painted.  On painting day, we will empty the old furniture and remove it from the room.  Remaining furniture will be moved to the middle of the room until the paint is dry. The existing furniture will be moved into the location we decided on in step 4, and the new furniture will be brought to the room and assembled in it's new home.

I'm excited for my son's bedroom refresh (and a little sad to cover the paint that has complemented several little boy themes over the years) and I'm hopeful this process will help him learn how to keep his space organized and make it his own.  Are you inspired to do a little refresh of your own??

So if there aren't very many hours left in the day to work with, what are my options?   I decided I have to be content with not doing a lot of extra things in this season of my life, and when there is time for extra, I want that time to be spent with my family.  Once I gave myself a pass on all of those things I thought I should be doing, I felt so much better!  I was the one putting most of the pressure on myself.  

I encourage you to give this exercise a try! 

1. You may want to start by tracking your time to really see how you are spending your hours.  Use this free time tracker worksheet for this step! 
2. Summarize your time tracker into categories with total time spent on each category  (example: work =8 hours, cooking = 2 hours, cleaning =1 hour, etc.)
3. Then mark the items that are non-negotiable and find out how much time you have left in your 24 hours after the necessary items are complete.
4. Fill in the blanks of your day with other tasks.
5. Give yourself permission to say no or to NOT do something if it will take away from something else you want or need to spend your time on.

If you're a bit of a spreadsheet geek like me, shoot me an email at info@mylifeinorder.com and ask me to send you the How to Spend 24 hours spreadsheet that does all the math for you! 

Check out all of the other time management posts on the blog to help you find ways to balance all that you want and need to do into the realistic framework of a 24 hour day!  

Last week was Labor Day which meant a day off of work for many of us.  Long weekends are exciting, but short weeks tend to overwhelm me.  There is just as much to do, with one less day to get it done.  When time is short, choosing the right thing to work on first is even more important.  

"There's so much to do that I don't even know where to start!"  How many times have you said that?  I'm here to help!  Not because I'm the expert, but because I've faltered and failed enough times to find a better way.  

Gary Keller suggests in his book The One Thing that we ask ourselves this question over and over, "What is the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”  In the past, I thought that checking several things off of my to do list was better than completing one task - even if that one task was more important or urgent. 

In fact, doing less, can help us accomplish more in the long run.  Keller says, “Until my ONE Thing is done — everything else is a distraction.”  Distractions are everywhere - email anyone??  Read the last post about the No Email Hour to help avoid that trap!  Once you figure out what that ONE thing is, focus on it, and accomplish it, you repeat the process over and over!  The hard part is determining what that ONE thing is.  

Experts often point to the Eisenhower Matrix of urgent and important tasks.  This matrix is named after the 34th President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was experienced at prioritizing while he was a general in the US Army and the Allied Forces Supreme Commander in World War II.   He suggested identifying the urgency and importance of a task to determine what to do first.  An urgent task is one that is compelling or requires immediate action or attention.  An important task is one that is of great significance or value.  If a task is both important and urgent, that puts it in the "do first" quadrant.  A task that is important, but not urgent should be scheduled for a later time while a task that is urgent but less important can be delegated to someone else.  Finally, if a task is not urgent and not important, this is something that likely not even do at all! 

The Eisenhower matrix is a great framework to help sort out your tasks, but I would suggest a little twist to increase productivity even more using this simple order.
​

1. Delegate - it's super easy to check something off your list when you don't even have to do it!
2. Automate -  do one or more steps of the process, and the rest happens automatically.
3. Remove Stress - a big, scary task looming over you will hinder your productivity the rest of the day - just do it!
4. Consider Dependencies - be aware of cause and effect and think downstream.

​A busy day at home is the perfect opportunity to apply these steps.  Let's say you have a sink full of dirty dishes, 2 loads of laundry to do, a doctor appointment to schedule, and uncomfortable email to send, cookies to bake for an event,  kids to take to and from sports practice, and a few things to pick up at the store.  Here's how the 4 steps above can help you be productive.

First you should look for an opportunity to delegate.  If you can completely delegate a task, that's an easy win, but even if you can delegate only a step in the process, that can free you up to work on something else at the same time.  If you have kids, there are plenty of ways they can help like unloading the clean dishes from the dishwasher, sorting laundry or even starting a load.   

​You have several automations already created for you in your day.  In our busy day example, your dishwasher and clothes washer and dryer automate some of your tasks.  Automations do require prep work.  You have to empty the dishwasher of clean dishes and load it with dirty dishes before you can start it.  You have to gather and sort your laundry, put a load in the washer with detergent before you can start the washer.   Once you get your machines working for you, you can complete other tasks while your dishes and clothes are getting clean - in this example, scheduling that doctor appointment.  

It is important to get automated tasks going before you do other tasks.  If you waited until late in the day to start the laundry, the automation doesn't buy you as much time as if you start it early in the day.  You may need to revisit your automated processes from time to time (like switching the clothes from the washer to the dryer in order to start a new load)

Now that you've got others working for you (delegation) and your machines working for you (automation), it's time to remove the stress.  There may be one task on your list that has been causing you anxiety or stress.  If you put it off, you may be focusing on it instead of other tasks throughout the day.  By getting it out of the way, you will better be able to focus later.  In our example, that uncomfortable email may be a source of stress.  While your machines are working for you, take the time to just do it!

Finally consider dependencies in tasks.  You still need to take kids to and from sports practices, make cookies, and go to the store.  The kids' practice is dependent on a specific time.  It's scheduled, so you can't do it before the time it occurs.  Since you'll be away from home during the drive to and from practice, and you probably shouldn't leave the house with your oven on, you either have to get the cookies finished before you leave, have enough time to bake the batches while practice is in session, or not start until you return home from pickup.  You don't have any chocolate chips, so you can't make chocolate chip cookies until you've been to the store.  Now that you've thought through all of your to-do's, you can determine the best order to complete your tasks in.  

By using these 4 steps along with the principles of the Eisenhower matrix, you will be able to choose to put first things first and become the most productive version of yourself!

​Sources

Keller, Gary. The One Thing: the Surprisingly Simple Truth behind Extraordinary Results. John Murray Press, 2019.

“The Eisenhower Matrix: Introduction & 3-Minute Video Tutorial.” Eisenhower, 2017, www.eisenhower.me/eisenhower-matrix/. ​