Episode #148 - Keeping It Organized: How to Maintain What You Started 🎙️

Welcome to Organizing with Ease, where we simplify and organize our lives for the better. I'm Diana Moll, your host, ready to lead you on a journey towards a more organized and enriching life. Together, let's explore practical strategies, inspiring stories, and expert advice to simplify every aspect of our lives. Let's declutter our spaces, free our minds, and cultivate genuine happiness. Are you ready to embark on this journey with ease?

Let's get started. Hello, my friends. Welcome back to Organizing with Ease. I'm your host, Diana Moll. And today, we're diving into one of the biggest challenges in organizing, keeping it that way.

We started the year strong, decluttering and simplifying. But let's be honest. Clutter doesn't just disappear forever, does it? It slowly creeps back in little by little until one day you look around and wonder, how did this happen again? If you ever felt like you've made some progress only to backslide into old habits, trust me when I say you are not alone.

Studies show that without a maintenance systems in place, 50% of clutter returns within a year. That's according to the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals. Getting organized is one thing. Staying organized is another. So today, we're talking about how to break that cycle and create lasting organization.

Why clutter keeps coming back. Hint. Hint. It's more about habits and space. The power of an organizing flow.

How small, consistent actions keep things in check. Micromattenance versus big decluttering sessions, which is more effective long term. Which ones are? How to create systems that actually work for you instead of fighting against you. And, of course, I'll be sharing a simple weekly challenge to help you make real changes in your home today.

Are you ready? Let's get right into it. Why do we backslide? The psychology of the clutter creep, right? Well, the Institute of Challenging Disorganization found that 80% of things we keep, quote unquote, just in case, are never actually used.

Decision fatigue, that's when we're overwhelmed and we make poor decisions, like shoving things in a junk drawer, sticking it in the guest closet, instead of putting them in their proper place. Lack of homes yes, you heard me right quote unquote for items. Clutter happens when things don't have a designated spot. If you do not know where something belongs, it will always end up wherever it's most convenient, like over there, or just set it down over here, not where it actually makes sense. Emotional attachments, those sentimental items, those guilt gifts that I like to call, or even aspirational clutter.

Things we keep because why? We think we'll use them someday. So I had a client who kept on buying literal literally new journals and those notebooks, because she likes to to write and write down her notes. She's not digital. She's trying to become digital, but we're still working on that.

But at at this point in time, it's all about the notebooks. But after organizing her office, we realized that she had over 25 half used of those journals spread across different rooms throughout her house. Her clutter problem wasn't a lack of space. It was that she never had a system in place to return those items where they belonged. You can't reach for anything new if your hands are still full of yesterday's clutter, by Louise Smith.

The biggest mistake people make after decluttering is thinking, I'm done. I'm good. But remember something. Organization isn't a one time event. It's a habit.

And if we remember, a habit is any action that you perform regularly as part of your routine. That is what a habit is. And if we continue it for two weeks, it becomes a habit. Ninety days becomes part of your lifestyle. And that's something to consider.

Imagine if you cleaned your kitchen once and expected it to stay clean forever. Sounds ridiculous. Right? But we often expect that from decluttering, that's what's going to happen. Again, I'm using my kitchen because it's my most recent big project, and, also, it's one of the key areas in one's home.

It's the heart of the home. That's what I always call the kitchen. But, you know, take into consideration the five minute rule. Maybe it's more than five minutes. It could be maybe five to fifteen minutes, but you can set a timer, and so every evening and what you do is you just do, like, a quick reset of your space.

Studies show that homes where people practice short daily tidying habits are three times less likely to need major decluttering sessions. That's by Cornell University. The one touch rule. Instead of placing something down to deal with it later, put it directly where it belongs. And that's the hardest part that a lot of people have to overcome, is to place something down right away where it belongs, instead of, like, over there because I'm gonna put it over there, and then I'm gonna come back to it when I'm done with what I'm doing now.

But no. Take care of it then. The Sunday checklist routine, I love. I actually have my daily reset, weekly, and monthly reset, checklist. I'm actually gonna attach it to the show notes.

This is where I spend fifteen to thirty minutes every Sunday doing a light reset in all of my key areas, my kitchen, entryway, bathroom, and my, of course, my home office as well. You can use other areas if you would like, but those are some of the most common ones because of those those biggest areas of use throughout the week. Visual clues and labels work. And why do I say that? Because people who use visual organization cues, like labeled bins or color coded sections or color coding of anything, are 65% more likely to maintain their systems long term.

Why? It's because of the visual, the aspects of it, and it's easier for them to maintain. I have a dad, a famous dad, because he's famous because the fact that he just loves spending hours cleaning up on the weekends. Wow. Have you ever does does your partner does your husband do that as well?

Because the house would get messy all week, and he just didn't like it, and he needed to take care of it. So he would like to look into not using his weekends to do the house work. So what we did was we implemented, these nightly routines, morning routines and nightly routines. Now his kids were older, so we were able to, quote, unquote, do a family reset where everyone tidied up before bed. And that seemed to have worked for them because within a month, their home stayed consistently neater, and the best was that he was able to get his Saturdays back and not have to worry about the household chores.

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small, manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one. Mark Twain. Micromattenance versus big decluttering sessions. Big decluttering sessions, I so love as well, but the micromattenance makes it even better.

Small daily wins are more effective than big overhauls. People who declutter a little every day, again, are 85% more likely to maintain a clutter free home than those who wait for a big purge once or twice a year, which can be sometimes really exhausting, and that's core according to the Harvard Business Review. There's always that eighty twenty rule of clutter. 80% of the mess in your home comes from 20% of daily habits. You wanna identify the biggest culprits and try to fix them first.

There is that two minute rule. I like always repeating this one because, again, if it takes less than two minutes, put it away. Do it immediately, like, right now. So, my own challenge, which I have taken on because of my new kitchen, but prior to, my kitchen counters were always one of those things where things would just pile up, and I needed to I needed to come up with a solution. And that is why I had created my nightly routine.

And that is the best because now, instead of waiting for the big weekend cleanup, I just start my, you know, five to fifteen minute, checklist reset every night in my kitchen. And now the best part is, again, no more chaotic mornings. What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while by Gretchen Rubin. And for those of you that wanna know what I do at night in my kitchen, one thing that I don't like, and that is my biggest pet peeve, is having dirty dishes in the sink. So what I do is I actually clean all my dishes, put them in my dishwasher, and run a cycle so that in the morning, I just empty out the dishwasher while my coffee is brewing as because I prepared it the night before.

Press the button and off I go in the morning, get my coffee going, get the dishes all put away. I actually then, wipe down because I wipe down all of my kitchen sink and my countertops, makes my morning so much easier as well. And again, these are these nightly roost resets that make life so much easier. The fresh start method, how it keeps you organized for good. So let's just kinda walk through this.

Ready? We're going to identify those clutter hot spots that keep reappearing. Kitchen counters, entryway, bathroom sink. We want to ask ourselves, are my systems actually working or do I need to tweak them? Saying, yes, I do.

It's my bathroom sink. Then we're gonna create a flow that makes staying organized second nature. Like, we're gonna designate drop zones, I like to call that. Right? And also, then we're going to create small daily habits to prevent these big messes.

So for the bathroom sink, I don't know about you, but having kids in the house, the bathroom seems to have everything on the floor as a instead of having the towels hung up or the what else is there? Clothes all on the floor as opposed to putting the clothes into the laundry basket that actually is now in the bathroom. All of the products are everywhere, as opposed to picking them up and putting them back into the drawers and or any type of trays that we might have in the bathroom. So again, these are the things that we need to work on daily in order to prevent these big messes. At the end of the day, it does work itself out, but making sure it happens every day, because remember what a habit is, you need to keen continue doing it for you to do it subconsciously.

And before you know it, it always gets done. And you're like, wow, this is such a great feeling. The challenge of the week is to pick one clutter hot spot in your home that keeps getting messy. Then you're gonna create one simple habit to maintain it. You can use the, like, a five to fifteen minute nightly reset if you would like.

You might wanna consider doing a dedicated dedicated drop zone for maybe, like, incoming mail or for your keys or ever or your shoes. That could also be something as well, something to consider. Each of us in our homes have different ways of doing things. And just remember, no way is the wrong way. It's your way.

It's the way that it's going to make you and your family stay organized and calm throughout this entire process because it's a process to learn new ways to stay organized. People who adopt minimalistic habits, like decluttering their time, commitments and possessions, report 45% lower stress levels and 30% more productivity, from the Journal of Applied Psychology. Keeping your home organized, again, remember, it's not it isn't about perfection. It's about progress. The more you integrate these small habits, the easier it becomes.

Next week's episode is going to be talking about that Sunday reset, that Sunday checklist, how to set up your week for success. We are going to be talking about why Sunday are key days to use to begin your stress free weeks, how to build a simple Sunday routine that works for you, and the big three method to make Mondays a lot easier. Until next time, step by step, little by little, let's keep making progress. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe to Organizer with Ease podcast on your favorite podcast platform and leave us a review. Your feedback helps us grow and reach more listeners like you who are passionate about living their best lives.

And remember, a new episode comes out every Thursday at 8AM. So mark your calendar and join us. Until next week, take care and keep shining bright.