Simple Home Organization Routine for the Simply Unorganized

There is, in the least, a little bit of the “organized” in each one of us, but, for many, that may not carry over to our home. We have a lot going on. We’re facing organization burnout from our jobs, our little humans, our Zoom meetings—and we need to take time for ourselves; we must decompress! Of course, that usually happens at home, leaving our house to slowly (or very quickly) grow in clutter and chaos. It doesn’t take long for this chaos at home to spill over into other parts of our lives, and, before we can even realize what’s happened, we’ve become, simply, unorganized.

The good news is we can bring organization back into our lives without losing our essential relaxation time. Even better news: we can get more out of that time when our relaxation environment—our home—is a peaceful space. Here’s one way to make it happen:

Day 1. Take 5 of the 15 minutes on the first day to put on some “chill” music, sit, and clear your mind. If your mind is chaotic, that is going to carry over into every other part of your life. This is also a good time to visualize your house. What do you want your house to look like? Feel like? If visualizing the whole house is too overwhelming, picture a small area—one room, your car, a closet—what would it need to look like to bring you peace? To bring your family peace? And just picture it that way. It’s going to happen!

When the 5 minutes is up it’s “go time.” Pick one area, the one that kept cycling back to the forefront of your thoughts—that’s probably the one bothering you the most. For 10 minutes, attack it! Put on your “I need energy” music and don’t think too much about it. You will naturally do what it takes for your “vision” to come through. Because it’s only 10 minutes, you can give it all your energy. After this, you’re going to relax! At the end of the 10 minutes, make sure you stop. Even if you’re not “finished.” This is a journey and you don’t need to focus on the destination—you’re going to get there so enjoy the ride! With this first step, you are already living an organized lifestyle and the house will catch up.

On days two, three, four, five, six, and seven, you need only repeat the process. No need for lists. Those first 5 minutes of music and visualization will help you identify your biggest stressors and focus your efforts. This is something like a high school kid studying for a test—most study for hours the night before. It’s overwhelming. They get tired. They underperform. Who wants to start organizing the house when they’re facing hours of work? Not me! Not you! But 10 minutes is doable, especially with that meditative music and visualization at the beginning. Over time, you might even look forward to this part of your day. It starts off right with listening to some of your favorite music and ends with your house more organized. It’s going to feel great!

After your first week, you’ll start to see the effectiveness, but it’s important to keep pushing, repeating this process each day and week. Sometimes that early feeling of peace relieves the heavy stress and we start thinking, “I’m good now. I can skip a day. I’ll get back to the process next week." Etc. If you can make it to 21 days, there’s a better chance of making this a lifestyle change. Without committing to this process, it’s only a matter of time before the chaos creeps back in. Or the hours of “organization cramming.” And the cycle of stress will begin again.

In the end, this idea is nothing new. As Mary Poppins says, “in every job that must be done, there is an element of fun.” Good luck!