Have you ever watched a makeover show?
You know the ones.
The house that’s falling in on itself,
or the woman who hasn’t cut her hair since 1992,
And over the course of the episode there is an amazing transformation followed by an awe-inspiring glorious reveal?
Those makeover shows are so addicting to watch because it is truly inspiring- and they make it look so easy!
After watching many of these types of shows I’ve realized that the reasons why it looks easy is because (obviously) they edit out much of the process and the hard work for TV, but the other reason is the people performing the transformations are trained professionals.
They are following a blue-print and a step by step checklist.
And they know exactly how to flawlessly follow each step.
Now think of your life. In all it’s real imperfections. The disorganized house and the scattered brain. Take a snap shot of this thought because this is your “before picture.”
The following steps are the steps that I took to get to get out of being a depressed mom with a constantly dirty and unorganized home.
These steps will help you gain a more fulfilling mom life and create a low-maintenance home so you can focus your time on the things that truly matter.
The Steps to a More Fulfilling and Organized Life
Follow along with these steps at your own pace, focusing on ones that may need more attention for you personally, and before you know it you will be enjoying your own awe-inspiring transformation.
- Know your why.
- Follow your intuition and learn how to seek and hear the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Knowing how to do this will be the single most important skill you can ever learn because it can help you during your most personal and challenging issues.
- Get rid of a ton of stuff. Cleaning and caring for your home is so much easier when you have the junk out of your way.
- Create a basic routine for yourself that keeps your home functioning. Focus on taking care of dishes, laundry, and meals. Dishes need washed every day and people need to eat every meal. Clean laundry needs to be in the drawers. Taking care of these three things before any other chore will help you create a functional home where you can focus on your own unique purpose beyond homemaking.
- Choose a disciplining/parenting method for your children (with your spouse) and be consistent. If your kids aren’t listening to you it’s because they don’t think you’ll actually follow through with consequences. Prove them wrong and be consistent and they will start to listen to you again. I’m not one to give parenting advice other than to say you actually do need to step up and BE a parent. As long as it’s done in love, it doesn’t matter so much what parenting method you use- consistency is the biggest goal.
- Get rid of even more stuff from your home and organize everything that remains. You know how much more organized and less chaotic your house was after step 3? Well there’s more where that came from. Is there a space in your home that is driving you crazy? Tackle it. And the next and the next.
- How to declutter and organize sentimental items and memorabilia: how to know what to keep and what to toss (without guilt)
- Minimalism will literally subtract extra work and stress from your life
- Have a family meeting and discuss what you each can do to make your home a better place. Have your family help you come up with rules for the house, chore assignments, and the consequences for not completing their assignments. When they are the ones to help come up with the rules you’ll hear less complaining and less excuses. And if you do hear some complaining and excuses you can just say, “These are the rules we decided on together. You thought they were fair then, why not now?” It’s pretty tough to argue with that.
- Make sure the family rules, assignments, and consequences are written down and that you follow through and stay consistent.
- Use these chore charts for your kids (one is for little kids who can’t read, and the other is for older school-aged children)
- Declutter and organize your children’s clothes and toys. Then help them learn how to tidy and be responsible for their own rooms.
- You now have the basic foundation for a better mom life. But you are probably still wasting time and not reaching your goals. Now, you’ll want to take a week to track how you are currently spending your time. Then compare the reality to what you really want to be doing with your time and decide on what changes you want to make. Write them down.
- Keep a planner of some sort to keep you on track with what you want to accomplish and to organize your life. Write your goals in your planner.
- Before you start working on those changes you need to do some research. Learn more about yourself by taking the MBTI personality test and the Four Tendencies quiz. These will help you learn how you learn and what your strengths and weaknesses are. This will lead you to a place where you can give yourself grace for your weaknesses and learn how to rely on your strengths to grow as a person and begin working on the things you wrote down on step 10.
- Work on one change at a time. Once it becomes a habit, move onto the next thing on your list.
- Gradually build routines that reinforce your new good habits and learn how to balance new changes, goals, responsibilities, and family time without overwhelming yourself. This will help you maintain all the good new changes you have been making.
- And if you read through this entire list making a ton of excuses why you can’t do some or all of these things, then start here: Ask yourself “Why am I making up excuses? Do I think these steps will help me? If so, do I think they will be too hard? And even if they are hard- won’t they be worth it?” The only person who can stop you from living a happier and more organized life is you, and I know you totally got this.
There you have it, the step-by-step guide to take your life and home from overwhelming to organized.
Need More Guidance?
If you want to share your journey with me or if you ever feel you need some guidance or have a question, please feel free to reach out to me by email at [email protected] I look forward to hearing from you!
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