Laundry and Life Lessons on Organization

 It is easy to get organized but to stay organized is not always easy...things start to return back to their disorderly state. In my quest for more time, I learned a lesson from laundry that I try to apply to the rest of my daily tasks. It is that every task has a start and a finish. If we apply that principle to our daily lives, we will find that we are able to better organize our precious time far more efficiently.

Doing laundry has a set of steps that have a starting point and then have an actual finishing point. The start is collecting the dirty laundry and the end point is the clean laundry being out of sight back in its rightful place in your closet or drawers.  So, how many of us have a basket, or pile of clean laundry still in the laundry room, or in a basket on your bedroom floor?  I used to be the one with the pile of clean clothing in a heap on top of the dryer, and would sometime get around to putting it away....one day...almost never. The clothing actually would just end up getting picked from the pile and worn again and end up in the dirty laundry again before it ever saw a closet.  My bathroom which doubles as a laundry room, basically was almost like a cluttered clothing closet.


When I decided to unclutter everything, my bathroom was actually the first place that I started.  I needed to feel peace when I took my morning shower, and looking over at a pile of clothes on the dryer was not peaceful, it was a reminder that I had unfinished tasks. STRESS. (low grade stress albeit, but stress that can accumulate.)


Therefore, I made it my goal that every task, was to be completed from start to finish. Laundry was to be put in its place as soon as it came out of the dryer. Supper begins with cooking, then eating, cleaning up and all dishes and utensils being put away...no dishes left drying on the counter afterwards. As soon as the dishwasher has finished its cycle, the clean dishes go back in the cupboards. (Sometimes that means first thing in the morning if the dishwasher runs at night, (and really there are no excuses, it takes less than 5 minutes.) Oh and this one I learned from a blog called the FlyLady, I even clean and dry my kitchen sink before bed, when the kitchen sink is clean, it has an effect on the rest of the home, try it, it really is magical.


When I arrive back home from being out, my keys go back in their rightful place, shoes go back into the closet, and coat gets hung up in the same place. When I receive mail, and come in the door with it, it goes onto the table where I take 3 minutes and toss the advertising and then open and file the bills and important papers in a binder. Everything gets sorted through immediately. I have a binder and hole punch near my door on a shelf, no mail goes past that point.


Basically, everything we do, does have a completion point, but so often we only start, or get halfway though. Laundry that is not folded and put away, is not done. You only started the laundry, not finished it. When we adopt the habit of taking the few extra minutes to actually finish the tasks that we start, our lives become more organized and we end up creating more time for ourselves. You know the saying "It takes money to make money, well I believe that it takes a little time to make more time"


Try it with your laundry, and see how it translates into the rest of your day. Now I in fact need to go fold my laundry, I was multitasking when I was writing, and my dryer made its "finished beeps." (I am actually not kidding.)

In your routines, what constitutes "finished" and how do you organize your tasks to completion?