Providing the Stress Management Support Your Deserve

1.Planning. 

The first thing that needs to be done is determining the most disorganized parts of your life. Is it the mail that builds up and eventually gets lost? Is it your overflowing closet that requires you to search for clothes every morning? Is it just the entire house, with toys all over the place and kids making a mess? Or is it all of the above? Once you find the area that is in most urgent need of organization, it is easier to focus on it.
  

2.Prioritize. 

Once you plan the areas of your life you'd like to organize, you need to prioritize. What part is the most stressful of all? I remember that when my kids were younger and I had to get them ready, feed them, and take them to school so I could go to work, finding my keys was very stressful. Looking for them almost every morning was a difficult part of my day. I got organized and made a designated place for them next to the garage door, so all I had to do was take them and get out. Now, I still lose my keys, but only on very rare occasions. Prioritizing the most urgent parts of your life that need attention is vital

3.Allocate a time 

Allocate a time and date to implement your plan. Sometimes, coming up with a chunk of a few hours to perform the task is difficult. However, giving 10 minutes a day to organize your kitchen cabinets, your closet, or your desks is feasible. My suggestion is to give a small amount of time every day to whatever you are trying to organize. Use a timer, and as soon as your time is up, STOP. It is easy to keep going once you've started a project, but this will make you tired and discouraged when you see how much you have to organize. Do a little bit every day, and soon your entire life will be organized.

4.Get all the needed tools.

 One of the things I like to suggest when organizing is getting all of the tools you need. For example, get several big baskets and place them in strategic locations, or use air tight plastic bags to keep your seasonal items in storage. If you have young kids and there are toys and clothes all over the place, put a big basket for toys in a corner or under your living room table. I would play a marching game with my kids. They would walk behind me in single file, like soldiers, and we would go from room to room. When I ordered "attack!", they would run around and grab toys, books, or whatever else than was on the floor and place it in the designated basket. They had fun, and at the same time I had a fairly organized house at the end of the day. At the end of the week or every few days, when you have time, you can go through the baskets, sort them out, and replace their contents.

You can also place small baskets for mail on your desk. I find that mail is the most stressful of all clutter. It helps if you can get rid of the junk right away and then sort your mail into two categories: mail that needs to be dealt with immediately, and mail that's not quite as urgent.

As for clothes, my suggestion is go through your closet and assess one-by-one. If you haven't worn it in a year, throw it out or donate if it's in good shape.

5.Start small. As I mentioned earlier, allocating long hours for organizing your home or work life might be impossible and discourage you from doing what needs to be done. But if you break down the issue, you can tackle it. For example, instead of cleaning an entire closet in a day, why not address one shelf at a time? Do it within the 10 minute time frame I mentioned earlier. If you are in desperate need of getting organized fast, then do more in addition to the allocated time. Believe me, you will be amazed at how quickly your life gets organized when you take things one step at a time.

6.Reward your self. 

Make sure that every time you are done, you give yourself a pat on the back and a small reward. Make yourself a nice herbal tea, listen to your favorite music for a few minutes, or meditate if time allows. Or, you can combine your time allocated to organization with time to listen to music, audiobooks, class lectures, etc. Rewarding or multi-tasking makes organization easier and more fun, while also creating a positive feeling toward a task that you normally would not be keen on performing.
 

The best of luck to you!

Thanks for visiting www.curenaturally.org. For questions, please call our office at (616)-777-0608 and leave a message.Wish you the best in managing your stress. By working in changing your perception.  Feel free to follow us on twitter for our latest postings.

 Ashraf Girgis N.D.