If you’ve put in the effort to organize your life and home, it’s worth knowing how to keep it that way. Knowing how to stay organized keeps the clutter from coming back. Instead of doing a total overhaul of your house once it gets unmanageable, you can use the power of habits to do small bits of work on a routine basis. That’s much less stressful!
Use these techniques to build and maintain habits, and create an organized life!
Non-negotiable Habits
First, you must decide which habits you’d like to incorporate into your life. What daily or weekly tasks are necessary to keep your home organized? These are your non-negotiable habits.
In addition to keeping your home organized, it’s important to take care of you, too! If you’re run down and not feeling your best, it makes it that much harder to take care of anything or anyone else. I’ve come up with 8 non-negotiable habits to build a healthy life.
- Get up at the same time each morning to start the day off right.
- Practice self care, like meditation and exercise.
- Make your bed. It matters!
- Eat well, incorporating healthy foods into your diet.
- Express love to the people in your life. That helps everyone!
- Clear the decks before the end of the day so you’re ready for tomorrow.
- Relax into a bedtime ritual, like reading a book or listening to guided meditation.
- Sleep at least 7-8 hours a night! Lack of sleep affects all areas of life.
Starting a New Habit
Know your “why”: Wanting to make your bed every morning is good, but if you don’t know why you’re doing it, the habit’s not likely to stick. Does making the bed give you a sense of pride? Does it start the day off on a productive note? Discover your personal reason for starting a habit to make it permanent.
Schedule it: Put it on your calendar, in your phone, on a sticky note on the fridge–whatever helps you remember your new habit. Eventually it’ll become second nature.
Reward yourself: Tell yourself you’re doing a great job, because you are! When you stick to your habits, take yourself out for a coffee or just pat yourself on the back.
Maintaining Habits
There are a lot of ways to help yourself stick to a new habit. Habit trackers like the one to the left (click to download!) are super useful, because they help keep you accountable and act as a record of all the work you’re putting in. Discussing your new habits with friends helps, too. Having people to talk to can help keep you on track.
Lost Habits
If you fall off the organizational wagon, it’s okay. Everyone makes mistakes and falls short sometimes! One of the best things you can do is consciously re-commit. Draw a line in the and, burn your bridges backwards, and cross the Rubicon!
Keep a beginner’s mind, too–especially if it’s been a while. If you used to meditate for an hour a a day but lost the habit a year ago, restart the habit as if it were new. If you go too big too fast, you run the risk of burning out and becoming discouraged.
Finally, be compassionate towards yourself! A good attitude paves the way for living a truly organized life!
So great to think about these habits and to see where you might be falling off the rails. A great post!
Thanks, Kim!
Love the habit tracker and will definitely be downloading that! It’s so easy to start new systems, maintaining them long term is definitely the challenge!
Yay, I hope the tracker helps!
Well said, Katherine. I like what you said about knowing why you are doing something. Your habit tracker is fabulous – so easy to follow and a great reminder.
Great post! I especially feel that it is important to know your “why”. If you are just doing something because someone else wants you to do it, the change is less likely to stick.
I love that you included self-care in a well-organized life. You can’t help others unless you help yourself first. Great infographics.
Thanks, Sabrina!
I’ve never used a habit tracker, but I think it is a good idea. Adding in that extra bit of accountability can be so helpful, especially in the early days. I love that you point out that we can go back and reinvigorate habits that we may have stopped pursuing. I find that it can be easier to jump back on the bandwagon than we might think. Yes, it requires intentionality, but the rewards can be so significant that I think the effort is often well worth it!
Love your infographic. 🙂
I’m so happy the infographic is resonating with people! Those habits are important, and I think you’re right–jumping back on the bandwagon IS doable!
What a great roundup of advice packed into one cozy space! And I love that picture of the baby associated with keeping a beginner’s mind!
(But here’s my naughty little secret. I almost never make my bed. Once I get out of bed, I’m not back in my bedroom until nighttime. I appreciate the value of it in many situations, but it’s the one habit I gave up about 30 years ago, and since I probably only see my bedroom for three total minutes a day, it’s not a priority. Shhhh, don’t tell!)
Hahaha, your secret is safe with me, Julie! And everyone else who sees this post : P
It’s great that you know yourself and your schedule well enough to decide that bed-making doesn’t improve your quality of life!